The von Däniken fallacy

In the 1970’s Erich von Däniken wrote a series of books such as Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past which made the argument that since we couldn’t explain how ancient non-technological people had built some massive things like Stonehenge and the pyramids, this “proved” that aliens had once lived on earth and must have used their advanced technology to build these edifices. He built quite a cult following for a while, especially among high school students and some fringe groups of adults. Of course all it really proved was how unimaginative von Däniken was and how gullible many of his readers were

But this form of fallacious argument still comes up from time to time. At root, it is the basis of the intelligent design argument: we don’t know how complex things like an eye could have evolved, therefore God must have made it. Of course, the same argument could just as well “prove” that advanced aliens bioengineered us, or that our distant descendents came back in a time machine and did the job, or any number of other far-fetched ideas.

Arguing from ignorance is never very sound logic, but it’s surprising how often people do it.