During A.D 1054 a constellation star increased in brightness, which could be seen by everyone, but no record indicated that people in Europe witnessed it. As stated “The Chinese astronomers wrote about it. Middle Eastern Astronomers wrote about it. Native Americans of what is now the southwestern United made rock engraving of it. The star became bright enough to be plainly visible in the daytime for weeks, yet we have no record of anybody in all of Europe recording the event” (Tyson Para 4) The author does include a counterargument by stating that Europe at the time was suffering through the Dark Ages, but follows up with another claim. Tyson states that another comic event was recorded, “For example, 12 years later, in 1066, what ultimately became known as Halley’s Comet was seen and duly depicted complete with agape onlookers in a section of the famous Bayeux tapestry, circa 1100. (Tyson Para 5). It is confirmed that the reason for one being recorded and not the other was due to the bible following the idea that stars do not change was because of Aristotle. The author connects this new information with his previous paragraph, to insure the reader that population’s fall victim to believing what one says rather than finding hard evidence to support claims.
With these introduction paragraphs Tyson sets up his claim that people are willing to accept someone word due to them having either being well recognized or people