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What happens when a creator has been making noticeable claims -- or simply strongly implying -- that their work is highly researched and as correct as they can make it, only for you to quickly discover it to be a steaming pile of factual inaccuracies? When that happens, you've been [[Dan Browned]].
Some authors and writers will admit that they're producing fiction, that they take advantage of [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]], the [[Rule of Cool]], the [[Rule of Funny]], or any of the other [[Rule of Index|Rules of Whatever]]. Some acknowledge freely that [[Reality Is Unrealistic]], and admit that it affects the choices they make in their works.
However, the Dan Browns of this world like to claim that what they produce is accurate fact, thinking that this somehow gives them more status, or will increase their sales.
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** One student gives the answer that is correct under the usual assumptions. Mickey then starts asking questions like "What if he would only give you the choice to switch if you picked the right one?" Possibilities like that completely destroy the standard solution to that problem, but the student says it doesn't matter, it's a strict math problem and is praised for it.
** In a later discussion, one of the players is talking about whether to split 8's against an Ace. This IS a strict math problem, given that the rules of casino games are pretty standard, stated up front, and often enforced by law. The character then gives an intuitive, non-mathematical explanation and [http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack/21movie.html gets it wrong].
** The character in question is close to graduating, and so should be in a fairly advanced Calculus course. They're being taught Newton's method, which is really some rather basic stuff covered back in the first month of Calculus 1.
* ''[[The Day After Tomorrow]]'' is doubly Dan Browned, in that the movie was widely publicized as being based on the factual book ''The Coming Global Superstorm'', the book even gets a credit in the film and the typical tactic of playing on current real world fears was employed and at the time there were articles of the sort of [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/05/0518_040518_dayafter.html Could Ice Age occur overnight] with quotes like ''It may just be a movie. But to environmentalists, there is more than a kernel of truth in the catastrophic scenarios depicted in the upcoming summer flick The Day After Tomorrow.'' However if you really want a solid night's entertainment call your friendly neighborhood meteorologist, and offer to treat him to a showing of ''[[The Day After Tomorrow]]''. One group did; [http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/6e52157aaf63775f?pli=1 Here's the result.]. Here's where the Double-Dan-Browning comes in: ''The Coming Global Superstorm'', the "factual" book it was based on, was written by Art Bell (one of the hosts of [[Coast to Coast AM]]) and Whitley Strieber (who wrote ''Communion'', an account of his own abduction by extraterrestrials). At one point, they reason that the latest Ice Age can be traced back to pre-historic High Tech. Damn those Atlantians and their carbon dioxide! The book's sole claim on any connection to reality is that there ''is'' a school of thought among climatologists that once CO2 emissions reach a certain critical tipping point, whatever is going to happen (and the only real consensus on what ''will'' happen is that it's really going to suck) will happen fast... but ''not'' [[Outrun the Fireball|that]] [[Gaia's Vengeance|fast]].
* ''[[Top Gun]]''. The technical consultant, "Viper" aka Pete Pettigrew ([[Harry Potter|not that one]]), was pretty much ignored, and sometimes even directly overruled. Pettigrew, and the US Navy, actually let the producers [[Backed by the Pentagon|put cameras on actual planes during actual combat training sessions]]. But the footage that came from this was deemed boring, so they [[Rule of Cool|reshot the scenes to be more exciting and cinematic.]] When it came to simple points , like how technical debriefings wouldn't be done in large open hangars nor the shower room, [[Shoot the Money|they were paying for Tom Cruise's ass and dammit they were going to get a shot of Tom Cruise's ass.]]
* ''[[Mission to Mars]]'' was supposed to have a physicist as a consultant to get the details right. It seems he was ignored.
* [[David Mamet]]'s ''[[Redbelt]]'' gets very little correct in its portrayal of [[Mixed Martial Arts]]. There were a number of experts consulted on the film, and this fact was touted in promotional materials, but they were mostly old-school MMA fighters, and they have little interaction with the modern version of the sport. Overall, the film gets very little right about MMA or the fight business.
** There are a great many reasons why the marble gimmick could never catch on or be legally practiced in the United States. The most glaring reason is that no athletic commission would allow competitors to fight handicapped, with an arm tied down.
