We are the children of the space gods (Chariots of the Gods - Erich von Daniken)

Member Name: pan

Product:	Chariots of the Gods - Erich von Daniken
Date:	10/12/01 (74 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: entertaining tosh

Disadvantages: pseudo-scientific trash

Erich von Daniken's central thesis, which he has explored at interminal length in about a dozen books and TV programs, is that the human race is actually descended in part from extra-terrestial cross-breeding with native species. Yep, our forebears arrived here in shiny spaceships, took local wenches for wives and then look what happened...

His evidence consists of looking at ancient scriptures, engravings, folk tales etc, and weaving them into this fantastic tapestry of ideas. Primary evidence, for example, consists of readings from the Bible (the book of Ezekiel, mainly), and interpreting this as evidence of the arrival of these creatures - who of course our dim ancestors saw as Gods.

Other evidence is found by searching through ancient artifacts, pondering at how our primitive ancestors could create such technological marvels as the Pyramids etc. The answer is that these marvels were created by aliens. Obvious really.

Elsewhere he will spout scientific terminology in a bid to show that he has science with him. This is designed to add a veneer of respectability to what he is saying, rather than as a way of really looking at the evidence.

It was fantastic concotion when he first started, back in the 1970's, enough that for a time his books were best-sellers, and, more than thirty years later, his books still sell by the bucket-load. The books that showed what a load of old tosh this is have all gone out of print, which says something about the public appetite for pseudo-science.

von Daniken's theories have been debunked time and again. Some of his evidence has been rigged or forged. And the readings from ancient texts, well, we can all read and interpret as we see fit.

Did we evolve from alien contact? If we did you can bet your life that it was via spores or bacteria borne on comets or meteorites rather than from blonde and blue-eyed spacemen and women.

But hey, we shouldn't let science
get in the way of a good story. As far as science fiction goes, this isn't the best, but its entertaining.

Summary: