Nothing New Under the Sun

[sdi]

But such is the deplorable blindness of this unjust age; people are carried away by popular rumor and do not in the least wish to be undeceived. Sages speak in vain, fools are more readily believed than they. In vain does a Philosopher bring to light the falsity of the chimeras people have fabricated, and present manifest proofs to the contrary. No matter what his experience, nor how sound his argument and reasoning, let but a man with a doctor's hood come along and write them down as false,—experience and demonstration count for naught and it is henceforward beyond the power of Truth to re-establish her empire. People would rather believe in a doctor's hood than in their own eyes.

(Abbé Nicolas-Pierre-Henri de Montfaucon de Villars, Comte de Gabalis V; translated anonymously.)

A little on the nose, don't you think?