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** Given that Mamet is himself a Brazilian Jujitsu blackbelt, you'd expect the pure BJJ portrayed in the film to be accurate, but it's not without implausible sections to the trained eye. When Ejiofor fights John Machado, the BJJ technical advisor for the film, his character goes for a rear naked choke from a standing position, which is a very poor tactic with a low chance of success.
* Director [[Ridley Scott]] made numerous public statements about his intention to make ''[[Gladiator (film)|Gladiator]]'' as historically accurate as possible. To support this goal, he hired several historians to serve as advisers. However, he made so many choices that were historically inaccurate that one adviser quit in protest and another (Kathleen Coleman of Harvard University) refused to allow her name to be put in the credits. The most aggravating thing, to many historians, is that many of the inaccuracies were completely unnecessary -- getting it right wouldn't have made the film any less interesting or exciting.
** Marcus Aurelius wasn't murdered.
** By the time the movie is set, the borders between Germania and the Roman Empire were firmly established as the Rhine and Danube rivers and had been for over 150 years. There were raids in both directions, but not an ongoing war of conquest.
** Even the name of the Colosseum -- which [[Russell Crowe]]'s character refers to multiple times -- is wrong. At the time in question, what we now call the Colosseum was referred to as the Flavian Amphitheater.
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** Even Nina Heyn, Disney’s Executive Director of International Publicity, admitted (quoted from [http://www.thelongridersguild.com/myth.pdf this article, page 11]) "No one here really cares about the historical aspects. Once a picture has been shot, people move on to others. ... If it transpires that the historical aspects are in question, I do not think people would care that much. Hidalgo is a family film. It has little to do with reality."
** Finally, like the meteorologist's review of ''The Day After Tomorrow'' mentioned above, [http://www.thelongridersguild.com/culbertson.htm here's] an Arab scholar's review of the factual accuracy of ''Hidalgo''.
* ''[[300]]'' director [[Zack Snyder]] stated that ''"the events are 90% accurate. It's just in the visualization that's crazy. I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is."'' and observed that the film was primarily inspired by contemporary depictions and records of warfare, which, give or take some of the fantastic elements and "crazy visualisations", it did a fair job of representing. The problem is that the "90% accurate" statement is referring to his faithfulness to his source: Frank Miller's ''comic book''. It is quite faithful to the comic, which was based in turn on sources that are known to be highly factually inaccurate, coming as they do from highly biased authors. It's the "world-class historians who have said it's amazing" part that causes it to be an example of this, as it implies that the film has a high level of factual accuracy.
** The depiction of the fighting is only a small part of the inaccuracies. There are many others that are more important and caused the ire of historians. For example, Spartans, while known for their warrior culture, were not actually famous for "never retreating, never surrendering" -- the battle of Thermopylae was an exception. The film depicts the titular 300 Spartans as being the only soldiers who stayed behind and made the famous last stand, when in fact, the army consisted of more than a thousand men, less than a quarter of them Spartans.
** The depiction of Persians can only be seen as a joke. Xerxes was not a giant nor a black drag queen. Almost every fact in the movie is also false. There were no corrupted ephors neither they were freaks. Ephialtes was neither a freak nor a Spartan; he did not commit suicide. The depictions of Sparta and Thermopylae are wrong. Although the number of Persians comes from Herodotus, he is regarded as unreliable by modern historians in many instances and especially with numbers. Today the Persian army is estimated to have been 50-150,000. The number of 300 is somewhat justified since this is the number that lingered in the minds of everyone; at least 1,500 remained for the final battle and the initial headcount was down to 5,000. Modern historians also argue that the reason the 1500 stayed behind was that they were trapped, as well as that the number of Greeks in the first two days might have been more than 8,000 men.
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* Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh sued Dan Brown for copyright infringement of their 1982 book ''Holy Blood, Holy Grail'' for his 2003 novel ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]''. In this book, Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. The lawsuit was decided in Brown's favor, in no small part because ''Holy Blood, Holy Grail'' was presented and marketed as nonfiction, and you can't copyright facts.
** They might also have been justifiably a bit sore by Dan Brown naming the book's villain (Leigh Teabing) after them.
* ''[[Dale Brown|Dale]]'' [[Dale Brown|Brown]], a writer known for several rather "creative" interpretations of military aircraft innovations also does this a lot.
** Particularly notable was his ''Sky Masters'' which featured a wildly inaccurate portrayal of the Philippine government and the mention of the Philippine Air Force having F-4 Phantoms, whereas in real life the PAF never had any F-4s in service. Made all the worse by having all the inaccurate facts presented alphabetically in a "fact page."
** Dale has an orbital weapons platform parked over the North Pole, at shuttle-orbit altitude, in ''Flight of the Old Dog''. Unfortunately, you can't "park" a satellite anywhere except at 22,300 miles altitude along the equator, where its orbital period is the same as Earth's rotation.
* Swedish author Liza Marklund published two novels about a woman abused, beaten and threatened by her Muslim boyfriend, subtitling them "true stories" and opening the books with a statement that only names and places had been changed, the rest were all fact. Like Dan Brown she then proceeded to make this claim in countless interviews and articles, and used the books as evidence in political debates. Then in late 2008 a woman named Monica Antonsson published a book pointing out the enormous factual errors in the book, proving that the book was almost entirely fiction. Marklund then stated that the book was never meant to be taken as ''true'', only loosely based on truth. The Swedes had been [[Dan Browned]]. And were mad about it. Since then, the books have been presented and sold as fiction. However, this was after Liza Marklund became famous for her crime fiction. The first book was also published as not written by Liza Marklund at all. She was a mere ghost writer.
* ''[[Go Ask Alice]]'' is presented, and was marketed for years, as the actual diary of a teenage drug abuser who died of an overdose, but is now known to be a work of fiction by its "editor", Beatrice Sparks. Sparks has since published several other books which she claims are the real diaries of troubled teens but, although the families of the people involved admit that some of her writings might be based on actual patients she's worked with, it's pretty much generally accepted that her books are works of fiction, if for no other reason than the "this is a work of fiction" disclaimer in the beginning.
* [[Tom Clancy]] books tend to go into painstaking detail on lots of things like fighter jet steering and military technology and Clancy had accrued a lot of "accuracy cred". The story goes that some of the descriptions of naval architecture and procedure were so accurate that the navy interviewed him in an attempt to find out how he got those details. The interviewers left bemused that he'd apparently just made some ''very'' accurate deductions. Of course, back then he was writing the [[Tom Clancy]] brand himself, and was working closely with navy buff Larry Bond of ''[[Harpoon]]'' fame. However, in ''Executive Orders'' where he described the makeup of an Armored Cavalry Regiment in action, his descriptions of the vehicles, and unit TO&Es are insanely off-base. He had published a non-fiction book detailing the equipment, organization, and tactics of an Armored Cavalry Regiment two years before. This reveals a major problem with the "accuracy cred" the books get: Tom Clancy has licensed his name, and the authors who hold licenses to use it vary widely in how much research they do.
* Philippa Gregory, in works such as ''[[The Other Boleyn Girl]]'', in which, among numerous other mistakes, she cuts out Mary Boleyn's promiscuous past, and portrays Anne Boleyn as an evil woman and that the charges against her (such as sex with her brother) as accurate. Gregory claims that there is "doubt" in these areas and that she is merely giving her own "interpretation," while in reality few if any historians would agree with her. The real kicker about Gregory is that she actually ''does'' do her research. A Tudor nut can, when reading her novels, pick out plenty of scenes she took directly from historical record. Unfortunately, with ''[[The Other Boleyn Girl]]'' in particular she did the research and then threw half of it out the window. And didn't admit it.
* [[Michael Crichton]]'s ''[[State of Fear]]'' is guilty of this. A researcher cited actually wrote a letter to Discover magazine to complain about how the conclusions from his paper were misrepresented in the book, and several groups have said the same.
** Crichton did that a lot. In ''The Great Train Robbery'', he goes to great lengths to make it seem as if the novel is basically a non-fiction dramatization of the historical case; he quotes from courtroom documents and makes comments such as "the record does not state ... but we may reasonably assume that ...". Yet most of the novel's plot is pure fiction and happily ignores the historical facts.
