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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.
Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.
Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.
459 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
About the author
Carl Sagan
156 books12.2k followersIn 1934, scientist Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. After earning bachelor and master's degrees at Cornell, Sagan earned a double doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1960. He became professor of astronomy and space science and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, and co-founder of the Planetary Society. A great popularizer of science, Sagan produced the PBS series, "Cosmos," which was Emmy and Peabody award-winning, and was watched by 500 million people in 60 countries. A book of the same title came out in 1980, and was on The New York Times bestseller list for 7 weeks. Sagan was author, co-author or editor of 20 books, including The Dragons of Eden (1977), which won a Pulitzer, Pale Blue Dot (1995) and The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark (1996), his hardest-hitting on religion. With his wife, Ann Druyan, he was co-producer of the popular motion picture, "Contact," which featured a feminist, atheist protagonist played by Jodie Foster (1997). The film came out after Sagan's death, following a 2-year struggle with a bone marrow disease. Sagan played a leading role in NASA's Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to other planets. Ann Druyan, in the epilogue to Sagan's last book, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (published posthumously in 1997), gives a moving account of Carl's last days: "Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was with a shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever."
For his work, Dr. Sagan received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service, as well as the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is named after him. He was also awarded the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the American Astronautical Society, the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award, the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation, and the Masursky Award of the American Astronomical Society, ("for his extraordinary contributions to the development of planetary science…As a scientist trained in both astronomy and biology, Dr. Sagan has made seminal contributions to the study of planetary atmospheres, planetary surfaces, the history of the Earth, and exobiology. Many of the most productive planetary scientists working today are his present and former students and associates").
He was also a recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Sagan was elected Chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For twelve years he was the editor-in-chief of Icarus, the leading professional journal devoted to planetary research. He was cofounder and President of the Planetary Society, a 100,000-member organization that is the largest space-interest group in the world; and Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.
In their posthumous award to Dr. Sagan of their highest honor, the National Science Foundation declared that his "research transformed planetary science… his gifts to mankind were infinite." D. 1996.
More: https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/it...
For his work, Dr. Sagan received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service, as well as the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is named after him. He was also awarded the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the American Astronautical Society, the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award, the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation, and the Masursky Award of the American Astronomical Society, ("for his extraordinary contributions to the development of planetary science…As a scientist trained in both astronomy and biology, Dr. Sagan has made seminal contributions to the study of planetary atmospheres, planetary surfaces, the history of the Earth, and exobiology. Many of the most productive planetary scientists working today are his present and former students and associates").
He was also a recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Sagan was elected Chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For twelve years he was the editor-in-chief of Icarus, the leading professional journal devoted to planetary research. He was cofounder and President of the Planetary Society, a 100,000-member organization that is the largest space-interest group in the world; and Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.
In their posthumous award to Dr. Sagan of their highest honor, the National Science Foundation declared that his "research transformed planetary science… his gifts to mankind were infinite." D. 1996.
More: https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/it...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,091 reviews
November 11, 2020
I sit before my computer, typing out a review of what is my favorite book. I’m daunted by the magnitude of this task, having just finished the book for the fourth or maybe fifth time. I wish I could remember when I bought this book, likely close to a decade ago, but I’m sure that I must have been awestruck to discover a book written by a man who has influenced my life and my interests to such a great extent.
One of the great memories of my early life was that of waiting to plop down in front of the TV set for a few Sunday nights in 1980, as our PBS station aired a thirteen-part series called Cosmos. Accompanied at the TV by my mom and grandmother, Cosmos captured my imagination in ways that will last my whole life. It was a series not merely discussing outer space, but in fact, it addressed the history of humanity’s understanding of our place in the world, the universe, and in life. Why is the memory of a TV show so incredibly dear to me? I could say that the show opened my mind to concepts and philosophies and possibilities that I never imagined, and that’d be a fair and true statement. What really makes the series so pivotal in my life, though, is that I shared such a formative experience with my mom and my grandmother; two people to whom I owe my life, my intelligence, and, hopefully without too much hyperbole, my essential spirit. At the age of nine, it’s not very likely to imagine that I would have planted myself in front of a television tuned to PBS on a Sunday evening, but the patient guidance and love of my mom and grandmother gave me the gift of knowledge and wonder.
Needless to say, I’ve always been partial to the works of Dr. Carl Sagan. Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is the first work of Dr. Sagan’s that I’ve read as an adult and in the many years I’ve owned this book, I’ve read it at least four times. Why re-read a book so often? The answer is found in my reverence of the book’s message, its point, and its passion. Not only have I read it often, but I have made an irregularly observed tradition to start each new year with a fresh reading. At least three times, I’ve picked the book up within hours of watching the ball drop in Times Square, heralding in the new year.
Many who know me, already know this is my favorite book, but I’m deeply challenged when I’m asked what the book is about, and several paragraphs into my review, I’m probably overdue in attempting to answer this exact question. In this book, Dr. Carl Sagan tackles one of the key problems facing our time, as well as repeated throughout the history of our civilization, and that is the propensity for humanity to delve into our darkest superstitions and most bleak behaviors when our knowledge or ego is challenged. It seems that throughout the history of our species, we’ve turned our backs on critical thought and skepticism at times when those with claims to power and zealotry and wealth have found it advantageous and profitable to subvert the masses.
Why discuss witch burnings and crop circles and claims of government coverups of alien abductions from 50 years ago? The answer lies in the here and now. At a time when every facet of our daily lives revolves around technology; when each and every human being lives under the threat of annihilation by nuclear weapons; when communications are global but subject to being monitored in violation of the founding documents of our nation (granted this is a problem that would occur years after Sagan’s death, yet it’s exactly the type of behavior Sagan speaks of), we find that critical thought wanes in the population of our own nation, not to mention that of the entire world. Credulity and old habits creep into our consciousness. Our world, our freedoms, and our lives come under attack.
Go to the movies and watch ghosts haunt a house or watch the undead torment campers in the woods. Turn on the TV, and you’re likely to find tales of alien spacecraft being hidden by the government. You’re equally likely to channel surf past a shopping network selling new age crystals. But where on broadcast television are you likely to find a substantive debate on issues of education or technology? Where do you see educational programming talking about the technology that engulfs our very lives? As Sagan points out, imagine the irony that kids can watch a cartoon about a prehistoric family with a dinosaur for a pet (I actually protest... I enjoyed the Flintstones!), but may never have the opportunity to watch a show about the invention or technology of television, itself!
At what cost to our freedoms, will we accept great claims without great proof? What decisions do we as a world culture need to make to grow and prosper and what can we learn from our history, replete with credulity and domination and fear-mongering?
Should we shrink from the challenges of education and critical thinking, what price will we pay? Will it be our personal or national economic stability? Will we see our freedoms curtailed (as if we haven’t witnessed that already)? Or will we pay with the extinction of our species?
The thesis of this book, as I understand it, is that we, as a culture and society, may be repeating a common mistake of our history: accepting a diminution of our critical thinking skills at our own distinct peril. Because of the threats we face though, this time we stand at these crossroads at possibly the least opportune of times. Throughout history, those in power or those who seek it, have abused our fears and used them to control the masses to their own advantage or profit. This book begs to serve as a wake-up call to anyone willing to accept the challenge not only to read it, but to deeply ponder each of its points and positions. It offers the methods of critical thought as the grand lighthouse by which we can safely steer our course through the treacherous times and malevolent forces we face. Dr. Sagan, true to the book’s title, offers the methods of science as a candle in the darkness in men’s souls.
This book occupies a special place in my life, as I’ve stated. I believe that this is a book of such enormous importance, that it should be required reading in every senior-level high school class in the country. It may not be comfortable reading, and Dr. Sagan wrote on such an astronomically high reading level (forgive the pun, as Dr. Sagan was, of course, a world-renown astronomer) that it may take weeks or months to fully drink in the material, but the discussion that Dr. Sagan presented is vital. The arguments he presents are vital to our intellect, our freedom, and our humanity.
For making me think and contemplate, reading after reading, this book scores five stars.
One of the great memories of my early life was that of waiting to plop down in front of the TV set for a few Sunday nights in 1980, as our PBS station aired a thirteen-part series called Cosmos. Accompanied at the TV by my mom and grandmother, Cosmos captured my imagination in ways that will last my whole life. It was a series not merely discussing outer space, but in fact, it addressed the history of humanity’s understanding of our place in the world, the universe, and in life. Why is the memory of a TV show so incredibly dear to me? I could say that the show opened my mind to concepts and philosophies and possibilities that I never imagined, and that’d be a fair and true statement. What really makes the series so pivotal in my life, though, is that I shared such a formative experience with my mom and my grandmother; two people to whom I owe my life, my intelligence, and, hopefully without too much hyperbole, my essential spirit. At the age of nine, it’s not very likely to imagine that I would have planted myself in front of a television tuned to PBS on a Sunday evening, but the patient guidance and love of my mom and grandmother gave me the gift of knowledge and wonder.
Needless to say, I’ve always been partial to the works of Dr. Carl Sagan. Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is the first work of Dr. Sagan’s that I’ve read as an adult and in the many years I’ve owned this book, I’ve read it at least four times. Why re-read a book so often? The answer is found in my reverence of the book’s message, its point, and its passion. Not only have I read it often, but I have made an irregularly observed tradition to start each new year with a fresh reading. At least three times, I’ve picked the book up within hours of watching the ball drop in Times Square, heralding in the new year.
Many who know me, already know this is my favorite book, but I’m deeply challenged when I’m asked what the book is about, and several paragraphs into my review, I’m probably overdue in attempting to answer this exact question. In this book, Dr. Carl Sagan tackles one of the key problems facing our time, as well as repeated throughout the history of our civilization, and that is the propensity for humanity to delve into our darkest superstitions and most bleak behaviors when our knowledge or ego is challenged. It seems that throughout the history of our species, we’ve turned our backs on critical thought and skepticism at times when those with claims to power and zealotry and wealth have found it advantageous and profitable to subvert the masses.
Why discuss witch burnings and crop circles and claims of government coverups of alien abductions from 50 years ago? The answer lies in the here and now. At a time when every facet of our daily lives revolves around technology; when each and every human being lives under the threat of annihilation by nuclear weapons; when communications are global but subject to being monitored in violation of the founding documents of our nation (granted this is a problem that would occur years after Sagan’s death, yet it’s exactly the type of behavior Sagan speaks of), we find that critical thought wanes in the population of our own nation, not to mention that of the entire world. Credulity and old habits creep into our consciousness. Our world, our freedoms, and our lives come under attack.
Go to the movies and watch ghosts haunt a house or watch the undead torment campers in the woods. Turn on the TV, and you’re likely to find tales of alien spacecraft being hidden by the government. You’re equally likely to channel surf past a shopping network selling new age crystals. But where on broadcast television are you likely to find a substantive debate on issues of education or technology? Where do you see educational programming talking about the technology that engulfs our very lives? As Sagan points out, imagine the irony that kids can watch a cartoon about a prehistoric family with a dinosaur for a pet (I actually protest... I enjoyed the Flintstones!), but may never have the opportunity to watch a show about the invention or technology of television, itself!
At what cost to our freedoms, will we accept great claims without great proof? What decisions do we as a world culture need to make to grow and prosper and what can we learn from our history, replete with credulity and domination and fear-mongering?
Should we shrink from the challenges of education and critical thinking, what price will we pay? Will it be our personal or national economic stability? Will we see our freedoms curtailed (as if we haven’t witnessed that already)? Or will we pay with the extinction of our species?
The thesis of this book, as I understand it, is that we, as a culture and society, may be repeating a common mistake of our history: accepting a diminution of our critical thinking skills at our own distinct peril. Because of the threats we face though, this time we stand at these crossroads at possibly the least opportune of times. Throughout history, those in power or those who seek it, have abused our fears and used them to control the masses to their own advantage or profit. This book begs to serve as a wake-up call to anyone willing to accept the challenge not only to read it, but to deeply ponder each of its points and positions. It offers the methods of critical thought as the grand lighthouse by which we can safely steer our course through the treacherous times and malevolent forces we face. Dr. Sagan, true to the book’s title, offers the methods of science as a candle in the darkness in men’s souls.
This book occupies a special place in my life, as I’ve stated. I believe that this is a book of such enormous importance, that it should be required reading in every senior-level high school class in the country. It may not be comfortable reading, and Dr. Sagan wrote on such an astronomically high reading level (forgive the pun, as Dr. Sagan was, of course, a world-renown astronomer) that it may take weeks or months to fully drink in the material, but the discussion that Dr. Sagan presented is vital. The arguments he presents are vital to our intellect, our freedom, and our humanity.
For making me think and contemplate, reading after reading, this book scores five stars.
June 4, 2017
Always insightful, it seems that Sagan just wanted to watch the world learn. I should've read this at 14. Honestly, this should probably be required high school reading for everyone. It illustrates clearly the many and varied personal and societal benefits gained from applying the methods of science to every corner of our thinking. The methods are the important part, the findings are just icing on the cake. It covers the dangers of unchecked ideologies and the requirement for both objectivity and wonder. Almost no topic is left unexamined. I really can't recommend this book enough.
December 9, 2023
المراجعة عصية على التلخيص بنفس قدر أهمية الكتاب للمهتمين بالعلوم
**
ذُهلت عندما وجدت الكاتب يَسْتَهِل الكتاب بالحديث بجدية لتفنيد مزاعم الأطباق الطائرة؛ فالكاتب -أي كارل ساجان- هو أحد أشهر العلماء في التاريخ, ليس فقط لإنجازاته العلمية, بل لدوره الأدبي في نشر العلم للعامة, حيث يعد أكبر نقطة تحول حدثت في هذا المجال, وبأسلوبه الأدبي الشيق استطاع أن يسجل رقم قياسي كأعلى نسبة مشاهدة في التاريخ لعرض تلفزيوني عن برنامج (Cosmos 1980) حيث جمع أكثر من 500 مليون مشاهد عبر 60 دولة, كما أن هذا الكتاب هو آخر أعماله حيث كتبه في أيامه الأخيرة وهو يكابد آلام السرطان وينتظر نهايته المحتومة, ثم رحل عنا بعد سنة واحدة فقط من نشر الكتاب أي عام 1996
فهل من المعقول الحديث عن الفضائيين والأطباق الطائرة, كرسالة أخيرة منه وتحذيراً للبشر, كما يوضح العنوان؟!
"كارل ساجان. من مقابلة في آخر سنة قبل وفاته"
**
كان فريدريك بيلي عبداً. وحين كان صبياً في ميريلاند في العشرينيات من القرن التاسع عشر, لم يكن لديه أب أو أم يعنيان به (وقد كانت عادة شائعة أن يعزل الأطفال عن أمهاتهم قبل أن يبلغ الطفل شهره الثاني عشر) وكان واحداً من ملايين لا حصر لها من الأطفال العبيد الذين لم تكن لهم أي تطلعات واقعية في حياة مليئة بالأمل
لقد تأثر بيلي-إلى الأبد- بما رآه وما مر به من تجارب وهو يكبر :"لكم أوقظت في الفجر كل يوم على دَوِيّ صرخات تُمزق نياط القلب صادرة عن إحدى عماتي, والتي اعتاد رئيس العمال أن يقيدها إلى عارضة الأرضية ويضرب ظهرها العاري بالسياط حتى يغمرها الدم بما في الكلمة من معنى حرفي.. وكان منذ سطوع الشمس حتى غروبها يسب ويلعن ويمزق جلد عبيد الحقل.. ويبدو أنه كان يتلذذ بهمجيته الجهنمية"
وكانت العبيد تترد على مسامعهم باستمرار -من المزارع الكبرى ومنابر الكنائس ومن دور القضاء ومقار الحكم على حد سواء- فكرة أن العبيد صنف دوني بمقتضى الوراثة, وأن الله حكم عليهم بالبؤس, وبهذه الطرق حافظت هذه "المؤسسة الفريدة" على بقائها رغم ما تتسم به من طبيعة بشعة
وكانت هناك قاعدة تكشف بجلاء عن الكثير: لابد أن يظل العبيد أميين, ففي الجنوب في فترة ما قبل الحرب الأهلية الأمريكية كان البيض الذين يعلّمون عبداً القراءة يلقون عقاباً شديداً. وكتب بيلي فيما بعد: "إنك إذا أردت أن تجعل عبداً راضياً, من الضروري أن تجعله عديم التفكير. إذ من الضروري أن تجعل رؤيته الأخلاقية والعقلية مظلمة, وأن تفني قوة التفكير لديه قدر المستطاع", لذا كان لازماً على مُلاّك العبيد أن يراقبوا ما يسمعه العبيد ويرونه أو يفكرون فيه. وهذا هو السبب الذي من أجله تعد القراءة والتفكير النقدي أموراً خطرةً, بل انقلابية, في المجتمع المظلم
بعدها في عام 1828 افترق بيلي عن باقي عائلته الكبيرة المتهرئة, بِيع ونُقل إلى منزل مجهول في مدينة بالتيمور الغربية. لقد أرسل بيل للعمل عند الكابتن "هيو آولد" وزوجته "صوفيا", وبذلك انتقل من المزرعة الكبيرة إلى الخدمة المنزلية. في هذه البيئة الجديدة كان يلتقي, في كل يوم, بالمعرفة والأدب وبالكتب وبأناس يستطيعون القراءة. فاكتشف ما أسماه لغز القراءة: "هناك صلة بين الأحرف المكتوبة على الصفحة وحركة شفاه القارئ, ثمة تلازم/ارتباط بنسبة واحد لواحد بين النقوش السوداء والأصوات المنطوقة", فاخذ يدرس خلسة من "كتاب ويستر لتعليم الهجاء" الخاص بالصغير "تومي آولد". فحفظ الحروف الأبجدية, وحاول أن يفهم الأصوات التي ترمز لها, وفي نهاية المطاف طلب من صوفيا آولد أن تساعده على التعلم. فوافقت, متأثرة بذكاء الصبي وإخلاصه وربما أيضا جهلاً منها بالمحظورات
وحين جاء الوقت الذي كان فيه بيلي يتهجى كلمات من ثلاثة أو أربعة حروف اكتشف الكابتن آولد ما كان يجري. وبعد أن استشاط غضباً أمر صوفيا بالتوقف عن تعليم فريدريك. وشرح في حضور فريدريك الأمر قائلاً:
لقد وبخ آولد صوفيا بهذه الطريقة وكأن بيلي لم يكن موجوداً في الحجرة معهم مطلقاً, أو كأنه لوح من الخشب الأصم.
