At a party I made the acquaintance of yet another person who professed outlandish ideas about space aliens. As with other such recent acquaintances, these people are empl*yed in science and engineering fields, so one would assume they have enough basic scientific knowledge to rule out extraordinary claims. In this case, he insisted that space aliens from Saturn's moon Titan arrived on Earth thousands of years ago and taught the Greeks about various philosophical, scientific and engineering concepts. When I asked for supporting evidence, he said it was all lost in the thousands of years that have passed since. To him it is obvious aliens from Titan taught the Greeks because humans were not smart enough to have built things like the Parthenon without such help. When I asked why Titan and not some other location, he said Titan has an atmosphere, as if that alone justifies the claim.
In such situations I leave open the possibility the person is joking, but in my recent encounters these people have given no indication they are. They are completely serious and become agitated if I express doubt. With such defective logic, I wonder how they can maintain a j*b in a complex field. I'm curious about the origin of the recent growth in alien nonsense. Decades ago this sort of thing was prime Weekly World News turf. Is it now commonly discussed on some social media platform I do not use? Where is it coming from?
In such situations I leave open the possibility the person is joking, but in my recent encounters these people have given no indication they are. They are completely serious and become agitated if I express doubt. With such defective logic, I wonder how they can maintain a j*b in a complex field. I'm curious about the origin of the recent growth in alien nonsense. Decades ago this sort of thing was prime Weekly World News turf. Is it now commonly discussed on some social media platform I do not use? Where is it coming from?