** Crichton also included realistic footnotes, end notes and a bibliography in his ''Eaters of the Dead'', implying it is a translation of a real ancient manuscript. The reader will slowly recognize the story as a clever retelling of ''Beowulf''.
* ''[[Don Quixote]]'' hangs an [[Older Than Steam]] [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]] on this situation. In the Preface of the Author, Part I, Cervantes first denounces authors who claim that the verses they use in the preface of their books commending that work (a common literary practice at the time) were made by people claimed to be famous poets, when it is easily discovered they were not, or worse yet, they were illiterate. And then, Cervantes proceeds to make some commendatory verses of his own, and attribute them to wizards, knights and damsels of other books. The following quote from a friend to Cervantes advises him to use this trope, (and to ignore the critics):
{{quote|"Your first difficulty about the sonnets, epigrams, or complimentary verses which you want for the beginning, and which ought to be by persons of importance and rank, can be removed if you yourself take a little trouble to make them; you can afterwards baptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them on Prester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to my knowledge, were said to have been famous poets; and even if they were not, and any pedants or bachelors should attack you and question the fact, [[Take That, Critics!|never care two maravedis for that]], for even if they prove a lie against you they cannot cut off the hand you wrote it with."}}
* Ken Follett claimed he did a lot of research for his [[The Pillars of the Earth]], but he appears to think medieval labor was capitalist (it was guild-based) and never to have heard about how various religious orders ran orphanages, and taking in neighbor's children was routine (hint:extended families and/or godparents), so there'd be lots of options for that baby one can't care for, [[Deus Angst Machina|apart from leaving it on its mother's grave]]. He also repeats the ''very'' old, long-discredited idea that Beckett's canonization was a political maneuver. He doesn't understand medieval manorialism (he seems to think rents were owed individually rather than by the village collectively, reading the Post-Reformation landlord system back into the 12th century). Maybe we should amend his claim to, "I researched the architecture."
* Jennifer Toth's book ''The Mole People: Life In The Tunnels Beneath New York City'' is listed as Non-fiction (and its Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classifications both place it in "Social Science" rather than "Fiction") and was released amid fanfare that it was an "expose" of the living conditions of the homeless living in abandoned and forgotten tunnels of New York City.
** When a New York subway enthusiast named Joseph Brennan tried to verify the locations and descriptions of many of the tunnels Toth said she visited, he concluded that, aside from her description of the Riverside Park tunnel, "[http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/mole-people.html every fact in this book that I can verify independently is wrong.]" This includes the location of tunnels, the age of tunnels, the size of tunnels, and how many tracks there are going in and out of stations. He makes no judgment about the living conditions, or the existence of orderly communities with "mayors" that Toth said exist, but concludes that the ''physical descriptions'' are virtually all bosh.
** Cecil Adams, in his [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2498/em-the-mole-people-em-revisited The Straight Dope] column of March 5th, 2004, recounts talking to Cindy Fletcher, a woman who Toth herself put him in touch with ''when he asked her to identify someone who could corroborate her findings'', who had lived in the tunnels in the early 90's (about the same time Toth was gathering the material for her book). Fletcher has this to say about the supposed Mole People: "I'm not saying the book is not true, I just never experienced the things [Toth] said she saw," and "There are no leaders down there." Adams' conclusion: "One draws the obvious conclusion: Parts of Toth's book are true, parts of it aren't, and you take your chances deciding which are which."
* In the essay ''Individuality'', which is published in nonfiction anthologies, Robert Ingersoll attacks the ignorance of the Catholic Church, so you would expect him to be knowledgeable in contrast as a leading freethinker. Yet he writes, 'I believe it was Magellan who said, "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church."' But since [[History Marches On]], and we now know that a round earth had been the prevailing consensus within [[wikipedia:Myth of the Flat Earth|a few hundred years]] after the church began, we can tell this makes no sense for anyone from the age of sail to say. So it wasn't an honest misattribution from another explorer to Magellan, but a quote Ingersoll obviously fabricated, to [[Author Avatar|say what he wishes]] Magellan had said.
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* [[Carlos Castaneda]]'s books are supposedly derived from his Ph.D fieldwork with the Yaqui Indians. However, skeptical researchers have concluded that practically everything about them that is subject to verification does not check out, and the academic consensus is that he invented most of his content.
* ''A Million Little Pieces'', until that fateful [[Oprah Winfrey|Oprah]] interview ...
* ''[[World War Z]]'':
** Even though a Zombie Apocalypse scenario is hypothetical, the author of this book called it a "realistic portrayal of a [[Zombie Apocalypse]]" and claimed that he did extensive research on what would happen during one, yet got many things wrong, among them basic human biology, the mechanics of infection, and mob psychology.
** There's also his extremely inaccurate portrayal of firearms. Namely, Max Brooks (the novel's author) seems to believe in the myth that the .22 Long Rifle round (an extremely small and underpowered round used for shooting cans off your back fence) can penetrate the skull and "bounce around" inside the brain, killing targets in one hit. It's brought to extremes when the .22 round becomes "standard issue", even though most Americans would have larger calibre weapons, and there are much, much more powerful rounds in common use produced in large numbers (like 5.56mm/.223, the standard military cartridge for practically every military in the world). Oh, and then there's the 5.56mm round that could penetrate into the brain and then explode, frying the ENTIRE BRAIN with one shot.
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* ''[[Numb3rs]]'': The show often forgets little things like uncertainty, noise, statistical significance, common sense, and the most important problem with statistics: [[Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics|interpretation of the results.]]
* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'s'' Dan Browning is notable because of all the obscure medical information they get ''right'', but then they make basic mistakes like [[Magical Defibrillator|shocking a flatline]]. The blog Polite Dissent devotes an entire section to [http://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html Medical Reviews of House]. Probably the best ''[[Take That]]'' was when it was pointed out it was far, far more likely for unusual symptoms to just be a common illness displaying unusual symptoms (which does happen since different people can have very different reactions to the same thing) rather than being some obscure disease that no one has ever seen before. ''House'' has gone both ways, depending on the episode.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' script editor Donald Tosh once went on record as claiming the story ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S3
* ''[[Deadliest Warrior]]'' and its many accusations deserve mention here since it boasts the presence of "experts" to justify the experiments, and because it claims that the computer simulations are sound. Questions have been raised about the level of expertise the experts have; the validity of the weapons testing procedures (especially using two different scenarios to test comparable weapons, for instance, using a pig carcass to test the Bowie knife and a ballistics gel torso to test the stiletto in Jesse James vs. Al Capone); how much weight is assigned to the weapons as opposed to the tactics the various warriors used, and whether the simulation-program algorithm produces results that would translate accurately to Real Life. The last is a big-deal...one of the most important principles in science is repeatability, and the program is a black box. Nobody knows how it works, but the guy who runs it!
** One of the hosts is known to have lied about his background in the military, leaving the show as a result. This puts into question the rest of the show.
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* In the 2012 episode of Brad Meltzer's Decoded, they frequently refer to an "ancient Hopi prophecy" that's "thousands" of years old. Said "prophecy" was never even ''heard'' of before 1959, and the Hopi have even stated that it's not theirs.
** Also, the Hopi are ''maybe'' 700 years old, as a distinct people, and probably only about 500.
* Try watching ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' with a layman's knowledge of psychology. Take a first-year psychology course, then watch it again. You'll be able to refute 90% of what appears on the show.
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** The Revised Edition, Eighth Printing copy of ''Ninjas and Superspies'' has as Quiet Disclaimer number one that the martial arts described therein are not to be confused with those of the real world and that the author has made stuff up. This disclaimer is found on the first page after the table of contents.
* [[FATAL]]. FATAL claims to be "the most difficult, detailed, ''realistic'' and ''historically/mythically accurate'' role-playing game available." ''(Emphasis added.)'' That was followed by this statement from the author of the game: "The odds in FATAL are that if you attack a character with a weapon, then they are likely to die. By the way, this is an obvious attempt at realism", because, of course, most attacks with any weapon in real life are likely to be fatal. Except that, statistically, they aren't now, and they weren't in the Middle Ages, either. Or, again, the author's own words: "I searched for information on sexually transmitted diseases in the Middle Ages. Although I did not search with vigor, the few times that I have searched, I have failed to find any information." A Google search on "sexually transmitted disease in the Middle Ages" (including the quotes) produces 3 sites directly addressing the subject in some detail on the first page of results, including one that was a review of a book on "Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages". He certainly "did not search with vigor" if he missed those references. Let's not even go into the "mythologically accurate" claim.
** Women, in [[FATAL]], are arbitrarily worse than men at some things and better than men at others. He uses Aristotle as backup for these shifts, which include morality changes that make women more toward the Chaotic Evil end of the spectrum. He might have gotten away with it if he hadn't then said, "these are our justifications assuming [Aristotle] isn't ''wrong''."
** Further [[Science Marches On|Aristotelian insights]] upon which you might like to base your own highly-realistic RPG: Flies have four legs. Men have more teeth than women. Oh, and the brain's purpose is cooling the blood - it's the region around the heart that's responsible for thinking.
** [[FATAL]] characters of low intelligence get to roll for bonus "Retard Strength". Byron Hall answered criticism of this mechanic with anecdotes about nursing sourced to "some females I knew in college".
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* The worst thing is how many people are prepared to believe what's on Wikipedia without question- even people who should know better. One of the worst examples was the 2007 death of British TV composer Ronnie Hazlehurst, where many supposedly respectable sources, including several national newspapers and even the BBC itself, reported he'd written an S Club 7 song, based on nothing but a joke Wikipedia edit made a couple of days before his death.
* A great majority of [[Expert Village]]'s videos. Because of its name, we are expected to see how-to topics covered with a good sense of mastery, but it really is a mixed bag. Every other video seems to teach the wrong techniques or completely fall against common sense, as many commenters point out the mistakes that the instructors/presenters do.
* Chris Bores, who reviews video games online as [[The Irate Gamer]], claims to do research on everything. He peppers his shows with some variation of "After doing some research..." and claims that he only reviews games from the late eighties and early nineties because he's supposedly been playing said games for 20+ years and knows them forward and backward. However, he often makes literally dozens of mistakes in a single video.
* In [http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/05/06/vlog-5-6-10-the-deadliest-warrior/ this] ''[[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony Experiment]]'' video, Spoony and his brother do an almost hour long Vlog on the Dan Browning in [[Deadliest Warrior]].
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* Cracked.com's article "[http://www.cracked.com/article_18627_6-things-from-history-everyone-pictures-incorrectly.html 6 Things From History Everyone Pictures Incorrectly]" when dealing with the Big Bang.
* Thanks to an inaccurate description given by a 19th Century English source, the Italian card game [http://www.pagat.com/tresset/calabres.html Calabresella] ended up having an simplified description in virtually every English source up to the end of the 20th century.
* [http://www.scienceillustrated.com/ Science Illustrated] is a particularly aggravated example. Although the magazine presents itself as a credible science journal (or at least used to,) the articles are written by journalists, and are almost never fact-checked or reviewed. At times, the articles descend into a [[Documentary of Lies]] territory. There are articles that are correct, but for the articles dealing in subjects less familiar, personal research is strongly advised. They have openly stated that they are not a peer-reviewed scientific document, and should not be used as source material like one. The magazine simply reports about scientific articles dumbed down for general audience, usually without gross errors, but a lot of omission and ambiguities should be expected. For its credit, it usually corrects mistakes when pointed out by attentive readers.
* Immanuel Velikovsky is interdisciplinarianily guilty of this trope.
{{quote|[[Carl Sagan]]: Velikovsky has called attention to a wide range of stories and legends, held by diverse peoples, separated by great distances, which stories show remarkable similarities and concordances. I am not expert in the cultures or languages of any of these peoples, but I find the concatenation of legends Velikovsky has accumulated stunning. It is true that some experts in these cultures are less impressed. I can remember vividly discussing Worlds in Collision with a distinguished professor of Semitics at a leading university. He said something like “The Assyriology, Egyptology, Biblical scholarship and all of that Talmudic and Midrashic pilpul is, of course, nonsense; but I was impressed by the astronomy.” I had rather the opposite view.}}
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