غير أن آولد كشف لبيلي عن السر العظيم: "لقد فهمت الآن.. قوة الرجل الأبيض التي تمكنه من استعباد الرجل الأسود, من تلك اللحظة فهمت السبيل المؤدي من ا��رق إلى الحرية"
ووجد فريدريك طرقاً لمواصلة تعلّم كيفية القراءة دون المزيد من العون من صوفيا آولد التي أضحت الآن مرتعدة ومتحفظة, وكانت طرقه تشمل حتى إكراه أطفال المدارس البيض في الشوارع .ثم بدأ يعلِّم أقرانه من العبيد
وهرب إلى نيو انجلند حيث كان الرق محظوراً بمقتضى القانون وحيث كان السود أحراراً وغير اسمه إلى فريدريك دوجلاس؛ ليراوغ الصائدين الذين كانوا يقتفون أثر العبيد اله��ربين سعيا وراء المكافئات, وأصبح أحد أعظم الخطباء والكتاب والزعماء السياسيين في التاريخ الأمريكي, وكان على مدة حياته كلها يدرك أن الخلاص يكمن في محو الأمية
بعد أن هرب وهو في العشرين من عمره ببضع سنين, انضم لجماعة الكويكر, وأدهشهم بمدى بلاغته كخطيب زنجي, ولم يكن ذلك معروفاً لديهم أبداً. لقد حطّم مظهره وسلوكه الأسطورة السائدة آنذاك عن "الخنوع الطبيعي" لدي الأمريكيين الأفارقة
ولم يعد إلى العبودية أبداً وبدلاً من ذلك قضى حياته يناضل من أجل حقوق الإنسان, باعتباره مؤلفاً ومحرراً وناشراً للصحف ومتحدثاً في أمريكا وفي خارجها, وباعتباره أول أمريكي أفريقي يحتل منصباً استشارياً للرئيس لنكولن ونجح دوجلاس في الدفاع عن تسليح العبيد السابقين من أجل الشمال
لقد كانت كثيراً من أرائه لاذعاً, وغير مصاغ جيداً على نحو يكسبه أصدقاء من ذوي المراكز الرفيعة, وكان صريحاً في معارضته لسياسة إبادة الأمريكيين الأصليين, وفي مؤتمر شلالات سينيكا عام 1848, حين واتت "اليزابيث كادي ستانتون" الشجاعة لتنادي بكفالة حق التصويت للمرأة, كان دوجلاس الرجل الوحيد من أية جماعة عرقية الذي يقف مؤيداً لهذا النداء!
**
وكان الطغاة والحكام المطلقون يدركون دائماً أن معرفة القراءة والكتابة والتعلم والكتب والصحف تحمل الخطر في طياتها, لأنها يمكن أن تصب أفكاراً استقلالية بل ومتمردة في عقول رعاياهم, فقد كتب الحاكم الملكي البريطاني لمستعمرة فيرجينيا عام 1671 ما يلي:
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حسنا لقد تم محاربة التعلم سابقاً, ولكن ماذا عن الآن وما علاقة هذا بالأطباق الطائرة والفضائيين؟!
إن 2% من الأمريكيين أي حوالي 5 مليون شخص يدّعون أنهم اختطفوا من قبل الفضائيين الذين فحصوهم على أطباقهم الطائرة, وحوالي نصف الشعب الأمريكي يصدقهم!
فقام ساجان بتتبع هذا الأمر في الكتاب, وخصوصاً أنه كان قبلاً أحد أعضاء اللجنة المكلفة من الدفاع الجوي لتفحص أمر الأطباق الطائرة
لقد بدأ الأمر عندما وصف أحد الطيارين منظر إحدى القوارب في مياه هائجة حتى إنها كانت ستطير عن المياه, فحورت الصحافة الخبر على لسانه بأنه رأى قارب طائر وبعد مدة, سقطت طائرة, وهي طائرة تجسس غالباً, وعندما قام ضباط الجيش بمنع تصويرها ربطوا هذا بالخبر السابق سرده, بأن الحكومة وجدت أطباق طائرة واحتفظت بفضائيين وأنها تتكتم على الأمر
ثم بدأت دوائر المحاصيل التي نُسبت للفضائيين, والتي بدأ بافتعالها مواطنان من بريطانيا باستخدام خشبة وحبل كمزحة في أول الأمر بعد أن بدأت إشاعة الأطباق الطائرة. وعلى مدار 20 سنة كانوا يبذلون المزيد من الجهد والابتكار في أشكالهم, فعندما كان يخرج أحد العلماء ليحاول تفسير الأمر بطريقة طبيعية مثل البرق الكروي أو العواصف وتيارات الهواء, يعمدون في المرة التالية لإحداث شكل يشذ عن قاعدة هذا التبرير العلمي, وخلال هذه الفترة قام العديدين في أنحاء العالم بمحاكاة لهذه الرسومات ليحصلوا على التغطية الإعلامية, ولكن بطلانا قررا أن ينهيا مغامراتهما مع الفضائيين ويفصحوا عن خدعتهما قبل أن يسرقهم الوقت وينتهي احتفال الإعلام بهذه الظواهر ويفقدوا الفرصة لإبهار العالم
بعد حادثة المحاصيل خرج الأمر عن السيطرة, واختطف أناس وكتب مسلسل عن اختطافهم, ونشرت كتب وأذيعت برامج تدافع عن وجود الفضائيين, حتى صدق نصف الشعب هذه القصة
ولكن الأمر لم ينتهي مع كشف سر المحاصيل!
"صورة لإحدى دوائر المحاصيل"
فمازال هناك أعداد هائلة من الأشخاص الذين يقسمون بأنهم قد اختطفوا حقاً على أيدي الفضائيين, وإذا تتبعنا حالات النصب وادعاء الخطف لنيل الشهرة, ننتهي إلى وجود عدد ضخم-وإن كان أقل من السابق- مصرون على إدعائاتهم
لقد أراد ساجان أن يعاملهم بمنتهى المنطق, والحنو, فهو وإن كان يراهم مخطئين, ولكن انفعالاتهم عن قصصهم حقيقة, وهو لا يريد أن يفند الأدلة فقط دون إظهار الشفقة على هؤلاء الضحايا أو مراعاة الضعف البشري والنفوس الضعيفة كما يحلو لجيمس راندي أن يتعامل مع هذه الأمور دائماً
فأكمل ساجان حديثه عن الحالات النفسية التي من الممكن أن تتسبب في هذه الخبرة عن الخطف والتي تبدو حقيقية جداً لهؤلاء المخطوفين
وعرض نتائج البحوث التي جمعها موثقة بعدد كبير من الحالات. ومنها أنه يمكنك بالإيحاء أن تزرع فكرة في عقلك فتبدو لك وكأنها حقيقية
قد تستعيد من لاوعيك أشياء قديمة, لا تتذكر متى رأيتها, فتتهم الشيطان كم�� يقول هرمان ميلفل, وقد يحدث لك هلوسات كما كان يحدث في قصص الشياطين التي كانت تنكح النساء قديماً وحديثاً, كما أن كبت حدوث اغتصاب جنسي قديماً قد يؤدي إلى حلول الكائنات الفضائية محل المغتصب في اللاوعي
وهناك في الطفولة المبكرة تعد الأحلام شيئا حقيقياً, وقد يستمر هذا لدى البعض عندما يكبرون
قد تبدو هذه الأشياء خيالية قليلاً لك, ولكن عندما تقرأ سردها كاملة في الكتاب ستتغير ولاشك ن��رتك لمدى ضعف النفس البشرية
كان ساجان يكتب الكتاب كفصول, وعندما ينهي فصل, يقوم بتلخيصه ونشره في إحدى الصحف الكبيرة, خشية أن يموت في أية لحظة لمرضه العضال. وبعد انتهى من الأطباق الطائرة, حاول تحذيرنا من المخاطر الأخرى التي تحيط بعالمنا:
إن أكثر من أربعين مليون من البالغين الأمريكيين يلم بالكاد بالقراءة والكتابة, حسب مسح أجرى على المستوى القومي جرى بطلب وزارة التربية والتعليم!
- إن الاستطلاعات تبين أن 95% من المحبين للعلم هم من الأميين علمياً, وهي تقريباً النسبة نفسها بين الأمريكيين الأفارقة –وجميعهم تقريباً من العبيد- الذين يعانون الأمية قبل الحرب الأهلية مباشرة!!
- في أوائل الثمانينيات, في أمريكا ثلثي الكبار لم تكن لديهم أية فكرة عن "طريق المعلومات فائق السرعة", ولم يعلم 43% أين تقع اليابان؟ وكان 38% يجهلون مصطلح "الهولوكوست", غير أن النسبة ارتفعت إلى 99% عند معرفة شائعة تحرش مايكل جاكسون بطفل, وإلى أعالي التسعينيات فيما يتعلق بمن سمعوا عن أحداث المسلسلات المتلفزة!
- إشاعات عن أن "ناسا" اكتشفت أصوات من ثقب أسود تمجد الله في الأعالي !!
- أكثر من ربع الأمريكيين حسب استطلاعات الرأي يؤمنون بالتنجيم, وثلثهم يعتقد أنه يقوم على أسس علمية. وربما فاق عدد المنجمين في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية عدد علماء الفلك بعشر مرات
وفي فرنسا هناك منجمون أكثر من رجال الدين التابعين للكنيسة الرومانية الكاثوليكية!
- انتشار الترويج للصوفية (الصوفية هو وجود معرفة تنزل على أشخاص محددين بطريقة سحرية, وتكون هذه المعرفة أرقى من العلوم المادية)!
- انتشار الباراسيكولوجي (قدرات عقلية خارقة مثل ثني المعادن وحملها في الهواء, زي الأطفال اللي عند العرافة في فيلم ماتريكس)!
- 10% من سكان أمريكا قد رأوا شبحا من قبل!
- أمريكيون من مختلف الفئات يجزمون أنهم تواصلوا مع شبح الرئيس الراحل جون كينيدي, حتى أن دائرة معارف الديانات الأمريكية تعده ضمن الديانات, حيث أنهم يعاملونه كإله حتى بعد موته!
- الأمريكيون سيئو السمعة في العلوم!
وعند التقصي وراء النقطة الأخيرة, وجد أنه ليس العلوم فقط, وإنما العلماء أيضاً. فدرجاتك العالية قد تلصق بك تهمة "دحيح", فيبتعد عنك زملائك, الذين قد ينظرون إليك كغريب أطوار قد يلبس يوما الحزام عند نهاية فقرات صدره, ويضع نظارات سميكة وفي جيب قميصه يضع تشكيلة واسعة من الأقلام, وعلى وسطه حزام آخر مثبت به آلة حاسبة علمية
قد يكون هذا شكل محب العلوم, وقد يكون صاحب هذا الشكل اضطر ليتعرف على المزيد من العلوم, فهي لا تطلب منك أن تكون اجتماعيا ولا كثيراً من مقابلة الناس ومحاولات مضنية لكسب ثقتهم
ولكن على أي حال لا يجوز تجنب معاملتهم هكذا, فمثلا لقد كان ماكسويل طفلا شديد الوسامة من أسرة ثرية وكان لديه حب الاستطلاع, رغم أنه لم يكن يهتم كثيراً بهندامه, فسبب له أقرانه معاناة شديدة, حتى أنه أنشد هذه الأبيات:
كما ويميل الأولاد إلى اضطهاد المتفوقين منهم حتى لا يظهروا بمظهر سيء مقارنة بهم, ولكن هذا لن يجعل عالمنا مكاناً أفضل
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يقول فرانسيس بيكون أن الإنسان يؤمن إيماناً وثيقاً بما يعتقد أنه صادق
ولكن كيف نتأكد من أن أمر ما صادق حتى لا نكون مثل ضحايا الأطباق الطائرة؟
يستشهد ساجان بقاعدة على لسان شارلوك هولمز وهي أنه من الأخطاء الكبرى أن يقوم المرء بالتنظير قبل أن تكتمل المعطيات
ثم يسرد لنا مثالا لتطبيق هذه القاعدة,:
ولهذا تأتي فائدة منهج الشك العلمي, فيجب أن يطبق في كل شيء بطريقة معتدلة ففي العلم نمنح أسمى جوائزنا لأولئك الذين يثبتون خطأ المعتقدات المستقرة بشكل مقنع
فالشك يحرر الفكر والأوطان لذا فالديمقراطية والمجتمع المفتوح هم آمالنا, وكما تقول حكمة لاتينية:
وكان يأمل توماس جيفرسون أن يكون قسم المواطنة الذي يقسمه المهاجرون الجدد والتعهد الذي يتلوه الطلبة بشكل روتيني كالتالي:
وقد عبر جيفرسون بما قد نادى به جون ستيوارت مل ولكن بطريقة أبلغ:
وعلى هذا النحو ننتهي إلى ما قاله قاضي المحكمة العليا بالولايات المتحدة ��وبرت هـ جاكسون 1950
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كما أن ساجان يحاول معالجة نفور العامة من العلم
فيحاول إقناعنا بأن العلم لا يتوافق مع الروحانية فحسب: وإنما هو, أيضا مصدر عميق للروحانية
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إسم الكتاب بلغته الأصلية:
The Demon-Haunted World
ومعنى كلمة ديمون في أصلها, هو "المعرفة", والتي أصبحت لفظ للشيطان حالياً كما ذكر الكاتب, وبدلك يكون الكتاب ذو معنيين, الأول هو "عالم يسكنه/تطارده الشياطين", ومنها هذه التصرفات:
والمعنى الآخر عندما تكون كلمة ديمون بمعنى المعرفة, فيصبح العنوان "عالم تطارده المعرفة" ويمثل محاولات الجانب الآخر لنشر التفكير العلمي, ومنها:
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منذ بضعة شهور. وبعد يوم طويل من الإجهاد بدأ بامتحان مادة "اقتصاديات النقود والبنوك", ذهبت إلى "القهوة" لأستمتع بمقابلة بعض الأصدقاء
وقد شرع كيرولس يحكي قصة الرابطة وكيف أنهم بقبولهم بعض الأعضاء الذين أرادوا الانضمام رغم حملهم لأيديولوجية مضادة تماما, كانت النتيجة أن أحد هؤلاء بدأ في مضايقة الأعضاء داخل الرابطة, وبعد احتجاجهم على أفعاله ووجوده, انسحبوا وخسرنا أعضاء جيدين, مقابل الاحتفاظ بمن لن يشارك معنا في أي نشاط
وحينها تذكرت أني أعرف قانونا اقتصاديا ينطبق على هذه الحالة, وشرعت أشرح لهم قانون جريشام, وقد تفاجأت باستخدام ساجان أيضاً ��نفس القانون خارج سياق الاقتصاد مثلما قام عقلي مسبقا. أحسست بالنشوة, ليس لأني تذكرت هذه الذكرى الجميلة فقط, بل ولأني وجدت تشجيعاً لأمضي لأبعد من ذلك في مشروعي الخاص, بربط كل الخبرات التي أعرفها داخل سياق واحد متناسق, تماماً كالطريقة التي تلقى بها ساجان تعليمه الجامعي في جامعة شيكاجو ضمن برنامج روبرت م هتشنز, ولقد كانت هذه خطوة حاسمة في تاريخه, فكان هذا هو الشيء الوحيد الذي شجّعه منذ الدهشة الأولى التي بدأت منذ أن صاحبه والده إلى معرض نيويورك العالمي 1939
فيا لروعة تلك الأشياء البسيطة التي تدفعنا للأمام
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المترجم أحد فرسان الإرادة فاقدي البصر
ولم يعطنا فقط هذه الترجمة الممتازة حقاً عن أصل بالغ الصعوبة, وإنما منحنا ترجمة كاملة أيضا, وهو شيء نادر في بلادنا, بسبب ما قد تقابله هذه الترجمة من اعتراضات الأصوليين
وقد ترك المترجم مهمة الرد عليهم وتهدئتهم للمراجع الذي جاء بعقلية أصولية مثل المعترضين المتوقَّعين, فكان خير من يمثلهم في اعتراضاتهم على المحتوى من خلال هوامشه التي يدافع فيها عن أفكارهم بمنطقهم ضد افتراءات الكاتب الغربي ذو المعرفة القاصرة عن الإسلام كما يذكّرنا المراجع في كثير من هوامشه
وليس ذلك فقط, بل قدم حجج لتبرير ترجمة الكتاب كامل ببعض جمله الهامشية التي تشكك في إيمانهم التي يستطيع حذفها دون أن يشعر القارئ, ولكنه رد عليهم بأحد الحجج التي وجدتها ممتازة, مفادها أنه إذا كان الكاتب ينطق بالكفر والضلال, فيجب علينا أن ننقل لشبابنا ما يقولونه من ضلالات حتى يعرفوا حقيقته ولا ينخدعوا وراء الشعارات البراقة التي تدعي مثالية الغرب!!
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وفي النهاية
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"المنهج العلمي على ما يبدو عليه من الغلظة والسماجة لهو أهم إلى حد بعيد من مكتشفات العلم."
ذُهلت عندما وجدت الكاتب يَسْتَهِل الكتاب بالحديث بجدية لتفنيد مزاعم الأطباق الطائرة؛ فالكاتب -أي كارل ساجان- هو أحد أشهر العلماء في التاريخ, ليس فقط لإنجازاته العلمية, بل لدوره الأدبي في نشر العلم للعامة, حيث يعد أكبر نقطة تحول حدثت في هذا المجال, وبأسلوبه الأدبي الشيق استطاع أن يسجل رقم قياسي كأعلى نسبة مشاهدة في التاريخ لعرض تلفزيوني عن برنامج (Cosmos 1980) حيث جمع أكثر من 500 مليون مشاهد عبر 60 دولة, كما أن هذا الكتاب هو آخر أعماله حيث كتبه في أيامه الأخيرة وهو يكابد آلام السرطان وينتظر نهايته المحتومة, ثم رحل عنا بعد سنة واحدة فقط من نشر الكتاب أي عام 1996
فهل من المعقول الحديث عن الفضائيين والأطباق الطائرة, كرسالة أخيرة منه وتحذيراً للبشر, كما يوضح العنوان؟!
"كارل ساجان. من مقابلة في آخر سنة قبل وفاته"
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"لا يجب أن نصدق الكثيرين الذين يقولون إن الأحرار فقط هم الذين يجب أن يتعلموا, وإنما, بدلا من ذلك, يجب أن نصدق الفلاسفة الذين يقولون إن المتعلمين هم وحدهم الأحرار"
إبيكتيتوس, فيلسوف روماني وعبد سابق.
كان فريدريك بيلي عبداً. وحين كان صبياً في ميريلاند في العشرينيات من القرن التاسع عشر, لم يكن لديه أب أو أم يعنيان به (وقد كانت عادة شائعة أن يعزل الأطفال عن أمهاتهم قبل أن يبلغ الطفل شهره الثاني عشر) وكان واحداً من ملايين لا حصر لها من الأطفال العبيد الذين لم تكن لهم أي تطلعات واقعية في حياة مليئة بالأمل
لقد تأثر بيلي-إلى الأبد- بما رآه وما مر به من تجارب وهو يكبر :"لكم أوقظت في الفجر كل يوم على دَوِيّ صرخات تُمزق نياط القلب صادرة عن إحدى عماتي, والتي اعتاد رئيس العمال أن يقيدها إلى عارضة الأرضية ويضرب ظهرها العاري بالسياط حتى يغمرها الدم بما في الكلمة من معنى حرفي.. وكان منذ سطوع الشمس حتى غروبها يسب ويلعن ويمزق جلد عبيد الحقل.. ويبدو أنه كان يتلذذ بهمجيته الجهنمية"
وكانت العبيد تترد على مسامعهم باستمرار -من المزارع الكبرى ومنابر الكنائس ومن دور القضاء ومقار الحكم على حد سواء- فكرة أن العبيد صنف دوني بمقتضى الوراثة, وأن الله حكم عليهم بالبؤس, وبهذه الطرق حافظت هذه "المؤسسة الفريدة" على بقائها رغم ما تتسم به من طبيعة بشعة
وكانت هناك قاعدة تكشف بجلاء عن الكثير: لابد أن يظل العبيد أميين, ففي الجنوب في فترة ما قبل الحرب الأهلية الأمريكية كان البيض الذين يعلّمون عبداً القراءة يلقون عقاباً شديداً. وكتب بيلي فيما بعد: "إنك إذا أردت أن تجعل عبداً راضياً, من الضروري أن تجعله عديم التفكير. إذ من الضروري أن تجعل رؤيته الأخلاقية والعقلية مظلمة, وأن تفني قوة التفكير لديه قدر المستطاع", لذا كان لازماً على مُلاّك العبيد أن يراقبوا ما يسمعه العبيد ويرونه أو يفكرون فيه. وهذا هو السبب الذي من أجله تعد القراءة والتفكير النقدي أموراً خطرةً, بل انقلابية, في المجتمع المظلم
بعدها في عام 1828 افترق بيلي عن باقي عائلته الكبيرة المتهرئة, بِيع ونُقل إلى منزل مجهول في مدينة بالتيمور الغربية. لقد أرسل بيل للعمل عند الكابتن "هيو آولد" وزوجته "صوفيا", وبذلك انتقل من المزرعة الكبيرة إلى الخدمة المنزلية. في هذه البيئة الجديدة كان يلتقي, في كل يوم, بالمعرفة والأدب وبالكتب وبأناس يستطيعون القراءة. فاكتشف ما أسماه لغز القراءة: "هناك صلة بين الأحرف المكتوبة على الصفحة وحركة شفاه القارئ, ثمة تلازم/ارتباط بنسبة واحد لواحد بين النقوش السوداء والأصوات المنطوقة", فاخذ يدرس خلسة من "كتاب ويستر لتعليم الهجاء" الخاص بالصغير "تومي آولد". فحفظ الحروف الأبجدية, وحاول أن يفهم الأصوات التي ترمز لها, وفي نهاية المطاف طلب من صوفيا آولد أن تساعده على التعلم. فوافقت, متأثرة بذكاء الصبي وإخلاصه وربما أيضا جهلاً منها بالمحظورات
وحين جاء الوقت الذي كان فيه بيلي يتهجى كلمات من ثلاثة أو أربعة حروف اكتشف الكابتن آولد ما كان يجري. وبعد أن استشاط غضباً أمر صوفيا بالتوقف عن تعليم فريدريك. وشرح في حضور فريدريك الأمر قائلاً:
"لا يجب أن يعلّم الزنجي سوى طاعة سيده وأن يعمل ما يؤمر به, أما التعلم فيفسد خير زنوج العالم. والآن إذا ما علّمت هذا الزنجي كيف يقرأ فلن يكون هناك معنى للاحتفاظ به فلن يلائمه للأبد أن يكون عبداً"
لقد وبخ آولد صوفيا بهذه الطريقة وكأن بيلي لم يكن موجوداً في الحجرة معهم مطلقاً, أو كأنه لوح من الخشب الأصم.
غير أن آولد كشف لبيلي عن السر العظيم: "لقد فهمت الآن.. قوة الرجل الأبيض التي تمكنه من استعباد الرجل الأسود, من تلك اللحظة فهمت السبيل المؤدي من ا��رق إلى الحرية"
ووجد فريدريك طرقاً لمواصلة تعلّم كيفية القراءة دون المزيد من العون من صوفيا آولد التي أضحت الآن مرتعدة ومتحفظة, وكانت طرقه تشمل حتى إكراه أطفال المدارس البيض في الشوارع .ثم بدأ يعلِّم أقرانه من العبيد
وهرب إلى نيو انجلند حيث كان الرق محظوراً بمقتضى القانون وحيث كان السود أحراراً وغير اسمه إلى فريدريك دوجلاس؛ ليراوغ الصائدين الذين كانوا يقتفون أثر العبيد اله��ربين سعيا وراء المكافئات, وأصبح أحد أعظم الخطباء والكتاب والزعماء السياسيين في التاريخ الأمريكي, وكان على مدة حياته كلها يدرك أن الخلاص يكمن في محو الأمية
بعد أن هرب وهو في العشرين من عمره ببضع سنين, انضم لجماعة الكويكر, وأدهشهم بمدى بلاغته كخطيب زنجي, ولم يكن ذلك معروفاً لديهم أبداً. لقد حطّم مظهره وسلوكه الأسطورة السائدة آنذاك عن "الخنوع الطبيعي" لدي الأمريكيين الأفارقة
ولم يعد إلى العبودية أبداً وبدلاً من ذلك قضى حياته يناضل من أجل حقوق الإنسان, باعتباره مؤلفاً ومحرراً وناشراً للصحف ومتحدثاً في أمريكا وفي خارجها, وباعتباره أول أمريكي أفريقي يحتل منصباً استشارياً للرئيس لنكولن ونجح دوجلاس في الدفاع عن تسليح العبيد السابقين من أجل الشمال
لقد كانت كثيراً من أرائه لاذعاً, وغير مصاغ جيداً على نحو يكسبه أصدقاء من ذوي المراكز الرفيعة, وكان صريحاً في معارضته لسياسة إبادة الأمريكيين الأصليين, وفي مؤتمر شلالات سينيكا عام 1848, حين واتت "اليزابيث كادي ستانتون" الشجاعة لتنادي بكفالة حق التصويت للمرأة, كان دوجلاس الرجل الوحيد من أية جماعة عرقية الذي يقف مؤيداً لهذا النداء!
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وكان الطغاة والحكام المطلقون يدركون دائماً أن معرفة القراءة والكتابة والتعلم والكتب والصحف تحمل الخطر في طياتها, لأنها يمكن أن تصب أفكاراً استقلالية بل ومتمردة في عقول رعاياهم, فقد كتب الحاكم الملكي البريطاني لمستعمرة فيرجينيا عام 1671 ما يلي:
"أشكر الرب على عدم وجود مدارس مجانية ولا طباعة وأتمنى ألا يكون لدينا (منها) في المائة سنة (التالية)؛ لأن التعلم جلب العصيان والمروق عن الدين والطائفية إلى العالم, وأفشت الطباعة سر هذه الأشياء وارتكبت جريمة التشهير في حق خير الحكومات, فليحفظنا الرب من كليها!"
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حسنا لقد تم محاربة التعلم سابقاً, ولكن ماذا عن الآن وما علاقة هذا بالأطباق الطائرة والفضائيين؟!
إن 2% من الأمريكيين أي حوالي 5 مليون شخص يدّعون أنهم اختطفوا من قبل الفضائيين الذين فحصوهم على أطباقهم الطائرة, وحوالي نصف الشعب الأمريكي يصدقهم!
فقام ساجان بتتبع هذا الأمر في الكتاب, وخصوصاً أنه كان قبلاً أحد أعضاء اللجنة المكلفة من الدفاع الجوي لتفحص أمر الأطباق الطائرة
لقد بدأ الأمر عندما وصف أحد الطيارين منظر إحدى القوارب في مياه هائجة حتى إنها كانت ستطير عن المياه, فحورت الصحافة الخبر على لسانه بأنه رأى قارب طائر وبعد مدة, سقطت طائرة, وهي طائرة تجسس غالباً, وعندما قام ضباط الجيش بمنع تصويرها ربطوا هذا بالخبر السابق سرده, بأن الحكومة وجدت أطباق طائرة واحتفظت بفضائيين وأنها تتكتم على الأمر
ثم بدأت دوائر المحاصيل التي نُسبت للفضائيين, والتي بدأ بافتعالها مواطنان من بريطانيا باستخدام خشبة وحبل كمزحة في أول الأمر بعد أن بدأت إشاعة الأطباق الطائرة. وعلى مدار 20 سنة كانوا يبذلون المزيد من الجهد والابتكار في أشكالهم, فعندما كان يخرج أحد العلماء ليحاول تفسير الأمر بطريقة طبيعية مثل البرق الكروي أو العواصف وتيارات الهواء, يعمدون في المرة التالية لإحداث شكل يشذ عن قاعدة هذا التبرير العلمي, وخلال هذه الفترة قام العديدين في أنحاء العالم بمحاكاة لهذه الرسومات ليحصلوا على التغطية الإعلامية, ولكن بطلانا قررا أن ينهيا مغامراتهما مع الفضائيين ويفصحوا عن خدعتهما قبل أن يسرقهم الوقت وينتهي احتفال الإعلام بهذه الظواهر ويفقدوا الفرصة لإبهار العالم
بعد حادثة المحاصيل خرج الأمر عن السيطرة, واختطف أناس وكتب مسلسل عن اختطافهم, ونشرت كتب وأذيعت برامج تدافع عن وجود الفضائيين, حتى صدق نصف الشعب هذه القصة
ولكن الأمر لم ينتهي مع كشف سر المحاصيل!
"صورة لإحدى دوائر المحاصيل"
فمازال هناك أعداد هائلة من الأشخاص الذين يقسمون بأنهم قد اختطفوا حقاً على أيدي الفضائيين, وإذا تتبعنا حالات النصب وادعاء الخطف لنيل الشهرة, ننتهي إلى وجود عدد ضخم-وإن كان أقل من السابق- مصرون على إدعائاتهم
لقد أراد ساجان أن يعاملهم بمنتهى المنطق, والحنو, فهو وإن كان يراهم مخطئين, ولكن انفعالاتهم عن قصصهم حقيقة, وهو لا يريد أن يفند الأدلة فقط دون إظهار الشفقة على هؤلاء الضحايا أو مراعاة الضعف البشري والنفوس الضعيفة كما يحلو لجيمس راندي أن يتعامل مع هذه الأمور دائماً
فأكمل ساجان حديثه عن الحالات النفسية التي من الممكن أن تتسبب في هذه الخبرة عن الخطف والتي تبدو حقيقية جداً لهؤلاء المخطوفين
وعرض نتائج البحوث التي جمعها موثقة بعدد كبير من الحالات. ومنها أنه يمكنك بالإيحاء أن تزرع فكرة في عقلك فتبدو لك وكأنها حقيقية
قد تستعيد من لاوعيك أشياء قديمة, لا تتذكر متى رأيتها, فتتهم الشيطان كم�� يقول هرمان ميلفل, وقد يحدث لك هلوسات كما كان يحدث في قصص الشياطين التي كانت تنكح النساء قديماً وحديثاً, كما أن كبت حدوث اغتصاب جنسي قديماً قد يؤدي إلى حلول الكائنات الفضائية محل المغتصب في اللاوعي
وهناك في الطفولة المبكرة تعد الأحلام شيئا حقيقياً, وقد يستمر هذا لدى البعض عندما يكبرون
قد تبدو هذه الأشياء خيالية قليلاً لك, ولكن عندما تقرأ سردها كاملة في الكتاب ستتغير ولاشك ن��رتك لمدى ضعف النفس البشرية
كان ساجان يكتب الكتاب كفصول, وعندما ينهي فصل, يقوم بتلخيصه ونشره في إحدى الصحف الكبيرة, خشية أن يموت في أية لحظة لمرضه العضال. وبعد انتهى من الأطباق الطائرة, حاول تحذيرنا من المخاطر الأخرى التي تحيط بعالمنا:
إن أكثر من أربعين مليون من البالغين الأمريكيين يلم بالكاد بالقراءة والكتابة, حسب مسح أجرى على المستوى القومي جرى بطلب وزارة التربية والتعليم!
- إن الاستطلاعات تبين أن 95% من المحبين للعلم هم من الأميين علمياً, وهي تقريباً النسبة نفسها بين الأمريكيين الأفارقة –وجميعهم تقريباً من العبيد- الذين يعانون الأمية قبل الحرب الأهلية مباشرة!!
- في أوائل الثمانينيات, في أمريكا ثلثي الكبار لم تكن لديهم أية فكرة عن "طريق المعلومات فائق السرعة", ولم يعلم 43% أين تقع اليابان؟ وكان 38% يجهلون مصطلح "الهولوكوست", غير أن النسبة ارتفعت إلى 99% عند معرفة شائعة تحرش مايكل جاكسون بطفل, وإلى أعالي التسعينيات فيما يتعلق بمن سمعوا عن أحداث المسلسلات المتلفزة!
- إشاعات عن أن "ناسا" اكتشفت أصوات من ثقب أسود تمجد الله في الأعالي !!
- أكثر من ربع الأمريكيين حسب استطلاعات الرأي يؤمنون بالتنجيم, وثلثهم يعتقد أنه يقوم على أسس علمية. وربما فاق عدد المنجمين في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية عدد علماء الفلك بعشر مرات
وفي فرنسا هناك منجمون أكثر من رجال الدين التابعين للكنيسة الرومانية الكاثوليكية!
- انتشار الترويج للصوفية (الصوفية هو وجود معرفة تنزل على أشخاص محددين بطريقة سحرية, وتكون هذه المعرفة أرقى من العلوم المادية)!
- انتشار الباراسيكولوجي (قدرات عقلية خارقة مثل ثني المعادن وحملها في الهواء, زي الأطفال اللي عند العرافة في فيلم ماتريكس)!
- 10% من سكان أمريكا قد رأوا شبحا من قبل!
- أمريكيون من مختلف الفئات يجزمون أنهم تواصلوا مع شبح الرئيس الراحل جون كينيدي, حتى أن دائرة معارف الديانات الأمريكية تعده ضمن الديانات, حيث أنهم يعاملونه كإله حتى بعد موته!
- الأمريكيون سيئو السمعة في العلوم!
وعند التقصي وراء النقطة الأخيرة, وجد أنه ليس العلوم فقط, وإنما العلماء أيضاً. فدرجاتك العالية قد تلصق بك تهمة "دحيح", فيبتعد عنك زملائك, الذين قد ينظرون إليك كغريب أطوار قد يلبس يوما الحزام عند نهاية فقرات صدره, ويضع نظارات سميكة وفي جيب قميصه يضع تشكيلة واسعة من الأقلام, وعلى وسطه حزام آخر مثبت به آلة حاسبة علمية
قد يكون هذا شكل محب العلوم, وقد يكون صاحب هذا الشكل اضطر ليتعرف على المزيد من العلوم, فهي لا تطلب منك أن تكون اجتماعيا ولا كثيراً من مقابلة الناس ومحاولات مضنية لكسب ثقتهم
ولكن على أي حال لا يجوز تجنب معاملتهم هكذا, فمثلا لقد كان ماكسويل طفلا شديد الوسامة من أسرة ثرية وكان لديه حب الاستطلاع, رغم أنه لم يكن يهتم كثيراً بهندامه, فسبب له أقرانه معاناة شديدة, حتى أنه أنشد هذه الأبيات:
"أيتها السنون توالي, وأسرعي بالوقت الموعود ..
حين يضحي جَلْد الصِبية بين الجرائم معدود .. "
كما ويميل الأولاد إلى اضطهاد المتفوقين منهم حتى لا يظهروا بمظهر سيء مقارنة بهم, ولكن هذا لن يجعل عالمنا مكاناً أفضل
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يقول فرانسيس بيكون أن الإنسان يؤمن إيماناً وثيقاً بما يعتقد أنه صادق
ولكن كيف نتأكد من أن أمر ما صادق حتى لا نكون مثل ضحايا الأطباق الطائرة؟
يستشهد ساجان بقاعدة على لسان شارلوك هولمز وهي أنه من الأخطاء الكبرى أن يقوم المرء بالتنظير قبل أن تكتمل المعطيات
ثم يسرد لنا مثالا لتطبيق هذه القاعدة,:
""يعيش في جراجي تنين ينفث النار", لنفترض أنني أقول لك هذا القول المؤكد بشكل جاد, فمن المؤكد أنك سوف تود أن تتحقق من ذلك, وأن ترى بنفسك, إذ كانت هناك على مر العصور قصص لا تحصى عن التنين, دون أن يوجد دليل واقعي واحد عليها. يا لها من فرصة! تقول "أرني" فأقودك إلى الجراج, تنظر إلى الداخل, فترى سلماً, وعلبة دهان فارغة, وتريسكل, ولكن لا تنين هناك. فتسألني "أين التنين" فأجيب "ياه! إنه هنا" وأنا ألوح بيدي بشكل غامض.
وأتابع القول:
"لقد فاتني أن أذكر لك أنه تنين خفي". فتقترح أنت أن ننثر الدقيق كي نمسك بآثار أقدام التنين. فأرد قائلاً: "هذه فكرة جيدة. غير أن هذا التنين يسبح في الهواء"
إذن سوف تستخدم جهاز تحسس يعمل بالأشعة تحت الحمراء كي تتبين النار الخفية
"فكر جيدة, لكن النار الخفية غير حامية أيضاً"
إذن سوف ترش رذاذ الدهان على التنين كي تجعله مرئياً
"فكرة جيدة. لولا أن تنين غير مادي أو مجسّد, ولن يلتصق به الدهان"
وهكذا أرد على كل اختبار فيزيائي تقترحه بشرح خاص للسبب الذي يجعل هذا الاختبار غير صالح
والآن, ما الفرق بين تنين طافٍ خفي غير مادي, ينفث ناراً غير حامية أو عدم وجود تنين ��صلاً؟
فكل ما أطلب منك أن تفعله هو التصديق في غياب الدليل. لمجرد أني أقول لك ما أقول
وإذا جئتك بعدها بأسبوع لأخبرك بأنه يوجد أثار للدقيق, أو جئتك بأصبع محروق, كدليل على صدقي, ألا يمكنك أن تشك في أن تكون تلك الأدلة قد زيفت, بما إنه من السهل تزييفها؟"
ولهذا تأتي فائدة منهج الشك العلمي, فيجب أن يطبق في كل شيء بطريقة معتدلة ففي العلم نمنح أسمى جوائزنا لأولئك الذين يثبتون خطأ المعتقدات المستقرة بشكل مقنع
فالشك يحرر الفكر والأوطان لذا فالديمقراطية والمجتمع المفتوح هم آمالنا, وكما تقول حكمة لاتينية:
"حيث يوجد الشك يوجد الحر��ة"
وكان يأمل توماس جيفرسون أن يكون قسم المواطنة الذي يقسمه المهاجرون الجدد والتعهد الذي يتلوه الطلبة بشكل روتيني كالتالي:
"أعد بالتساؤل حول كل ما يقوله لي قادتي وزعمائي, وأعد باستخدام ملكتي النقدية, وأعد بتنمية استقلالي الفكري, وأعد بأن أعلم نفسي حتى أتخذ أحكامي وتقديراتي الخاصة"
وقد عبر جيفرسون بما قد نادى به جون ستيوارت مل ولكن بطريقة أبلغ:
"لو أن أمة ما توقعت أن تكون "جاهلة" و"حرة" في حالة حضارية معا, فهي تتوقع ما لم يكن قط, ولن يكون أبداً"
وعلى هذا النحو ننتهي إلى ما قاله قاضي المحكمة العليا بالولايات المتحدة ��وبرت هـ جاكسون 1950
"ليست وظيفة حكومتنا حماية المواطن من الوقوع في الخطأ؛ وإنما وظيفة المواطن حماية الحكومة من الوقوع في الخطأ"
**
كما أن ساجان يحاول معالجة نفور العامة من العلم
فالدجلنة تخاطب الحاجات العاطفية القوية التي غالباً ما يدعها العلم دون إشباع
وفي صميم بعض أنماط الدجلنة تكمن فكرة أن تمنى الشيء يحققه, فكم يكون مقدار ما يمكن أن نشعر به من الرضي, إذا حققنا الرغبات التي نتمناها من صميم فؤادنا بمجرد التمني, يا لها من فكرة تغوي النفوس, خاصة إذا ما قورنت بالعمل الشاق وحسن الحظ الذي نحتاج إليه عادة كي نحقق آمالنا.
