But there is a difference. In a strict sense, “evidence” is any information that should affect your assessment of the probabilities of statements being true. Mathematically speaking (follows from Bayes theorem), if you were actually certain (probability one or zero) then no amount of evidence would sway you, whereas enough evidence you drive you from 99.9999999% belief to 0.000000000000001%.

It’s cromwell’s rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwell%27s_rule
If you were truly certain the moon were green cheese, then an army of astronauts carrying back mountains of cheese could not logically change your mind.

The only questions are (a) whether you ever include yourself in that category, and if you do, (b) whether you actually mean it. Personally, I’m pretty good at (a), not always so good at (b).

water it down with some 9/11 paranoia

In 1975, correct?

“Okay, let’s take some steampunk, some Da Vinci Code, some Percy Jackson, some vampire and Atlantis lore and water it down with some 9/11 paranoia. Hand it out to some adolescents and have them write some plots based upon this. Then take those plots, smoke some pot, invent some corny lingo like ‘fnord’ and then begin cutting and pasting like hell so you don’t get sued by Rowling, Dan Brown, Stieg Larsen, Neil Gaiman, Stephanie Meyer, Anne Rice or whoever. Might just be the ghost of Plato for all I care – and you got yourself a book, gentlemen. Okay, let’s publish it! Okay, we haven’t proof red it or anything, but who cares, we just got to laundry some money.

That’s at least my impression of this totally crappy book.

That someone even finds this even half entertaining is beyond me, because it’s so utterly awful! Do avoid this with all means, and get some good old Sherlock Holmes instead”.