The Da Vinci Code Again

Amy Welborn offers her insights into the epistemological significance of the Da Vinci Code. Namely, if everyone was reasonable and studious and open to the truth, there would be no concerns. But since everyone is not...

A case in point. Several nights ago, I was at a local evening spot with my partner having a drink with one of the waiters. A waitress came up and subject turned to her reading the Da Vinci Code. It turned out that everyone at the table, except me, had read the book. The general theme was something like "I know it's fiction, but do you think it's true." (To give my partner credit, he acknowledged that it was a page turner but he hadn't been able to finish the last 60 pages.) The waitress was a history major and I pointed out a few historical stupidities in the book.

The good news was that when I returned the next night, the waitress came up and told me that she had concluded that the book was silly. The characters, for example, were supposed to be intelligent people and versed in Da Vinci, but when confronted near the end of the book with supposedly unknown writing, they are completely mystified. The waitress allowed that she didn't consider herself to be a Da Vinci scholar but she recognized backwards writing. She got a mirror and, lo and behold, it was intelligible.