فيحاول إقناعنا بأن العلم لا يتوافق مع الروحانية فحسب: وإنما هو, أيضا مصدر عميق للروحانية
**
إسم الكتاب بلغته الأصلية:
The Demon-Haunted World
ومعنى كلمة ديمون في أصلها, هو "المعرفة", والتي أصبحت لفظ للشيطان حالياً كما ذكر الكاتب, وبدلك يكون الكتاب ذو معنيين, الأول هو "عالم يسكنه/تطارده الشياطين", ومنها هذه التصرفات:
"لماذا يجب علينا أن ندعم الفضول الفكري؟"
رونالد ريجان, من خطابه في الحملة الانتخابية 1980
- إدوارد تلر, ومحاولاته لصنع قنبلة هيدروجينية
- استنكار الإتحاد السوفيتي لنظرية لاينوس بولينج في الإتحاد الكيميائي للذرات والتي أعطى عنها جائزة نوبل, لأنها تخالف تعاليم المادية الجدلية, وأُعلن أن نظريته محظورة على الكيميائيين السوفييت
- مطاردة عالم الوراثة الأمريكي هيرمان ج مولر الحائز على جائزة نوبل والذي كان يعمل في روسيا أنذاك, ومعه رئيس الأكاديمية الزراعية لعموم الإتحاد السوفيتي, عندما اعترضا على المشعوذ تروفيم ليسينكوا, والذي قد اكتسب التأييد الحماسي من ستالين لفكرته التي ستصلح حال الزراعة عن طريق علم الوراثة المبني على المادية الجدلية عكس علوم الغرب الغارقة في الضلال المندلي, وقد هرب الأول منهما بعد تحذيره, والثاني ألقي القبض عليه وبعث إلى سيبريا لبقية حياته
وبعد عدة سنوات انهار الإتحاد السوفيتي بعد أزمة الغذاء وفشل مشروع العمالة القسرية, وعدم وفاء المشعوذ بوعده, فالمشعوذ لا علم له بالزراعة والوراثة وإنما بالشعوذة
- ميّز العلماء النازيون مثل عالم الفيزياء الحاصل على نوبل "يوهان شتارك" بين "العلم اليهودي" الخيالي التصوري المشتمل على النسبية وميكانيكا الكم, وبين "العلم الآري" العملي الواقعي
- تزوير التاريخ على يد العديد من الدول ذكرهم المؤلف
- العلماء النازيين وزعمهم أن المجرات تتكون من بلورات ثلج وليست من نجوم وكواكب كما يقول الأغيار
- في الصين بعد موت "ماو تسي تونج", زعم "وانج هونجشينج" أحد هواة الكيمياء أنه قام بتخليق سائل إذا ما أضيف بمقادير قليلة للماء فإنه يحوله للجازولين أو ما يعادله, وظل لفترة يتلقى التمويل من الجيش والشرطة السرية, وحين اكتشف خداعه تم سجنه
ولكن تم تبرير الأمر ليس لتزييفه, وإنما لعدم استعداده لكشف الوصفة السرية للحكومة
- في عام 1993 أصدر المرجع الديني الأعلى في المملكة العربية السعودية الشيخ عبد العزيز بن باز فتوى أعلن فيها أن العالم مسطح, وأن من يعتقد في كروية الأرض, إنما هو غير مؤمن بالله وتجب معاقبته (ليست تجويداً من كاتب المراجعة, وقد ذكرها ساجان هكذا)
والمعنى الآخر عندما تكون كلمة ديمون بمعنى المعرفة, فيصبح العنوان "عالم تطارده المعرفة" ويمثل محاولات الجانب الآخر لنشر التفكير العلمي, ومنها:
- "ما من شيء يستحق رعايتنا أفضل من ترقية العلم والأدب, فالمعرفة في كل البلاد القاعدة الأكثر ضماناً لسعادة الجمهور"
جورج واشنطون من خطابه أمام الكونجرس بتاريخ 8 يناير 1790
- الآباء المؤسسين لأمريكا ودستورهم ووثيقة حقوق الإنسان
- تصريح "الدالاي لاما" الحالي بأنه سيكون على البوذية التبتية أن تتغير إذا ما أثبت العلم أن أحد أركنها مغلوط.
**
"غير أن نوع��ً من قانون جريشام يسود الثقافة الشائعة وبواسطته, يطرد العلم الرديء العلم الجيد"
منذ بضعة شهور. وبعد يوم طويل من الإجهاد بدأ بامتحان مادة "اقتصاديات النقود والبنوك", ذهبت إلى "القهوة" لأستمتع بمقابلة بعض الأصدقاء
وقد شرع كيرولس يحكي قصة الرابطة وكيف أنهم بقبولهم بعض الأعضاء الذين أرادوا الانضمام رغم حملهم لأيديولوجية مضادة تماما, كانت النتيجة أن أحد هؤلاء بدأ في مضايقة الأعضاء داخل الرابطة, وبعد احتجاجهم على أفعاله ووجوده, انسحبوا وخسرنا أعضاء جيدين, مقابل الاحتفاظ بمن لن يشارك معنا في أي نشاط
وحينها تذكرت أني أعرف قانونا اقتصاديا ينطبق على هذه الحالة, وشرعت أشرح لهم قانون جريشام, وقد تفاجأت باستخدام ساجان أيضاً ��نفس القانون خارج سياق الاقتصاد مثلما قام عقلي مسبقا. أحسست بالنشوة, ليس لأني تذكرت هذه الذكرى الجميلة فقط, بل ولأني وجدت تشجيعاً لأمضي لأبعد من ذلك في مشروعي الخاص, بربط كل الخبرات التي أعرفها داخل سياق واحد متناسق, تماماً كالطريقة التي تلقى بها ساجان تعليمه الجامعي في جامعة شيكاجو ضمن برنامج روبرت م هتشنز, ولقد كانت هذه خطوة حاسمة في تاريخه, فكان هذا هو الشيء الوحيد الذي شجّعه منذ الدهشة الأولى التي بدأت منذ أن صاحبه والده إلى معرض نيويورك العالمي 1939
"كان والداي يبعدان عن الفقر بخطوة واحدة فحسب, وحين أعلنت عن رغبتي في أن أصبح عالم فلك, تلقيت تأييدا بلا حدود –إذ حتى رغم أنهما كانا (مثلي) ليست لديهما سوى فكرة بدائية بسيطة للغاية عمل يفعله عالم الفلك, فإنهما لم يقولا قط إنه "بعد التفكر في جميع الأمور قد يكون من الأفضل أن أصبح طبيباً أو محامياً""
فيا لروعة تلك الأشياء البسيطة التي تدفعنا للأمام
**
المترجم أحد فرسان الإرادة فاقدي البصر
ولم يعطنا فقط هذه الترجمة الممتازة حقاً عن أصل بالغ الصعوبة, وإنما منحنا ترجمة كاملة أيضا, وهو شيء نادر في بلادنا, بسبب ما قد تقابله هذه الترجمة من اعتراضات الأصوليين
وقد ترك المترجم مهمة الرد عليهم وتهدئتهم للمراجع الذي جاء بعقلية أصولية مثل المعترضين المتوقَّعين, فكان خير من يمثلهم في اعتراضاتهم على المحتوى من خلال هوامشه التي يدافع فيها عن أفكارهم بمنطقهم ضد افتراءات الكاتب الغربي ذو المعرفة القاصرة عن الإسلام كما يذكّرنا المراجع في كثير من هوامشه
وليس ذلك فقط, بل قدم حجج لتبرير ترجمة الكتاب كامل ببعض جمله الهامشية التي تشكك في إيمانهم التي يستطيع حذفها دون أن يشعر القارئ, ولكنه رد عليهم بأحد الحجج التي وجدتها ممتازة, مفادها أنه إذا كان الكاتب ينطق بالكفر والضلال, فيجب علينا أن ننقل لشبابنا ما يقولونه من ضلالات حتى يعرفوا حقيقته ولا ينخدعوا وراء الشعارات البراقة التي تدعي مثالية الغرب!!
**
وفي النهاية
"أتمنى لكم عالما خاليا من الشياطين, مليئاً بالضياء"
"نحن ننتظر الضياء لكننا نرى الظلام"
أشعياء 9:59
January 14, 2009
Hey, so, guess what? People who read the Weekly World News are stupid, but scientists are awesome! Did you know that?
I just put this book down, 175 pages in. It's not that I disagree with the thesis, because I actually don't at all. Sagan uses the widespread belief in alien abductions to talk about the need for more critical thinking in this world. And I'm totally there -- yes, for the love of God, teach people to distinguish between fact and what they want to be fact. But Sagan goes on -- and on and on -- about the evils of unexamined credulity, and how so much of what we believe is contextually determined and not logically deduced, and then he turns around and says 'therefore empiricism is the only truth.' And then completely fails to deal with the indeterminacy problem -- all the ways empiricism is also an ordinal choice, not some universal baseline against which to measure all intellectual thought. I mean, I'm as much a fan of the scientific method as the next well-educated dabbler, but I'm rendered irretrievably cranky by a guy touting the holy purity of his truth mechanisms when his argument basically boils down to, "the scientific method works! I've tested it! With the scientific method!" And never stops to wonder about his contextual determinants.
Actually, that would be more okay if I could discern a point. Sagan waxes on and on and on about why people come to believe they were abducted, why other people believe them, where such mass dilusions historically might come from. And it's written in this snotty, "now you see the error of your ways," tone when, you know, I sort of suspect the Weekly World News readership is not also snapping up this book. That, and Sagan was a much better astrochemist than a psychologist or historian.
Meh.
I just put this book down, 175 pages in. It's not that I disagree with the thesis, because I actually don't at all. Sagan uses the widespread belief in alien abductions to talk about the need for more critical thinking in this world. And I'm totally there -- yes, for the love of God, teach people to distinguish between fact and what they want to be fact. But Sagan goes on -- and on and on -- about the evils of unexamined credulity, and how so much of what we believe is contextually determined and not logically deduced, and then he turns around and says 'therefore empiricism is the only truth.' And then completely fails to deal with the indeterminacy problem -- all the ways empiricism is also an ordinal choice, not some universal baseline against which to measure all intellectual thought. I mean, I'm as much a fan of the scientific method as the next well-educated dabbler, but I'm rendered irretrievably cranky by a guy touting the holy purity of his truth mechanisms when his argument basically boils down to, "the scientific method works! I've tested it! With the scientific method!" And never stops to wonder about his contextual determinants.
Actually, that would be more okay if I could discern a point. Sagan waxes on and on and on about why people come to believe they were abducted, why other people believe them, where such mass dilusions historically might come from. And it's written in this snotty, "now you see the error of your ways," tone when, you know, I sort of suspect the Weekly World News readership is not also snapping up this book. That, and Sagan was a much better astrochemist than a psychologist or historian.
Meh.
September 19, 2008
I miss Carl Sagan.
Ever since I was a kid, Carl Sagan has been the face of science for me. I would watch Cosmos and feel a sense of amazement that the universe was as wonderful as it was. He'd be there in his turtleneck and his blazer, smiling as though he'd just heard the coolest secret and he wanted to share it with you. And he did, except that it wasn't his secret. Hell, it wasn't a secret at all - it was the combined results of thousands of years of thoughts, deductions, mistakes, missteps, experiments, accidents and achievements. Whether he was talking about the orbits of the planets or the genetics of peas, you could feel an almost palpable sense of wonder coming from him. You'd listen to him and think, "Y'know, maybe we humans aren't too bad after all...."
Then the smile would fade, his eyes would get serious, and he would explain how, for all our achievements as a species, humans were still terribly fallible creatures. Our knowledge has, perhaps, outpaced our morals, and we are only a few simple steps away from losing everything that we've gained. Our mastery of nuclear technology could wipe out civilization in a day. Our carelessness with industry could do the same in a century. His earnestness was clear, as was his disappointment.
It was in this latter mood, perhaps, that he wrote this book. Simply by looking at the title, one can glean his attitude not only towards science, but towards the world around it. When he looks at the world, he sees a place filled with demons - not literally, of course - the demons of irrationality, superstition and an unfortunate willingness on the part of people to believe in things that just aren't so.
This book is about the advocacy of skepticism and critical thinking. In a world where people are obsessed with celebrity, where people trust their feelings over their observations, where rulers make decisions based on the predictions of astrologers, Sagan feels rather threatened.
I can certainly understand why.
It still angers me that now, in the 21st century, we are still arguing about evolution over creationism. It amazes me that newspapers even print horoscopes, to say nothing of the fact that there are people who take them seriously. It horrifies me that evil men are still able to use fear and superstition to convince people that they should kill in the name of God. And it saddens me that so many people have given control of their lives over to a deity rather than taking responsibility for it themselves.
Sagan's premise in this book is simple: knowledge is better than ignorance. Full stop. Whether it's witches, "intelligent design," UFO abduction or anything else, it is always better to find the truth rather than to rest comfortably in a lie. The truth is hard, yes, and it may feel better to stay wrapped up in our illusions, but no matter how comfortable they are, they're still illusions. Still lies.
He spends a lot of time on UFOs and abductees, actually, and uses that as a bridge into other areas of skeptical inquiry. This is because UFO abductees (and the legions of enablers who encourage them - psychologists, writers, newspapers, and conspiracy nuts) exhibit the same behavior that allows unreason to flourish: an unwillingness or inability to consider other options. Yes, the UFO explanation would be a romantic and weird one, but wanting something doesn't make it so. There is probably a reason why you saw things out your window, and that explanation is probably perfectly terrestrial.
Whether you're talking about UFOs, reiki, power crystals, witchcraft, tarot cards, channeling, telepathy, past lives, Indigo Children, psychic surgery, miracles, visitations by angels, demonic possession, the hollow Earth theory... The evidence just isn't there. As interesting and entertaining as a world containing such things would be, they're just not so.
Wouldn't it be better, Sagan asks, if we could all dismiss such things? If everyone could think critically about them, dismiss them, and turn their vast amount of energy and resources towards actually making the world better? If, instead of putting together high budget shows about ghosts and Bigfoot, networks made programs about scientific inquiry and achievement? Or perhaps a show about mysteries that science has solved? Instead of portraying scientists as either nerds or maniacs, why not show the scientists who are looking for ways to make safer materials, better medicines and more efficient cars? I suppose that the Discovery Channel has done a very nice job of trying to realize this dream, with shows like Mythbusters, and Penn & Teller strongly advocate critical thinking in their Showtime program Bullshit! But I reckon Sagan would want more.
This is where he does come across as something of a curmudgeon in this book. You get the feeling that if Old Man Sagan had his way, there'd be no X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Flintstones. Science fiction would all be something like Contact - nothing that isn't reasonably explainable by our current understanding of science. No evil robots or planet-busting Death Stars would survive such skeptical scrutiny. Indeed, you get the feeling that he would not only disapprove of those shows, he would definitely look down on those of us who do.
This is an attitude I've noticed a lot of in modern skeptics - a certain annoyance with fantasy and a rather condescending attitude towards those who haven't signed on to the skeptical view of the world. I am a regular listener of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, and I enjoy it - except when they turn on the arrogance when talking about people who believe in things like religious revelation, UFOs and the like. I can understand the attitude towards scammers - they deserve nothing but contempt - but there are people who take real comfort in their world view, regardless of how irrational it might be. Sagan addresses this as well in his book:
Sagan had a lifelong love of science and the wonders that scientists have performed. The world today, every part and parcel of it from that computer that you're reading this on to the fact that you didn't die before you were five years old, is attributable to the work of dedicated scientists trying to better understand the world. And that is the key message of this book: knowledge makes the world better. Science has performed wonders that aliens, witches and apparitions of the Virgin Mary have never been able to do.
A well-educated, rational populace is the greatest protection we have against tyranny, and it behooves every citizen to acquaint him or herself with the methods and principles that science uses. It is the greatest tool available to us if we want a better world. Yes, there will be missteps along the way, but the errors of science can - if we act out of clarity and reason - be repaired. Teach your children, encourage them to think critically about the world and no one will ever gain mastery over them. For an educated person is a free one. And if you can spread this kind of freedom, then perhaps Sagan can rest well.
Ever since I was a kid, Carl Sagan has been the face of science for me. I would watch Cosmos and feel a sense of amazement that the universe was as wonderful as it was. He'd be there in his turtleneck and his blazer, smiling as though he'd just heard the coolest secret and he wanted to share it with you. And he did, except that it wasn't his secret. Hell, it wasn't a secret at all - it was the combined results of thousands of years of thoughts, deductions, mistakes, missteps, experiments, accidents and achievements. Whether he was talking about the orbits of the planets or the genetics of peas, you could feel an almost palpable sense of wonder coming from him. You'd listen to him and think, "Y'know, maybe we humans aren't too bad after all...."
Then the smile would fade, his eyes would get serious, and he would explain how, for all our achievements as a species, humans were still terribly fallible creatures. Our knowledge has, perhaps, outpaced our morals, and we are only a few simple steps away from losing everything that we've gained. Our mastery of nuclear technology could wipe out civilization in a day. Our carelessness with industry could do the same in a century. His earnestness was clear, as was his disappointment.
It was in this latter mood, perhaps, that he wrote this book. Simply by looking at the title, one can glean his attitude not only towards science, but towards the world around it. When he looks at the world, he sees a place filled with demons - not literally, of course - the demons of irrationality, superstition and an unfortunate willingness on the part of people to believe in things that just aren't so.
This book is about the advocacy of skepticism and critical thinking. In a world where people are obsessed with celebrity, where people trust their feelings over their observations, where rulers make decisions based on the predictions of astrologers, Sagan feels rather threatened.
I can certainly understand why.
It still angers me that now, in the 21st century, we are still arguing about evolution over creationism. It amazes me that newspapers even print horoscopes, to say nothing of the fact that there are people who take them seriously. It horrifies me that evil men are still able to use fear and superstition to convince people that they should kill in the name of God. And it saddens me that so many people have given control of their lives over to a deity rather than taking responsibility for it themselves.
Sagan's premise in this book is simple: knowledge is better than ignorance. Full stop. Whether it's witches, "intelligent design," UFO abduction or anything else, it is always better to find the truth rather than to rest comfortably in a lie. The truth is hard, yes, and it may feel better to stay wrapped up in our illusions, but no matter how comfortable they are, they're still illusions. Still lies.
He spends a lot of time on UFOs and abductees, actually, and uses that as a bridge into other areas of skeptical inquiry. This is because UFO abductees (and the legions of enablers who encourage them - psychologists, writers, newspapers, and conspiracy nuts) exhibit the same behavior that allows unreason to flourish: an unwillingness or inability to consider other options. Yes, the UFO explanation would be a romantic and weird one, but wanting something doesn't make it so. There is probably a reason why you saw things out your window, and that explanation is probably perfectly terrestrial.
Whether you're talking about UFOs, reiki, power crystals, witchcraft, tarot cards, channeling, telepathy, past lives, Indigo Children, psychic surgery, miracles, visitations by angels, demonic possession, the hollow Earth theory... The evidence just isn't there. As interesting and entertaining as a world containing such things would be, they're just not so.
Wouldn't it be better, Sagan asks, if we could all dismiss such things? If everyone could think critically about them, dismiss them, and turn their vast amount of energy and resources towards actually making the world better? If, instead of putting together high budget shows about ghosts and Bigfoot, networks made programs about scientific inquiry and achievement? Or perhaps a show about mysteries that science has solved? Instead of portraying scientists as either nerds or maniacs, why not show the scientists who are looking for ways to make safer materials, better medicines and more efficient cars? I suppose that the Discovery Channel has done a very nice job of trying to realize this dream, with shows like Mythbusters, and Penn & Teller strongly advocate critical thinking in their Showtime program Bullshit! But I reckon Sagan would want more.
This is where he does come across as something of a curmudgeon in this book. You get the feeling that if Old Man Sagan had his way, there'd be no X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Flintstones. Science fiction would all be something like Contact - nothing that isn't reasonably explainable by our current understanding of science. No evil robots or planet-busting Death Stars would survive such skeptical scrutiny. Indeed, you get the feeling that he would not only disapprove of those shows, he would definitely look down on those of us who do.
This is an attitude I've noticed a lot of in modern skeptics - a certain annoyance with fantasy and a rather condescending attitude towards those who haven't signed on to the skeptical view of the world. I am a regular listener of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, and I enjoy it - except when they turn on the arrogance when talking about people who believe in things like religious revelation, UFOs and the like. I can understand the attitude towards scammers - they deserve nothing but contempt - but there are people who take real comfort in their world view, regardless of how irrational it might be. Sagan addresses this as well in his book:
"All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based - or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug - it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault."He goes on later to say:
"In the way that skepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many ways consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped."So in other words, even if you know a lot, don't be a know-it-all.
Sagan had a lifelong love of science and the wonders that scientists have performed. The world today, every part and parcel of it from that computer that you're reading this on to the fact that you didn't die before you were five years old, is attributable to the work of dedicated scientists trying to better understand the world. And that is the key message of this book: knowledge makes the world better. Science has performed wonders that aliens, witches and apparitions of the Virgin Mary have never been able to do.
A well-educated, rational populace is the greatest protection we have against tyranny, and it behooves every citizen to acquaint him or herself with the methods and principles that science uses. It is the greatest tool available to us if we want a better world. Yes, there will be missteps along the way, but the errors of science can - if we act out of clarity and reason - be repaired. Teach your children, encourage them to think critically about the world and no one will ever gain mastery over them. For an educated person is a free one. And if you can spread this kind of freedom, then perhaps Sagan can rest well.
December 22, 2024
This is a very important book to me. The book which did more grunt work than any other to transform me from a soft headed, uncritical thinker, into a savage, evidence seeking, joy murdering empiricist. So I’m going to avoid sullying it with the vulgarity which has come to define my common rhetorical flourishes. There will be no meandering. Understand? No digressions. I will not stoop so low as to flank grammarian inquisitors with rapidfire similes in order to escape their censure. I will definitely not flee from them while they’re entangled in melee. Gleefully cackling: “Not a finger, you bastards! Not a finger!” And I will avoid, in the realm of conceivable valuations, launching into this thing with my usual obscurantist terrorism vanguarded by logorrheic hypotheticals in which scenarios are so implausibly rendered that Alex Jones would express such severe incredulity that he would dab deep veins of moisture from the creased-confusion of his red, sweat lacquered forehead, stare at his handkerchief while muttering, "A Götterdämmerung.... battle..." As his lips continue to move as if aerating a modest dollop of vanilla ice cream freshly ladelled into his face-pit by a golden spooneroonie (and here I am tempted, for reasons that aren't clear to me, to shout; "BOOKER T DON'T NEVER CHEAT!) (phonetically: THUPTHUPTHUPTHUPTHUPTHUPTHUP) Like the original OG supertaster of sweet frozen treats, (John Harrison), whose buds are said to be so fine-tuned that he can taste the difference between 12-percent and 11.5 percent butterfat across an eschatological range of flavors, that, after being chemically pilfered by a train of ten thousand gustatory savants, are unceremoniously expelled from his hork-port, (John alleges that he has never swallowed), to phase transition like the pasteurized jism of an exploded sperm bank inside a Baskin-Robbins. "That's a ten." [Smiles at the camera.]
That being said - Have you ever? Just, have you? Sorry.
Are you desperately seeking a guide to shoring up your intellectual defenses in the face of specious polemics, political/religious/corporate/sherbet flavors of pseudo-science, flat-earthers, no-spacers, crystal healers, porkchop mystics, wererats, painfully uninteresting bilaterally symmetrical alien life forms with oversized heads, radium in your toothpaste, alternative facts, chemtrails, cryptozoologists in Thundercats cosplay, horse sized ducks, Ms. Cleo, spoon fetishists, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Tom Cruise, 8 minute abs, the Bermuda Triangle, Area 51, Astrology, ESP, duck sized horses, and the regression of human civilization back into the dark ages? Well hold on to your torpedo titties like Traci Lords and bray like a donkey, because I've hole-and-cornered your copy of this book by gluing the pages together with amyl nitrates, and you and Daddy Sagan are going to have a fantastic time prying it open.
Have you ever, while attempting to navigate the world with no pharmaceutical intervention whatsoever, found yourself engaged in debate with someone harboring a dogmatic belief in the moon being made out of cheese? Did you first interpret this as a good natured ploy to wind you up, only to have your nervous laughter give way to scalp-incinerating frustration? Did the ablative coating on your synaptic marbles flake away as the contorted death mask of your shrieking incredulity painted a line of fire across the sky, plowing face first through a frictional sea of molecular stupidity, only to explode over Tunguska in inarticulate rage?
This book is about the power of scientific reasoning and the need for skepticism. This book is about not being a sucker. About not being a mark. About not being a damned fool. And, trust me, (if not me, trust your boy Sagan), you are the easiest person to fool. It requires systematic training and constant vigilance to overcome the cognitive bias that resides deep in your source code. All of us are prone to rely on heuristics of thought. Cognitive shorthands. Intuitions which crystallized out of daily survival routines on the African Savanna. Useful in their respective contexts. Applicable to situations of limited scope. Disastrous when applied to the complex societal problems of a technologically advanced civilization. If there’s any flaw in the system deserving of our individual and collective attention, it is devising better pedagogical correctives to our indolent methods of cognition. Ways to expand our empathy beyond its archaic, parochial boundaries. Ways to defuse ancient sectarian violence. Ways to evaluate policies to better navigate imminent environmental catastrophes. Ways to ameliorate suffering in all its varied forms. Ways to distribute ourselves across the galaxy, so that our species may survive a range of extinction events. Science, and the technological offspring it has produced, can only be stewarded by a population that understands, at least in broad strokes, the ramifications of its ideas, and the system of thought responsible for producing, critiquing, and improving them.
Yet, as Sagan lamented in this book, the institutions have failed to promote and make palatable these concepts of vital importance. They failed in Sagan’s time, and they have failed more spectacularly in our own.
“How can we affect national policy - or even make intelligent decisions in our own lives - if we don’t grasp the underlying issues? As I write, Congress is dissolving its own Office of Technology Assessment - the only organization specifically tasked to provide advice to the House and Senate on science and technology. Its competence and integrity over the years have been exemplary. Of the 535 members of the US Congress, rarely in the twentieth century have as many as one per cent had any significant background in science. The last scientifically literate President may have been Thomas Jefferson.”
This book was written in 1995. It’s sobering to think of how that passage might differ today. How much more desperate it would seem if addressing the bombastic buffoonery of public discourse in America. Our denigration of truth in favor of vacuous memes. Our hunger for scandalous political pit fights and our spurning of substantive debate. The constant appearance of echo chambers in an age of democratized information. There’s a lot in this book to help one take up arms against a sea of irrationality, but it’s hard to imagine it having any appeal to someone who isn’t already interested in issues of this kind. And that’s the rub.
Carl Sagan was an astrophysicist, a humanist, and a tireless champion for better education. He ignited curiosity in me, and many others, with the series Cosmos. My stars and garters, I sure do miss him. Let’s go out with an ominous bit from the book, and hope that its prophetic force does not fully manifest, before we get our shit together.
“Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves. I worry that, especially as the millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”
That being said - Have you ever? Just, have you? Sorry.
Are you desperately seeking a guide to shoring up your intellectual defenses in the face of specious polemics, political/religious/corporate/sherbet flavors of pseudo-science, flat-earthers, no-spacers, crystal healers, porkchop mystics, wererats, painfully uninteresting bilaterally symmetrical alien life forms with oversized heads, radium in your toothpaste, alternative facts, chemtrails, cryptozoologists in Thundercats cosplay, horse sized ducks, Ms. Cleo, spoon fetishists, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Tom Cruise, 8 minute abs, the Bermuda Triangle, Area 51, Astrology, ESP, duck sized horses, and the regression of human civilization back into the dark ages? Well hold on to your torpedo titties like Traci Lords and bray like a donkey, because I've hole-and-cornered your copy of this book by gluing the pages together with amyl nitrates, and you and Daddy Sagan are going to have a fantastic time prying it open.
Have you ever, while attempting to navigate the world with no pharmaceutical intervention whatsoever, found yourself engaged in debate with someone harboring a dogmatic belief in the moon being made out of cheese? Did you first interpret this as a good natured ploy to wind you up, only to have your nervous laughter give way to scalp-incinerating frustration? Did the ablative coating on your synaptic marbles flake away as the contorted death mask of your shrieking incredulity painted a line of fire across the sky, plowing face first through a frictional sea of molecular stupidity, only to explode over Tunguska in inarticulate rage?
This book is about the power of scientific reasoning and the need for skepticism. This book is about not being a sucker. About not being a mark. About not being a damned fool. And, trust me, (if not me, trust your boy Sagan), you are the easiest person to fool. It requires systematic training and constant vigilance to overcome the cognitive bias that resides deep in your source code. All of us are prone to rely on heuristics of thought. Cognitive shorthands. Intuitions which crystallized out of daily survival routines on the African Savanna. Useful in their respective contexts. Applicable to situations of limited scope. Disastrous when applied to the complex societal problems of a technologically advanced civilization. If there’s any flaw in the system deserving of our individual and collective attention, it is devising better pedagogical correctives to our indolent methods of cognition. Ways to expand our empathy beyond its archaic, parochial boundaries. Ways to defuse ancient sectarian violence. Ways to evaluate policies to better navigate imminent environmental catastrophes. Ways to ameliorate suffering in all its varied forms. Ways to distribute ourselves across the galaxy, so that our species may survive a range of extinction events. Science, and the technological offspring it has produced, can only be stewarded by a population that understands, at least in broad strokes, the ramifications of its ideas, and the system of thought responsible for producing, critiquing, and improving them.
Yet, as Sagan lamented in this book, the institutions have failed to promote and make palatable these concepts of vital importance. They failed in Sagan’s time, and they have failed more spectacularly in our own.
“How can we affect national policy - or even make intelligent decisions in our own lives - if we don’t grasp the underlying issues? As I write, Congress is dissolving its own Office of Technology Assessment - the only organization specifically tasked to provide advice to the House and Senate on science and technology. Its competence and integrity over the years have been exemplary. Of the 535 members of the US Congress, rarely in the twentieth century have as many as one per cent had any significant background in science. The last scientifically literate President may have been Thomas Jefferson.”
This book was written in 1995. It’s sobering to think of how that passage might differ today. How much more desperate it would seem if addressing the bombastic buffoonery of public discourse in America. Our denigration of truth in favor of vacuous memes. Our hunger for scandalous political pit fights and our spurning of substantive debate. The constant appearance of echo chambers in an age of democratized information. There’s a lot in this book to help one take up arms against a sea of irrationality, but it’s hard to imagine it having any appeal to someone who isn’t already interested in issues of this kind. And that’s the rub.
Carl Sagan was an astrophysicist, a humanist, and a tireless champion for better education. He ignited curiosity in me, and many others, with the series Cosmos. My stars and garters, I sure do miss him. Let’s go out with an ominous bit from the book, and hope that its prophetic force does not fully manifest, before we get our shit together.
“Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves. I worry that, especially as the millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”
August 28, 2020
The Demon-Haunted World is the 4th Carl Sagan (1934-1996) book that I've read. There is no doubt this astronomer can write. Sagan with this book has shifted from his usual topic of astronomy and astrophysics to lecturing the reader against pseudoscience, superstition, and some theological teachings.
Sagan successfully debunks the pseudoscience beliefs, such as ufology, with well presented arguments (sometimes over-elaborated) as these observers or believers never demonstrate clear evidence for their extraterrestrial visitors or abductors. Sagan advises that skepticism that is usually not taught in schools should be applied when hearing such stories.
Some people that suffer from hallucinations or are prone to deceit convince themselves they saw human like faces, temples, and religious symbols in the sky, on the moon, or on other planets. In fact they are consciously or subconsciously searching for physical evidence and "signs" to support their beliefs or are gullible enough to believe (or this is a result of their illness) in the existence of a supernatural event. At times like these our rationality should takeover to distinguish truth from falsity. We have to be aware of our human fallibility, therefore, when witnessing and hearing about such occurrences we should employ a constructive evaluation of that event.
We are advised to think scientifically, following the scientific method, and to only believe in verified science data confirmed by experiments. Along with that we must not lose our capacity for critical thinking. Sagan recommends using his baloney detection kit to expose the falseness of such ideas and beliefs.
The book does not clearly introduce what this scientific doctrine or manifesto would look like or should one exist at all? Also, science and occasionally some morally ambiguous scientist do not have the best reputation. For many of us it is not clear if some scientific achievements, such as the process and development of nuclear weapons, are more of a benefit or danger to our society and existence? On the other hand, for many of us it would be difficult to find consolation and purpose in this atheistic sounding universe.
The last quarter of the book discusses, in a rather displeasing and concerning tone, the US education system and the lack of funding for science and research projects which gave a political connotation to these last couple of chapters. All in all, this book is written for the general reader and I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about pseudoscience.
Sagan's love for science is clear and this book is more like his personal statement. I have to say I agree with his arguments. On the other hand, it's perhaps our ability of imagination and fantasizing, not critical and rational thinking, what intellectually separates us from other living beings? Which in return could be an essential capability behind human scientific achievements. Therefore, pseudoscience could be viewed as an expected side effect of science. Perhaps, you can't have one without the other.
Sagan successfully debunks the pseudoscience beliefs, such as ufology, with well presented arguments (sometimes over-elaborated) as these observers or believers never demonstrate clear evidence for their extraterrestrial visitors or abductors. Sagan advises that skepticism that is usually not taught in schools should be applied when hearing such stories.
Some people that suffer from hallucinations or are prone to deceit convince themselves they saw human like faces, temples, and religious symbols in the sky, on the moon, or on other planets. In fact they are consciously or subconsciously searching for physical evidence and "signs" to support their beliefs or are gullible enough to believe (or this is a result of their illness) in the existence of a supernatural event. At times like these our rationality should takeover to distinguish truth from falsity. We have to be aware of our human fallibility, therefore, when witnessing and hearing about such occurrences we should employ a constructive evaluation of that event.
We are advised to think scientifically, following the scientific method, and to only believe in verified science data confirmed by experiments. Along with that we must not lose our capacity for critical thinking. Sagan recommends using his baloney detection kit to expose the falseness of such ideas and beliefs.
The book does not clearly introduce what this scientific doctrine or manifesto would look like or should one exist at all? Also, science and occasionally some morally ambiguous scientist do not have the best reputation. For many of us it is not clear if some scientific achievements, such as the process and development of nuclear weapons, are more of a benefit or danger to our society and existence? On the other hand, for many of us it would be difficult to find consolation and purpose in this atheistic sounding universe.
The last quarter of the book discusses, in a rather displeasing and concerning tone, the US education system and the lack of funding for science and research projects which gave a political connotation to these last couple of chapters. All in all, this book is written for the general reader and I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about pseudoscience.
Sagan's love for science is clear and this book is more like his personal statement. I have to say I agree with his arguments. On the other hand, it's perhaps our ability of imagination and fantasizing, not critical and rational thinking, what intellectually separates us from other living beings? Which in return could be an essential capability behind human scientific achievements. Therefore, pseudoscience could be viewed as an expected side effect of science. Perhaps, you can't have one without the other.
May 3, 2014
This is a marvelous book about the consequences of a population being scientifically illiterate. There are numerous consequences, all of them bad. Most notably, the growth of superstitious beliefs can lead to terrifying witch hunts that grow and grow, leaving a broad trail of torture, execution, mass hysteria and paranoia. Interestingly, Carl Sagan holds up science and democracy as mutually supporting concepts. He cites Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson as examples of literacy, and science literacy in particular, for supporting democracy. This concept is developed further by Timothy Ferris' excellent book, The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature.
Sagan spends a lot of time explaining the reported sightings of UFO's and aliens. I particularly enjoyed this passage: "Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in 'contact' with extraterrestrials. I am invited to 'ask them anytheng.' And so over the years I've prepared a little list of questions. The extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So I ask things like, 'Please provide a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.' ... I never get an answer. On the other hand, if I ask something like 'Should we be good?' I almost always get an answer."
Sagan also quotes many of the letters that he received, some hilarious, and others quite sad. For example, a tenth-grader wrote, "Our society is doing just fine with what discoveries we are making. It's going slowly, but the cure for cancer is coming right along." A parent wrote, "The problem in science education is that God isn't sufficently honored." Concerning UFO's, "I'm going to lobby my Representative to try to cancel funds for this program of listening for alien signals from space, because it would be a waste of money. They're already among us."
Sagan has some interesting approaches for making science more interesting. He claims that since many kids are interested in sports, there is a wealth of science concepts to teach related to sports. Probability, winning streaks, ballistics, angular momentum, and center of mass are all useful concepts.
Even though this book was published eighteen years ago, it is just as relevant today, as when it was written. In fact, the growth of pseudo-science is still rampant, and scary (thinking about anti-vaccine campaigns, climate-change deniers, exorcism, astrology, ESP, and anti-environmentalism.) Sagan is famous for "popularizing" science, but he writes that it isn't an easy task. For example, a deep understanding of quantum mechanics really does require about 15 years of study of mathematics and physics, and quantum theory is "so resolutely counterintuitive." But an esoteric religion may require a similar degree of study before acquiring a deep understanding. So, how are religions any different from quantum mechanics, when they are both equally mysterious? The first difference, Sagan explains, is that quantum theory works; it makes extremely accurate predictions that can be observed and measured. The second difference, is that religions are "infallible" and rely on faith, while science advances and relies on experience--it never stands still.
Sagan spends a lot of time explaining the reported sightings of UFO's and aliens. I particularly enjoyed this passage: "Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in 'contact' with extraterrestrials. I am invited to 'ask them anytheng.' And so over the years I've prepared a little list of questions. The extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So I ask things like, 'Please provide a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.' ... I never get an answer. On the other hand, if I ask something like 'Should we be good?' I almost always get an answer."
Sagan also quotes many of the letters that he received, some hilarious, and others quite sad. For example, a tenth-grader wrote, "Our society is doing just fine with what discoveries we are making. It's going slowly, but the cure for cancer is coming right along." A parent wrote, "The problem in science education is that God isn't sufficently honored." Concerning UFO's, "I'm going to lobby my Representative to try to cancel funds for this program of listening for alien signals from space, because it would be a waste of money. They're already among us."
Sagan has some interesting approaches for making science more interesting. He claims that since many kids are interested in sports, there is a wealth of science concepts to teach related to sports. Probability, winning streaks, ballistics, angular momentum, and center of mass are all useful concepts.
Even though this book was published eighteen years ago, it is just as relevant today, as when it was written. In fact, the growth of pseudo-science is still rampant, and scary (thinking about anti-vaccine campaigns, climate-change deniers, exorcism, astrology, ESP, and anti-environmentalism.) Sagan is famous for "popularizing" science, but he writes that it isn't an easy task. For example, a deep understanding of quantum mechanics really does require about 15 years of study of mathematics and physics, and quantum theory is "so resolutely counterintuitive." But an esoteric religion may require a similar degree of study before acquiring a deep understanding. So, how are religions any different from quantum mechanics, when they are both equally mysterious? The first difference, Sagan explains, is that quantum theory works; it makes extremely accurate predictions that can be observed and measured. The second difference, is that religions are "infallible" and rely on faith, while science advances and relies on experience--it never stands still.
December 8, 2007
Sagan has been a hero of mine since I saw Cosmos years and years ago. Now that was one of the truly great science documentaries and one that, on the subject of physics, has rarely been bettered.
This is a supurb book. Many people say things like, "I've no idea how people without a belief in the supernatural can bare to live in this world". Well, Sagan gives a powerful answer here.
Sagan understood the infinite joy that comes from understanding something about the world - something that is real. He feared for our future, particularly in a modern world brimming with nuclear weapons when so many people know nothing at all about science.
In this sense Sagan turns the standard argument on its head, rather than faith based beliefs offering comfort, they actually present a series of demons and therefore make your life a much more frightening place than it would have been if you had just confronted reality in the first place.
In a world overflowing with pseudo-science and new age madness Sagan offers a candle in the dark - and one that doesn't require you to dance around naked while chanting to the moon goddess. Well, unless you really want to.
This is a supurb book. Many people say things like, "I've no idea how people without a belief in the supernatural can bare to live in this world". Well, Sagan gives a powerful answer here.
Sagan understood the infinite joy that comes from understanding something about the world - something that is real. He feared for our future, particularly in a modern world brimming with nuclear weapons when so many people know nothing at all about science.
In this sense Sagan turns the standard argument on its head, rather than faith based beliefs offering comfort, they actually present a series of demons and therefore make your life a much more frightening place than it would have been if you had just confronted reality in the first place.
In a world overflowing with pseudo-science and new age madness Sagan offers a candle in the dark - and one that doesn't require you to dance around naked while chanting to the moon goddess. Well, unless you really want to.
April 4, 2012
Full disclosure here, I did not finish this book; I made the decision to stop reading it after around 100 pages. I kept expecting the science to start at any page, but I got tired of reading accusations that the Weekly World News and Beavis and Butt-Head are sources of ignorance and misunderstanding. I won't argue that either of these are intellectual, but at best these are forms of entertainment and that is largely a product of taste, not intellect. I couldn't risk wasting my time reading another 100 pages of more of the same.
The last time I thought that WWN might be reporting real news I was maybe 11 (although I did buy their Saddam and Bin Laden wedding spectacular issue, but only for the pictures). If an adult thinks that stories in the paper are real, their problems will not be solved by not having access to WWN. If he had instead criticized the Discovery Channel for their UFO coverage he'd have a point. They are at least giving a pretense of showing knowledge-based programming. As it stands it's like citing The Colbert Report as a source of vile right wing hate. It completely misses the point.
As for Beavis and Butt-Head, sure it is stupid humor, but just because it is not Sagan's brand of humor doesn't mean that watching it causes stupidity (and merely accusing it of causing stupidity is a pretty unscientific method of demonstration). Not only does Sagan admit that he has never even watched the show, but he does so proudly. This strikes me as an arrogant attempt at justifying his own taste as a sign of mental superiority while cutting down other tastes. Mike Judge's subsequent works have even been quite clever. Sagan might have even enjoyed Idiocracy and considered it a poignant criticism of the very dumbing down of society that his book is supposed to be about.
Sagan was a big marijuana advocate and as such marijuana is absent from his list of criticisms. I am not saying that it causes dumbing down, there certainly are smart people who use it responsibly, but there is also a common stereotype associated with it (I think most of us know more of the stereotype pothead than the intellectual type). I am surprised Sagan was not able to look at his own experiences with this past-time and how they differ from the stereotypes and apply that to other issues.
If this book had dived right into scientific examinations of ghosts and UFOs I would have absolutely finished it. 100 pages may not have been the whole book, but it was far too many pages dedicated to something that was not "Science as a candle in the demon haunted world" for my taste.
The last time I thought that WWN might be reporting real news I was maybe 11 (although I did buy their Saddam and Bin Laden wedding spectacular issue, but only for the pictures). If an adult thinks that stories in the paper are real, their problems will not be solved by not having access to WWN. If he had instead criticized the Discovery Channel for their UFO coverage he'd have a point. They are at least giving a pretense of showing knowledge-based programming. As it stands it's like citing The Colbert Report as a source of vile right wing hate. It completely misses the point.
As for Beavis and Butt-Head, sure it is stupid humor, but just because it is not Sagan's brand of humor doesn't mean that watching it causes stupidity (and merely accusing it of causing stupidity is a pretty unscientific method of demonstration). Not only does Sagan admit that he has never even watched the show, but he does so proudly. This strikes me as an arrogant attempt at justifying his own taste as a sign of mental superiority while cutting down other tastes. Mike Judge's subsequent works have even been quite clever. Sagan might have even enjoyed Idiocracy and considered it a poignant criticism of the very dumbing down of society that his book is supposed to be about.
Sagan was a big marijuana advocate and as such marijuana is absent from his list of criticisms. I am not saying that it causes dumbing down, there certainly are smart people who use it responsibly, but there is also a common stereotype associated with it (I think most of us know more of the stereotype pothead than the intellectual type). I am surprised Sagan was not able to look at his own experiences with this past-time and how they differ from the stereotypes and apply that to other issues.
If this book had dived right into scientific examinations of ghosts and UFOs I would have absolutely finished it. 100 pages may not have been the whole book, but it was far too many pages dedicated to something that was not "Science as a candle in the demon haunted world" for my taste.
November 17, 2018
This is a wonderful, important and scary book that has not aged much at all. I was made aware of its existence in a rather unconventional way: through a video game called The Witness.
In The Witness, you explore an unreal and mysterious island, solving maze puzzles that gets more and more complex as you go along. Scattered around the island you'll find audio logs containing quotes on science and religions from around the world and across time, and these sometimes gives you abstract hints on how to solve the puzzles. If you dig deep enough into this game you might discover an area containing audio logs were the creators of the island talk about the purpose of the island and discuss the choice of content for the other, easier to find, audio logs. And this is where I first heard about Demon-Haunted World and Sagan:
So next I want to present this problem. Which is that I don't think we have enough smart representation of materialist atheists, physicalists, anything in that neighborhood of ideas. And I've been trying to do something about that, but it's hard. The problem is that most coherent atheist screeds are focused on defeating some specific idea of God or are angry about the historical activities of organized religions - rather than say, from first principles making a good case for the impossibility of any concept of God, which would be more like what we are after.
[...]
there is a large contingent for present day real scientists who believe in some form of atheist materialism and whose beliefs have been carefully considered. So we need to ensure that we respect that viewpoint.
[...]
Carl Sagan has a good piece in, umm, Demon-Haunted World?, where he talks about science as a profound source of spirituality. But he doesn't mean mystical spirituality, he means ... this pure dedication to truth, and the development of a wise perspective on our place in the world. It's nice. And it's a picture of atheism that isn't hostile or contemptuous.
The quotes above describes Sagan's project very well. He tries very hard not to just make fun of weird things people believe in, but to discuss them properly. That includes looking into how the human mind works, and he underlines the importance of understanding that our perception of the world around us is highly subjective, that evolution has shaped us to be afraid of the dark and of the unknown, and how our brains are hardwired to see faces and meaningful patters everywhere - whether they are there or not. Astrology is just one example:
No stuffy dismissal by a gaggle of scientists makes contact with the social needs that astrology - no matter how invalid it is - addresses, and science does not.
It's completely understandable that most of us wants our lives and our place in the world to be important somehow - that our existence is not mere chance, that is has meaning. In addition to that, religion promises an afterlife - which obliterates the consequences of death. We want to believe in something, not only because many of us are raised religious, but also because facing the world as an atheist is difficult. Many of us passionately prefer to be the personal handicraft of God than to arise by blind physical and chemical forces over aeons from slime. But we can't believe in something just because it makes us feel good, safe, comfortable or entitled.
In this context, science is a system that can help us navigate the world, and understand when we are (probably) right and when we are (probably) wrong:
As I've tried to stress, at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.
One of the reasons for its success is that science has built-in, error correcting machinery at its very heart.
With this mindset, Sagan approaches and dissects some of the myths of our time, with a main focus on alien abduction stories, crop circles, and astrology, and he does it very convincingly. By drawing lines back to the Inquisition witch hunts, and other stories from the past that turns out to have a lot in common with alien abduction stories, he shows us the fallacies of both (the book also contains a baloney-detection kit, by the way). Sagan also scrutinizes several examples of how therapists and the legal system sometimes fail because they don't apply a scientific mindset or understand the research available to them.
I really enjoyed all the psychology and anthropology in Demon-Haunted World, these are fields of study I find utterly fascinating. Sagan shows us how, and under what circumstances, science and technology can be developed - and what has historically prevented or hindered this from happening (not all societies are equally suited). And in doing so, he also enters into the political sphere. This, more than anything else, ensures that this book is still relevant today.
Sagan investigates moral issues within science, how it can be both dangerous and arrogant, as well as the shortcomings of the U.S. educational system and the dangers this pose. This constitutes the scary part of the book. A well educated public and a free press that wants more than just to make money on entertainment, is paramount to preventing a democracy from degenerating into totalitarianism. If power corrupts - and it does - we need other forces to keep our leaders in check. The poorer quality of education people have, the less they can contribute to maintaining free democracies.
Demon-Haunted World left me with the feeling that science is a very fragile field, at the mercy of much bigger forces in society that might topple or corrupt it. The book is extremely informative, but most of all it works as a warning. We consider ourselves to be enlightened, civilized people, safe in our modern world. Sagan shows us that that's not necessarily true, and that the world moving forward is not something automatic or matter of course.
What I loved the most about this book was the broad strokes. Sagan shown us the place of science and critical thinking in history, what shapes it, was hinders it - on a very large scale. This gives us a much deeper insight than if he had focused on a narrower field.
In The Witness, you explore an unreal and mysterious island, solving maze puzzles that gets more and more complex as you go along. Scattered around the island you'll find audio logs containing quotes on science and religions from around the world and across time, and these sometimes gives you abstract hints on how to solve the puzzles. If you dig deep enough into this game you might discover an area containing audio logs were the creators of the island talk about the purpose of the island and discuss the choice of content for the other, easier to find, audio logs. And this is where I first heard about Demon-Haunted World and Sagan:
So next I want to present this problem. Which is that I don't think we have enough smart representation of materialist atheists, physicalists, anything in that neighborhood of ideas. And I've been trying to do something about that, but it's hard. The problem is that most coherent atheist screeds are focused on defeating some specific idea of God or are angry about the historical activities of organized religions - rather than say, from first principles making a good case for the impossibility of any concept of God, which would be more like what we are after.
[...]
there is a large contingent for present day real scientists who believe in some form of atheist materialism and whose beliefs have been carefully considered. So we need to ensure that we respect that viewpoint.
[...]
Carl Sagan has a good piece in, umm, Demon-Haunted World?, where he talks about science as a profound source of spirituality. But he doesn't mean mystical spirituality, he means ... this pure dedication to truth, and the development of a wise perspective on our place in the world. It's nice. And it's a picture of atheism that isn't hostile or contemptuous.
The quotes above describes Sagan's project very well. He tries very hard not to just make fun of weird things people believe in, but to discuss them properly. That includes looking into how the human mind works, and he underlines the importance of understanding that our perception of the world around us is highly subjective, that evolution has shaped us to be afraid of the dark and of the unknown, and how our brains are hardwired to see faces and meaningful patters everywhere - whether they are there or not. Astrology is just one example:
No stuffy dismissal by a gaggle of scientists makes contact with the social needs that astrology - no matter how invalid it is - addresses, and science does not.
It's completely understandable that most of us wants our lives and our place in the world to be important somehow - that our existence is not mere chance, that is has meaning. In addition to that, religion promises an afterlife - which obliterates the consequences of death. We want to believe in something, not only because many of us are raised religious, but also because facing the world as an atheist is difficult. Many of us passionately prefer to be the personal handicraft of God than to arise by blind physical and chemical forces over aeons from slime. But we can't believe in something just because it makes us feel good, safe, comfortable or entitled.
In this context, science is a system that can help us navigate the world, and understand when we are (probably) right and when we are (probably) wrong:
As I've tried to stress, at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.
One of the reasons for its success is that science has built-in, error correcting machinery at its very heart.
With this mindset, Sagan approaches and dissects some of the myths of our time, with a main focus on alien abduction stories, crop circles, and astrology, and he does it very convincingly. By drawing lines back to the Inquisition witch hunts, and other stories from the past that turns out to have a lot in common with alien abduction stories, he shows us the fallacies of both (the book also contains a baloney-detection kit, by the way). Sagan also scrutinizes several examples of how therapists and the legal system sometimes fail because they don't apply a scientific mindset or understand the research available to them.
I really enjoyed all the psychology and anthropology in Demon-Haunted World, these are fields of study I find utterly fascinating. Sagan shows us how, and under what circumstances, science and technology can be developed - and what has historically prevented or hindered this from happening (not all societies are equally suited). And in doing so, he also enters into the political sphere. This, more than anything else, ensures that this book is still relevant today.
Sagan investigates moral issues within science, how it can be both dangerous and arrogant, as well as the shortcomings of the U.S. educational system and the dangers this pose. This constitutes the scary part of the book. A well educated public and a free press that wants more than just to make money on entertainment, is paramount to preventing a democracy from degenerating into totalitarianism. If power corrupts - and it does - we need other forces to keep our leaders in check. The poorer quality of education people have, the less they can contribute to maintaining free democracies.
Demon-Haunted World left me with the feeling that science is a very fragile field, at the mercy of much bigger forces in society that might topple or corrupt it. The book is extremely informative, but most of all it works as a warning. We consider ourselves to be enlightened, civilized people, safe in our modern world. Sagan shows us that that's not necessarily true, and that the world moving forward is not something automatic or matter of course.
What I loved the most about this book was the broad strokes. Sagan shown us the place of science and critical thinking in history, what shapes it, was hinders it - on a very large scale. This gives us a much deeper insight than if he had focused on a narrower field.
December 6, 2011
If Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion is a nuclear bomb in the atheist arsenal, Carl Sagan's The Demon-haunted World is an anti-personnel mine.
Where Dawkins goes for maximum destruction, piling the misery and mockery on those he's battling, Sagan doesn't even acknowledge his enemy. The Demon-haunted World poses, instead (and very effectively), as a book in defense of skepticism, a book persuading the unskeptical to embrace reason in the form of open-mindedness, the pursuit of evidence, and a thirst for asking questions of everything.
To this end, Sagan takes on some of his favourite topics -- witch burning, demonic possession, science illiteracy, repressed memories, psychology, parapsychology, superstitions, UFOs and alien encounters -- and pokes at them with his skeptical stick to show us how a good skeptic (or good scientist) gets to the heart of an issue. He offers lessons in detecting fallacy (or "baloney," to use Sagan's technical term) and how to avoid it in our own arguments. He make a case for the importance of being skeptical of ourselves, our leaders, and our most cherished beliefs.
And underneath it all is a carefully mounted attack on theism. Sagan avoids detonating his explosives himself. He piles the dirt and camouflage on his landmine, hiding it with the skill of an old campaigner. He offers supposedly clear paths through the field, hoping that more than one will unwittingly trip the explosives and blow their belief systems to pieces.
I wonder, though, if Sagan's plan is too subtle to really make a difference. I wonder if Dawkins' preference for arguments of mass destruction is more effective. I felt like a sapper in Sagan's minefield. Aware or the landmines, appreciating their design, loving the patterns in which they were laid, but certain that most of Sagan's targeted personnel would simply wander through the field, unscathed, beneficiaries of their own dumb luck.
Whether Sagan's weapons have taken any theist casualities or not, it is a wonderful book about skepticism. A wonderful reminder to be ever vigilant. A book I can't wait to pass on to my children.
But it also made me just a little sad. I wish he'd been around when the Patriot Act was drafted. His voice would have been an important voice of dissent, and perhaps the USA wouldn't be as deep in the shit as they are.
Where Dawkins goes for maximum destruction, piling the misery and mockery on those he's battling, Sagan doesn't even acknowledge his enemy. The Demon-haunted World poses, instead (and very effectively), as a book in defense of skepticism, a book persuading the unskeptical to embrace reason in the form of open-mindedness, the pursuit of evidence, and a thirst for asking questions of everything.
To this end, Sagan takes on some of his favourite topics -- witch burning, demonic possession, science illiteracy, repressed memories, psychology, parapsychology, superstitions, UFOs and alien encounters -- and pokes at them with his skeptical stick to show us how a good skeptic (or good scientist) gets to the heart of an issue. He offers lessons in detecting fallacy (or "baloney," to use Sagan's technical term) and how to avoid it in our own arguments. He make a case for the importance of being skeptical of ourselves, our leaders, and our most cherished beliefs.
And underneath it all is a carefully mounted attack on theism. Sagan avoids detonating his explosives himself. He piles the dirt and camouflage on his landmine, hiding it with the skill of an old campaigner. He offers supposedly clear paths through the field, hoping that more than one will unwittingly trip the explosives and blow their belief systems to pieces.
I wonder, though, if Sagan's plan is too subtle to really make a difference. I wonder if Dawkins' preference for arguments of mass destruction is more effective. I felt like a sapper in Sagan's minefield. Aware or the landmines, appreciating their design, loving the patterns in which they were laid, but certain that most of Sagan's targeted personnel would simply wander through the field, unscathed, beneficiaries of their own dumb luck.
Whether Sagan's weapons have taken any theist casualities or not, it is a wonderful book about skepticism. A wonderful reminder to be ever vigilant. A book I can't wait to pass on to my children.
But it also made me just a little sad. I wish he'd been around when the Patriot Act was drafted. His voice would have been an important voice of dissent, and perhaps the USA wouldn't be as deep in the shit as they are.
August 10, 2019
I was very disappointed in this book. I seriously don't understand why people consistantly rated this book so highly. I'm really out of synch on this one...and here's why:
Carl obviously had an ongoing religious relationship with science and boy, is he ever tiresome about it. What a reckless evangelist! He condemns everything that does not stand up to science's demonstrable standards (whether such application is appropriate or not) and then....he violates the same standards time and again in his 'logical' arguments to promote his first-love.
Example: early on he says that no religion or psychic has ever foretold the future accurately, but that science has. He can accurately tell you where Uranus will be in 3 weeks. (This is accurate, but it's not exactly tommorrow's Derby winner, now is it?) Later in the book he lists several predictions he made via 'scientific reasoning' that turned out to be false.
My point: he condemns all paranormal experience and religion (Show me God. You can't? Then he doesn't exist. Neither do souls. That stuff is hooey.) He then turns around and expects blind faith in science...let's dump millions into research for research's sake and trust that it will be good for us somehow.
He acknowledges that science has given us humans a greater capacity to harm one another than ever before...and calls for a corresponding greater morality to contain it. Question: where will said greater morality come from? Science???
Perhaps he shouldn't have been in such a hurry to throw out religion. Boom!
Carl obviously had an ongoing religious relationship with science and boy, is he ever tiresome about it. What a reckless evangelist! He condemns everything that does not stand up to science's demonstrable standards (whether such application is appropriate or not) and then....he violates the same standards time and again in his 'logical' arguments to promote his first-love.
Example: early on he says that no religion or psychic has ever foretold the future accurately, but that science has. He can accurately tell you where Uranus will be in 3 weeks. (This is accurate, but it's not exactly tommorrow's Derby winner, now is it?) Later in the book he lists several predictions he made via 'scientific reasoning' that turned out to be false.
My point: he condemns all paranormal experience and religion (Show me God. You can't? Then he doesn't exist. Neither do souls. That stuff is hooey.) He then turns around and expects blind faith in science...let's dump millions into research for research's sake and trust that it will be good for us somehow.
He acknowledges that science has given us humans a greater capacity to harm one another than ever before...and calls for a corresponding greater morality to contain it. Question: where will said greater morality come from? Science???
Perhaps he shouldn't have been in such a hurry to throw out religion. Boom!
August 28, 2016
. . . every question is a cry to understand the world.
In a nutshell, Sagan valiantly attempts to understand why people believe weird stuff, then explains why they shouldn't. I particularly enjoyed the several excellent chapters on the importance of literacy and education. There's also a probing (Sorry!) look into alien abductions.
I think this quote, included in the book, sums everything up nicely:
[I]gnorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
CHARLES DARWIN,
Introduction, The Descent of Man
In a nutshell, Sagan valiantly attempts to understand why people believe weird stuff, then explains why they shouldn't. I particularly enjoyed the several excellent chapters on the importance of literacy and education. There's also a probing (Sorry!) look into alien abductions.
I think this quote, included in the book, sums everything up nicely:
[I]gnorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
CHARLES DARWIN,
Introduction, The Descent of Man
December 2, 2018
Carl Sagan takes on pseudoscience. This book extolls the value of skepticism, critical thinking, and the scientific method. It should be required reading in my opinion. Unfortunately, those that could benefit most from applying more rigor in deciding what to believe will likely never read it. Originally published in 1995, he has proven to be prescient, as pseudoscience is even more prevalent than ever in recent years. Witness the rise in the number of shows about ancient aliens and paranormal activity, not to mention fake news. Outrageous claims are made and spread from person to person, and people believe these claims without questioning or proof. Why does this happen and what can we do to prevent it? Sagan attempts to answer these important questions.
This book is very readable. It does not require a deep understanding of science. Sagan writes in a way that is easily understood, while not becoming overly simplistic. He does not use jargon and, not surprisingly, presents evidence in a logical manner. He provides helpful analogies and treats his audience as bright and capable of understanding. He shows how scientific advances are fueled not only by hypothesizing, rigorous testing, and analysis of results, but also by curiosity and imagination.
I was surprised by how many areas outside the specifics of scientific inquiry are covered in this book, including literature, history, politics, religion, communications, education, economics, ethics, social norms, culture, and more. Science touches on almost every aspect of our lives but is largely ignored by many. Sagan’s subject matter includes debunking of such issues as crop circles, alien abductions, ancient astronauts, ESP, UFO’s, astrology, New Age mysticism, and the like. He reminds us of the importance of not confusing cause and effect, questioning claims that cannot be tested, requiring evidence to support assertions, and remaining skeptical about authoritative statements, especially if monetary gain is involved.
We are bombarded daily with outrageous claims (click bait, anyone?) urging us to simply believe without scrutiny, so healthy skepticism is becoming increasingly more important in our inter-connected world. Carl Sagan died in 1996, when the world wide web was in its infancy. One can only wish he were around today to help refute today’s absurdities, which are so obviously spurious in origin. I know I am “preaching to the choir,” since avid readers regularly engage in evaluative thinking. Even though some of the references are dated, this book contains an important and still relevant message on the value of critical thinking skills. I found it fascinating. Highly recommended.
This book is very readable. It does not require a deep understanding of science. Sagan writes in a way that is easily understood, while not becoming overly simplistic. He does not use jargon and, not surprisingly, presents evidence in a logical manner. He provides helpful analogies and treats his audience as bright and capable of understanding. He shows how scientific advances are fueled not only by hypothesizing, rigorous testing, and analysis of results, but also by curiosity and imagination.
I was surprised by how many areas outside the specifics of scientific inquiry are covered in this book, including literature, history, politics, religion, communications, education, economics, ethics, social norms, culture, and more. Science touches on almost every aspect of our lives but is largely ignored by many. Sagan’s subject matter includes debunking of such issues as crop circles, alien abductions, ancient astronauts, ESP, UFO’s, astrology, New Age mysticism, and the like. He reminds us of the importance of not confusing cause and effect, questioning claims that cannot be tested, requiring evidence to support assertions, and remaining skeptical about authoritative statements, especially if monetary gain is involved.
We are bombarded daily with outrageous claims (click bait, anyone?) urging us to simply believe without scrutiny, so healthy skepticism is becoming increasingly more important in our inter-connected world. Carl Sagan died in 1996, when the world wide web was in its infancy. One can only wish he were around today to help refute today’s absurdities, which are so obviously spurious in origin. I know I am “preaching to the choir,” since avid readers regularly engage in evaluative thinking. Even though some of the references are dated, this book contains an important and still relevant message on the value of critical thinking skills. I found it fascinating. Highly recommended.
December 18, 2018
Ever read one of those books you SWEAR you've read before. Nonfiction? Where every single point seems to have been made elsewhere?
Well, that's where this book went with me. From witch trials to alien abductions to conspiracy theories and a lot more, Sagan extols us to bring rational thought back to our lives. The scientific method is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL.
I totally agree, and that's why I kept reading despite every single point being a re-hash... but that's me. Sometimes we like to be reminded why we keep going, why we believe certain things, and realize that we can apply the scientific method to everything in our lives. It doesn't stifle creativity or spiritualism. It broadens everything.
And it also happens to help us throw out the trash. :) WOAH! RATIONALITY! :)
Well, that's where this book went with me. From witch trials to alien abductions to conspiracy theories and a lot more, Sagan extols us to bring rational thought back to our lives. The scientific method is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL.
I totally agree, and that's why I kept reading despite every single point being a re-hash... but that's me. Sometimes we like to be reminded why we keep going, why we believe certain things, and realize that we can apply the scientific method to everything in our lives. It doesn't stifle creativity or spiritualism. It broadens everything.
And it also happens to help us throw out the trash. :) WOAH! RATIONALITY! :)
February 7, 2017
Wow. Just wow. This is one of the great paeans to science, logic, and critical thinking buttressed by philosophy and deep moral sensibility. This is the first book of Sagan's I've read, I was so impressed, wonderfully written, very accessible and easy to read. He is a scientist by training, a highly critical thinker, but he is clearly a very multidimensional multitalented man. He has grounding in many other areas outside of science, including philosophy, political science, questions of morality, etc... I found him to be extremely intelligent and well thought out in his thinking (I would've been surprised if it had been otherwise haha!), but he also manifests a deep and what I feel is a true humility which adds power to his positions. He is exquisitely rational, but he is also deeply compassionate and filled with wonder.
This book should be required reading for all our children, and heck all the adult population. It provides a blueprint for the way I feel we should approach life and existence.
Sagan through a variety of examples, shows the carnage that can take place when fake facts, uncritical blind emotional thinking takes over. We are more easily manipulated, more liable to fall under the sway of unscrupulous authoritarians that take advantage of a credulous populace. None of us is impervious to bias and dogma, but we can continually try to check these basic human impulses by working to hone our critical thinking, by learning how to think and analyze the strength of evidence, by striving to keep our minds open to new information... Inflexibility of mind and blindly rejecting (new) information because it doesn't fit our preconceived notions and narratives is pernicious, closed-system ideological thinking is a great danger to our society and culture. We should use the scalpels of rationalism and critical thinking as equally towards our own notions as the notions that disagree with us. It's not easy to practice and no one is perfect but this is something that every one of us should strive for imo.
He spends a bit of time on an interesting duality within science and critical thinking. At its core is a meticulous rationalism based upon evidence and testable hypotheses, but it is balanced and fueled by our creative wonder, curiosity, and excitement in regards to the natural world. There is always a push pull between cold hard rationalism and wonder/curiosity, but these dynamics are absolutely integral to one another and play off one another. With humility and curiosity we acknowledge our ignorance which in turn pushes us to ask questions and pursue questions and then tests that can allow us to further peel back layers of our reality and when we are lucky gain more knowledge. Pure rationalism without wonder and creativity and curiosity is an empty shell. As I see it, curiosity is the engine behind intellect and innovation.
Science, unlike most faith and religion, is willing to question itself, and be guided by evidence. It is open to a type of creative destruction, old rules and established thinking is destroyed when new contradictory evidence comes to light, and if the evidence is strong and broad enough it changes the paradigms and pushes things forward. Science is not static, it is not perfect either and not immune to dogma and dogmatic thinking, but by using the scientific method, given enough time and resources, it is self-correcting. Which is more than can be said for pretty much anything else imo. As I see it the scientific method has to be one of the greatest innovations of the human species.
So another aspect I love about Sagan is his compassionate and respectful methods in trying to guide people towards a more rational critical thinking methodology. Sometimes I feel that skeptics are too obsessed with their (supposed) intellectual superiority and enjoy belittling and disrespecting others who do not practice scrupulous critical thinking. They spend a bit too much time indulging in making fun of people, taking gleeful joy in bashing them. It's rather sad and totally counterproductive imo, not to mention insulting. Plus the great irony is some of these skeptics/skeptic community engage in a sort of dogma, and get sucked into a huge sort of groupthink that congeals around frigid static consensus that doesn't tolerate contradictory evidence against the status quo. It's rather weird, not every skeptic indulges in that but a good number do. That is my impression at least. If any of you have thoughts on that I'd love to hear it, maybe I'm off base. Anyways, Sagan doesn't have this self-serving style, instead he focuses on guiding and helping people, he does not go out of his way to try and show intellectual superiority and dominance. He is respectful, humble, and kind, and I think that is a beautiful way to try and open peoples' minds and guide them towards the value of critical thinking, grounded skepticism, and honest dialogue.
Awesome book. Awesome dude. Sagan inspires and challenges me to be better, to do better. And I think that is awesome.
This book should be required reading for all our children, and heck all the adult population. It provides a blueprint for the way I feel we should approach life and existence.
Sagan through a variety of examples, shows the carnage that can take place when fake facts, uncritical blind emotional thinking takes over. We are more easily manipulated, more liable to fall under the sway of unscrupulous authoritarians that take advantage of a credulous populace. None of us is impervious to bias and dogma, but we can continually try to check these basic human impulses by working to hone our critical thinking, by learning how to think and analyze the strength of evidence, by striving to keep our minds open to new information... Inflexibility of mind and blindly rejecting (new) information because it doesn't fit our preconceived notions and narratives is pernicious, closed-system ideological thinking is a great danger to our society and culture. We should use the scalpels of rationalism and critical thinking as equally towards our own notions as the notions that disagree with us. It's not easy to practice and no one is perfect but this is something that every one of us should strive for imo.
He spends a bit of time on an interesting duality within science and critical thinking. At its core is a meticulous rationalism based upon evidence and testable hypotheses, but it is balanced and fueled by our creative wonder, curiosity, and excitement in regards to the natural world. There is always a push pull between cold hard rationalism and wonder/curiosity, but these dynamics are absolutely integral to one another and play off one another. With humility and curiosity we acknowledge our ignorance which in turn pushes us to ask questions and pursue questions and then tests that can allow us to further peel back layers of our reality and when we are lucky gain more knowledge. Pure rationalism without wonder and creativity and curiosity is an empty shell. As I see it, curiosity is the engine behind intellect and innovation.
Science, unlike most faith and religion, is willing to question itself, and be guided by evidence. It is open to a type of creative destruction, old rules and established thinking is destroyed when new contradictory evidence comes to light, and if the evidence is strong and broad enough it changes the paradigms and pushes things forward. Science is not static, it is not perfect either and not immune to dogma and dogmatic thinking, but by using the scientific method, given enough time and resources, it is self-correcting. Which is more than can be said for pretty much anything else imo. As I see it the scientific method has to be one of the greatest innovations of the human species.
So another aspect I love about Sagan is his compassionate and respectful methods in trying to guide people towards a more rational critical thinking methodology. Sometimes I feel that skeptics are too obsessed with their (supposed) intellectual superiority and enjoy belittling and disrespecting others who do not practice scrupulous critical thinking. They spend a bit too much time indulging in making fun of people, taking gleeful joy in bashing them. It's rather sad and totally counterproductive imo, not to mention insulting. Plus the great irony is some of these skeptics/skeptic community engage in a sort of dogma, and get sucked into a huge sort of groupthink that congeals around frigid static consensus that doesn't tolerate contradictory evidence against the status quo. It's rather weird, not every skeptic indulges in that but a good number do. That is my impression at least. If any of you have thoughts on that I'd love to hear it, maybe I'm off base. Anyways, Sagan doesn't have this self-serving style, instead he focuses on guiding and helping people, he does not go out of his way to try and show intellectual superiority and dominance. He is respectful, humble, and kind, and I think that is a beautiful way to try and open peoples' minds and guide them towards the value of critical thinking, grounded skepticism, and honest dialogue.
Awesome book. Awesome dude. Sagan inspires and challenges me to be better, to do better. And I think that is awesome.
August 9, 2024
I consider this book to be among the most important in my library. Carl Sagan wrote it when he knew he was dying of cancer. He had an unmatched gift of conveying and explaining science to make it understandable and relevant to non-scientists. For that reason alone, it is not far-fetched to list him among the great scientific minds of the 20th century.
In this valedictory statement of scientific philosophy, Sagan elevates the idea and relevance of the scientific method in our daily and public lives. It is not something to “believe in,” it is a way of looking at the world with healthy skepticism and pragmatic attention to systematic, verified observation. “Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.” (We don’t “believe in,” for example, climate change; we make decisions to accept the validity about the prevailing scientific research and interpretation of its findings.) Sagan uses examples in history including UFOs, superstitions, dragons and other mythical monsters, and a variety of other topics to explain how science has demonstrated these things do not exist and why we should not live in fear of them. He tackles those who promote anti-science such as fake approaches to treating and “curing” diseases, how to engage in the “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” and how public figures use these things to distort public dialogues about policy.
But the one thing that makes this book so special to me is Sagan’s connection of science to the civic education and engagement that is required of citizens in the modern world, which are essential if we are to be free. I think it is worth quoting the final paragraph of this, the last book he wrote in his life, something he wrote when he knew he had, at best, a few short months to live. These are quite literally the last public words of the greatest scientific communicator who has ever lived:
In this valedictory statement of scientific philosophy, Sagan elevates the idea and relevance of the scientific method in our daily and public lives. It is not something to “believe in,” it is a way of looking at the world with healthy skepticism and pragmatic attention to systematic, verified observation. “Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.” (We don’t “believe in,” for example, climate change; we make decisions to accept the validity about the prevailing scientific research and interpretation of its findings.) Sagan uses examples in history including UFOs, superstitions, dragons and other mythical monsters, and a variety of other topics to explain how science has demonstrated these things do not exist and why we should not live in fear of them. He tackles those who promote anti-science such as fake approaches to treating and “curing” diseases, how to engage in the “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” and how public figures use these things to distort public dialogues about policy.
But the one thing that makes this book so special to me is Sagan’s connection of science to the civic education and engagement that is required of citizens in the modern world, which are essential if we are to be free. I think it is worth quoting the final paragraph of this, the last book he wrote in his life, something he wrote when he knew he had, at best, a few short months to live. These are quite literally the last public words of the greatest scientific communicator who has ever lived:
Education on the value of free speech and the other freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights, about what happens when you don’t have them, and about how to exercise and protect them, should be an essential prerequisite for being an American citizen—or indeed a citizen of any nation, the more so to the degree that such rights remain unprotected. If we can’t think for ourselves, if we’re unwilling to question authority, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness. (emphasis added)
April 6, 2020
If Carl Sagan was alive today I think he would probably cry if he saw the state of the world. He wrote this book as a kind of wake up call to the people and the government, he pointed out how bad the education system is, he tries to get people to understand how important science is, he warns us not to watch so much crap on TV, go out and get some real-life experiences and he warns us about the government abusing the bill of rights.
Well it looks like everybody has ignored him, in fact to me things feel worse, education is still really bad (always with the cutbacks) in the UK the classes can be huge and kids can get ignored. The rubbish that is on TV is so bad that I have read over 100 books this year, the first time this has ever happened to anybody since the TV was invented (True fact!) and as for the government, at least they are working hard protecting the rich.
Carl has written an interesting book here, he has a brilliant sense of humour and having a chapter in the middle with some of the letters he got from his "fans?" was a touch of class, just lightens the mood a bit for the second half, I do find it amazing that some of these people were actually able to write.
This is one of the most thought provoking books I've had the pleasure to read, Sagan (autocorrect changes it to Satan... Interesting) has taught me all about the baloney detector and that Jesus is conspiring with Aliens to eventually take over the world. (True Fact)
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2020...
Well it looks like everybody has ignored him, in fact to me things feel worse, education is still really bad (always with the cutbacks) in the UK the classes can be huge and kids can get ignored. The rubbish that is on TV is so bad that I have read over 100 books this year, the first time this has ever happened to anybody since the TV was invented (True fact!) and as for the government, at least they are working hard protecting the rich.
Carl has written an interesting book here, he has a brilliant sense of humour and having a chapter in the middle with some of the letters he got from his "fans?" was a touch of class, just lightens the mood a bit for the second half, I do find it amazing that some of these people were actually able to write.
This is one of the most thought provoking books I've had the pleasure to read, Sagan (autocorrect changes it to Satan... Interesting) has taught me all about the baloney detector and that Jesus is conspiring with Aliens to eventually take over the world. (True Fact)
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2020...
October 26, 2017
I don't feel hyperbolic saying this is one of the best and most important books ever written. I can only kick myself for having left it on the shelf so many years. In his characteristic congenial, non-threatening, well-studied, literate and abundantly clear way, Carl Sagan explains the importance of critical thinking, science and education. Sagan is a master of succinct conveyance, ever-shifting the reader's perspective to a better vantage point from which to understand a concept. That he manages to do so with humility and wit is all the more impressive.
So much ground is covered, looking in turn at every aspect of belief, psychology, biology, ethics, technology and social structure, with examples still relevant twenty years later. The Demon-Haunted World is dense with meaning, and is not the sort of fare one chews lightly. I spent a long time in this book, and each page presented at least one brilliantly-stated quotable (many of our favorite Sagan-isms originate here): something to stop and think about, or a topic I needed to look up in more detail. I made the initial mistake of taking a highlighter to this book, only to realize I'd end up highlighting half the words. It's that kind of book. One cannot help but occasionally hear Carl Sagan's friendly, sedated-Kermit-the-Frog voice reading various passages - especially the ones heavy with philosophical import or gazing with us in awe at the wonders of the cosmos.
I can't think of anyone I would not recommend this to. Please read it.
So much ground is covered, looking in turn at every aspect of belief, psychology, biology, ethics, technology and social structure, with examples still relevant twenty years later. The Demon-Haunted World is dense with meaning, and is not the sort of fare one chews lightly. I spent a long time in this book, and each page presented at least one brilliantly-stated quotable (many of our favorite Sagan-isms originate here): something to stop and think about, or a topic I needed to look up in more detail. I made the initial mistake of taking a highlighter to this book, only to realize I'd end up highlighting half the words. It's that kind of book. One cannot help but occasionally hear Carl Sagan's friendly, sedated-Kermit-the-Frog voice reading various passages - especially the ones heavy with philosophical import or gazing with us in awe at the wonders of the cosmos.
I can't think of anyone I would not recommend this to. Please read it.
January 21, 2021
“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.” (p. 26)
The omen above was put to print in 1995 and echoed throughout Carl Sagan’s prolific career as both practitioner and communicator of science. Swathed in a world so joined at the hip to science and technology, Sagan saw denial and ignorance of science as the greatest risks to human well-being and continuity. Is the past here to stay?
In the US at least, conditions are none too sunny. Nearly 7 in 10 believe that angels and demons are active in the world. 61% and 48% believe in ghosts and UFOs of extraterrestrial origin, respectively. More than half doubt the scientific consensus on climate change, while one third of the public still waffles on evolution. And over half believe that God influences the outcome of sporting events. Dr. Sagan passed away just one year after the publication of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, and in the decades that have come and gone since his oracular swan song, the American electorate seems as awash as ever in pseudoscience and superstition. As momentous, relevant, and urgent though Sagan’s message was, its infiltration remains woefully incomplete.
The venerated astronomer, astrophysicist, and cosmologist regularly popularized his lifelong passion for replacing delusion with fact-sensitive grandeur. His 1980 docuseries Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was such a groundbreaking moment in broadcasting because it showcased the degree to which science, presented properly, could warm hearts and inspire minds. In The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan continued this saga, with his inimitable style intact and with a dire focus on communicating how science undergirds the modern world, its co-dependent relationship with democracy, and, amid the tenured struggle for progress and survival, how it's so often overshadowed by uncritical thinking and politicized agenda.
The Method
The uninitiated often maintain a warped view of science, that of an arcane discipline requiring superheroic intellect out to devour devout beliefs. But as Sagan spent a lifetime making clear, science isn’t just for scientists. Every one of us can revel in its fruits, be won over by its infectious appetite for discovery. Most important, we can all benefit from applying the philosophical principles on which it rests to our everyday life.
What are those principles? The twinship of skepticism and trained observation fueled by an overarching preference for the truth, however inconvenient, over the psychologically comfortable. Science is far more than cold collection of data and interpretation; it is a way of thinking, an approach to the world that values the questions as much as the answers and has built-in tools for prioritizing both.
“Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.” (p. 27)
Donning this intellectual apparatus full-tilt may occasion us to revisit ideas we once accepted without any skeptical filter. It may require that we discard some beliefs long held dear. But in taking the plunge, Sagan reassures us, we often find that nature is far more clever, subtle, and adept at inspiring wonder than our fallible pattern-seeking devices can imagine. “Better the hard truth than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy…There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any." (pp. 59, 204) While this may be new cognitive territory for some of us, the benefits are too vast to pass up. A sharp mind keeps the charlatans at bay.
Key to how science delivers the goods has been its unmasking of natural processes to arrive at natural explanation. We may recall how our ancestors ascribed various features and bugs of our existence to supernatural causality: witches inflicted sickness with their spells; rain was a divine reward, drought a divine punishment; earthquakes were just the local god(s) stomping around in fits of rage; the 'rising' and 'setting' of the sun were subject to the whims of the neighborhood deity; short-period comets presaged the fall of state empires.
The advent of science severed this agency-focused paradigm. We learned that the ebbs and flows of celestial bodies mind predictable, calculable patterns. We discovered that weather events are beholden to entirely terrestrial phenomena. We found that transmissible disease is carried by microbes and other agents in our environment. We learned that the right medicine can cure an illness.
The implications were radical, for if an illness was caused by the spell of a witch there is no reason to think we should find a natural cause for it, nor is there any reason to think we should find a natural cure. But in fact, it turned out that the right remedy could always overcome the power of “magic spells.” Per a unidirectional phase shift, super- and non-natural explanations were gradually rendered obsolete, buoyed by an acute awareness of our propensity to overinterpret reality.
“For much of our history, we were so fearful of the outside world, with its unpredictable dangers, that we gladly embraced anything that promised to soften or explain away the terror. Science is an attempt largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death." (p. 26)
Irrationalia
Respect for this approach has not been universal, as a handful of minutes with mainstream media will avouch. In a world overflowing with pseudoscientific madness, Sagan divides his time between conveying the method and blitzing specific manifestations of the irrational. He casts his gaze on a whole armamentarium of woo, including creationism, crop circles, faith healing, astrology, psychics, UFOs, and alien encounters. Is there anything at all behind these claims to connect them to reality? Not if skeptical inquiry has anything to say; such notions find a vacuum of support inside, as Sagan wittily remarks, “any universe burdened by rules of evidence." (p. 58)
We learn of how two enterprising hoaxsters from Southampton fooled millions of credulants into believing that patterns in cornfields were cryptic messages from off-world. We listen in on the exploits of James Randi, who once outfoxed Australian media with video documentation of a “channeler”. Our talent for deceiving ourselves is on full display as Sagan recounts the initial frisson of seeing “faces” on Mars and assesses the merits of UFO claims from perhaps every conceivable angle. (As a pioneer of exobiological research, it’s no surprise Sagan devoted such sizable chunks to debunking UFO conspiracy tales, but he could have toggled it down a notch.)
In turn, astrology and biblical creationism sport the same empirical garb as alchemy and witchcraft. (Quickly! Someone get Answers in Genesis on the phone.) From séance mediumship to 'spirit photography', the counterfeit carousel requires similar ingredients to survive: “what they need is darkness and gullibility." (p. 241)
Democracy and the Future
Why haven't the contrails of science seeped into the inner recesses of society and taken hold of our discourse and policy, Sagan asks? A look to the past tells us that commitment to these ideals has waxed and waned over time, surfacing first and most clearly in ancient Greece in the form of natural philosophy. Greek antiquity’s mental preoccupation with nature was distinguished by an express concern with natural cause and effect explanation, checked against their homegrown rules of logic and deduction.
This marriage of reasoning and observation nourished some extraordinarily precocious activities. Sagan charts the achievements of early polymaths like Eratosthenes—who measured the circumference of the earth, its axial tilt, as well as its distance from both the sun and the moon all with peculiar accuracy in the 2nd century BCE, Aristarchus—who presented the first known model of a sun-centered cosmos, and Democritus—who was the first to offer an atomic theory of the universe and is often considered the “father of modern science."
Later societies yielded intermittent deviation from the systematic acme of Athens as triumphs gave way to enshrined overindulgence of superstition, and nationalistic fervor billowed to abnormally toxic levels. Beyond our undersized prefrontal cortex and the diversiform predispositions underwritten by our evolutionary heritage, at the heart of these setbacks lay the institution and its doctrinaire approach to knowledge. Both religious and secular governance can boast of choking free inquiry, stamping out critical investigation of the cosmos, and cultivating an infrastructural incapacity for nurturing the open exchange of ideas. Whenever and wherever this happens, humanity falters, the mind capsized under the crushing weight of tyranny. And like a derailed traincar, we inevitably throw ourselves headlong into state-sanctioned superstition and unreason.
Science cannot prosper under these conditions. It stultifies and stagnates. Democracy ensures the efficacy of science insofar as it ensures all voices are heard. Science and democracy reinforce one another in this way: science depends on democratic values to function, while democracy depends sensitively on science to maintain its selected way of life—in everything from informing policy to keeping infrastructure in motion.
After spending ample time surveying the overwhelming science illiteracy and innumeracy in the States, again and again Sagan returns to the point that democracy is unworkable in this environment. Uninformed citizens cannot cast informed votes. The shrieks of the ignorant become the shrieks of the next generation, who often adhere to the ideological persuasions impressed by their sheltered upbringing. Those who would charge that beliefs in pseudoscience are harmless should consider the extent to which they can be emblematic of a larger infirmity. We need open-minded, critically thinking, intellectually equipped individuals exercising their constitutional duty and voting on the policies that will give shape to the parameters under which future generations may thrive or fall.
“A proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright. When, through indifference, inattention, incompetence, or fear of skepticism, we discourage children from science, we are disenfranchising them, taking from them the tools needed to manage their future.” (p. 317)
Closing Thoughts
Sagan’s penultimate work is packed with diverse subject matter. Much more than an impassioned defense of science, The Demon-Haunted World meanders through philosophy, history, politics, religion, and grin-inducing exposés on claims to reality that just aren’t so. While acknowledging the imperfections of science that come with all human endeavors, Sagan urges that when it comes to understanding how the world works and why nature is the way that it is, science seizes the epistemological crown. It is also a siren call to the coming generations: that we stifle its advance and deflect its discoveries at our own peril. With mounting concerns over a warming planet, overpopulation, and sustainability, and the most forward-focused way to preserve our pale blue dot, we cannot afford to treat with insouciance its revelations. Every human should read this book.
On a more personal note, Sagan holds a special place in my own intellectual journey, reviving as he did a pulse which continues to reverberate throughout my life. His books unshackled my imagination. His words spoke for me. He gave me a voice. A man of great passion and fierce intellect, he had the uncanny ability to ambush the heart with an equal measure of poetry and humble curiosity. His words can be understood by anyone who takes the time to read them. Carl synthesized my deepest thoughts and pointed me toward new horizons. He opened my eyes to a post-religious ethos and, more than any other, inspired me to abandon the intellectual celibacy of my youth and secure a personal relationship with reality and the cosmos. If Sagan communicated anything, it’s that science is a unification measure, something in which all of us can partake. Together with reason it is among the greatest tools in our survival kit. Let’s keep them burning brightly.
“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us – then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.
The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”
Note: This review is republished from my official website. Click through for additional footnotes and imagery.
The omen above was put to print in 1995 and echoed throughout Carl Sagan’s prolific career as both practitioner and communicator of science. Swathed in a world so joined at the hip to science and technology, Sagan saw denial and ignorance of science as the greatest risks to human well-being and continuity. Is the past here to stay?
In the US at least, conditions are none too sunny. Nearly 7 in 10 believe that angels and demons are active in the world. 61% and 48% believe in ghosts and UFOs of extraterrestrial origin, respectively. More than half doubt the scientific consensus on climate change, while one third of the public still waffles on evolution. And over half believe that God influences the outcome of sporting events. Dr. Sagan passed away just one year after the publication of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, and in the decades that have come and gone since his oracular swan song, the American electorate seems as awash as ever in pseudoscience and superstition. As momentous, relevant, and urgent though Sagan’s message was, its infiltration remains woefully incomplete.
The venerated astronomer, astrophysicist, and cosmologist regularly popularized his lifelong passion for replacing delusion with fact-sensitive grandeur. His 1980 docuseries Cosmos: A Personal Voyage was such a groundbreaking moment in broadcasting because it showcased the degree to which science, presented properly, could warm hearts and inspire minds. In The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan continued this saga, with his inimitable style intact and with a dire focus on communicating how science undergirds the modern world, its co-dependent relationship with democracy, and, amid the tenured struggle for progress and survival, how it's so often overshadowed by uncritical thinking and politicized agenda.
The Method
The uninitiated often maintain a warped view of science, that of an arcane discipline requiring superheroic intellect out to devour devout beliefs. But as Sagan spent a lifetime making clear, science isn’t just for scientists. Every one of us can revel in its fruits, be won over by its infectious appetite for discovery. Most important, we can all benefit from applying the philosophical principles on which it rests to our everyday life.
What are those principles? The twinship of skepticism and trained observation fueled by an overarching preference for the truth, however inconvenient, over the psychologically comfortable. Science is far more than cold collection of data and interpretation; it is a way of thinking, an approach to the world that values the questions as much as the answers and has built-in tools for prioritizing both.
“Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.” (p. 27)
Donning this intellectual apparatus full-tilt may occasion us to revisit ideas we once accepted without any skeptical filter. It may require that we discard some beliefs long held dear. But in taking the plunge, Sagan reassures us, we often find that nature is far more clever, subtle, and adept at inspiring wonder than our fallible pattern-seeking devices can imagine. “Better the hard truth than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy…There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any." (pp. 59, 204) While this may be new cognitive territory for some of us, the benefits are too vast to pass up. A sharp mind keeps the charlatans at bay.
Key to how science delivers the goods has been its unmasking of natural processes to arrive at natural explanation. We may recall how our ancestors ascribed various features and bugs of our existence to supernatural causality: witches inflicted sickness with their spells; rain was a divine reward, drought a divine punishment; earthquakes were just the local god(s) stomping around in fits of rage; the 'rising' and 'setting' of the sun were subject to the whims of the neighborhood deity; short-period comets presaged the fall of state empires.
The advent of science severed this agency-focused paradigm. We learned that the ebbs and flows of celestial bodies mind predictable, calculable patterns. We discovered that weather events are beholden to entirely terrestrial phenomena. We found that transmissible disease is carried by microbes and other agents in our environment. We learned that the right medicine can cure an illness.
The implications were radical, for if an illness was caused by the spell of a witch there is no reason to think we should find a natural cause for it, nor is there any reason to think we should find a natural cure. But in fact, it turned out that the right remedy could always overcome the power of “magic spells.” Per a unidirectional phase shift, super- and non-natural explanations were gradually rendered obsolete, buoyed by an acute awareness of our propensity to overinterpret reality.
“For much of our history, we were so fearful of the outside world, with its unpredictable dangers, that we gladly embraced anything that promised to soften or explain away the terror. Science is an attempt largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death." (p. 26)
Irrationalia
Respect for this approach has not been universal, as a handful of minutes with mainstream media will avouch. In a world overflowing with pseudoscientific madness, Sagan divides his time between conveying the method and blitzing specific manifestations of the irrational. He casts his gaze on a whole armamentarium of woo, including creationism, crop circles, faith healing, astrology, psychics, UFOs, and alien encounters. Is there anything at all behind these claims to connect them to reality? Not if skeptical inquiry has anything to say; such notions find a vacuum of support inside, as Sagan wittily remarks, “any universe burdened by rules of evidence." (p. 58)
We learn of how two enterprising hoaxsters from Southampton fooled millions of credulants into believing that patterns in cornfields were cryptic messages from off-world. We listen in on the exploits of James Randi, who once outfoxed Australian media with video documentation of a “channeler”. Our talent for deceiving ourselves is on full display as Sagan recounts the initial frisson of seeing “faces” on Mars and assesses the merits of UFO claims from perhaps every conceivable angle. (As a pioneer of exobiological research, it’s no surprise Sagan devoted such sizable chunks to debunking UFO conspiracy tales, but he could have toggled it down a notch.)
In turn, astrology and biblical creationism sport the same empirical garb as alchemy and witchcraft. (Quickly! Someone get Answers in Genesis on the phone.) From séance mediumship to 'spirit photography', the counterfeit carousel requires similar ingredients to survive: “what they need is darkness and gullibility." (p. 241)
Democracy and the Future
Why haven't the contrails of science seeped into the inner recesses of society and taken hold of our discourse and policy, Sagan asks? A look to the past tells us that commitment to these ideals has waxed and waned over time, surfacing first and most clearly in ancient Greece in the form of natural philosophy. Greek antiquity’s mental preoccupation with nature was distinguished by an express concern with natural cause and effect explanation, checked against their homegrown rules of logic and deduction.
This marriage of reasoning and observation nourished some extraordinarily precocious activities. Sagan charts the achievements of early polymaths like Eratosthenes—who measured the circumference of the earth, its axial tilt, as well as its distance from both the sun and the moon all with peculiar accuracy in the 2nd century BCE, Aristarchus—who presented the first known model of a sun-centered cosmos, and Democritus—who was the first to offer an atomic theory of the universe and is often considered the “father of modern science."
Later societies yielded intermittent deviation from the systematic acme of Athens as triumphs gave way to enshrined overindulgence of superstition, and nationalistic fervor billowed to abnormally toxic levels. Beyond our undersized prefrontal cortex and the diversiform predispositions underwritten by our evolutionary heritage, at the heart of these setbacks lay the institution and its doctrinaire approach to knowledge. Both religious and secular governance can boast of choking free inquiry, stamping out critical investigation of the cosmos, and cultivating an infrastructural incapacity for nurturing the open exchange of ideas. Whenever and wherever this happens, humanity falters, the mind capsized under the crushing weight of tyranny. And like a derailed traincar, we inevitably throw ourselves headlong into state-sanctioned superstition and unreason.
Science cannot prosper under these conditions. It stultifies and stagnates. Democracy ensures the efficacy of science insofar as it ensures all voices are heard. Science and democracy reinforce one another in this way: science depends on democratic values to function, while democracy depends sensitively on science to maintain its selected way of life—in everything from informing policy to keeping infrastructure in motion.
After spending ample time surveying the overwhelming science illiteracy and innumeracy in the States, again and again Sagan returns to the point that democracy is unworkable in this environment. Uninformed citizens cannot cast informed votes. The shrieks of the ignorant become the shrieks of the next generation, who often adhere to the ideological persuasions impressed by their sheltered upbringing. Those who would charge that beliefs in pseudoscience are harmless should consider the extent to which they can be emblematic of a larger infirmity. We need open-minded, critically thinking, intellectually equipped individuals exercising their constitutional duty and voting on the policies that will give shape to the parameters under which future generations may thrive or fall.
“A proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright. When, through indifference, inattention, incompetence, or fear of skepticism, we discourage children from science, we are disenfranchising them, taking from them the tools needed to manage their future.” (p. 317)
Closing Thoughts
Sagan’s penultimate work is packed with diverse subject matter. Much more than an impassioned defense of science, The Demon-Haunted World meanders through philosophy, history, politics, religion, and grin-inducing exposés on claims to reality that just aren’t so. While acknowledging the imperfections of science that come with all human endeavors, Sagan urges that when it comes to understanding how the world works and why nature is the way that it is, science seizes the epistemological crown. It is also a siren call to the coming generations: that we stifle its advance and deflect its discoveries at our own peril. With mounting concerns over a warming planet, overpopulation, and sustainability, and the most forward-focused way to preserve our pale blue dot, we cannot afford to treat with insouciance its revelations. Every human should read this book.
On a more personal note, Sagan holds a special place in my own intellectual journey, reviving as he did a pulse which continues to reverberate throughout my life. His books unshackled my imagination. His words spoke for me. He gave me a voice. A man of great passion and fierce intellect, he had the uncanny ability to ambush the heart with an equal measure of poetry and humble curiosity. His words can be understood by anyone who takes the time to read them. Carl synthesized my deepest thoughts and pointed me toward new horizons. He opened my eyes to a post-religious ethos and, more than any other, inspired me to abandon the intellectual celibacy of my youth and secure a personal relationship with reality and the cosmos. If Sagan communicated anything, it’s that science is a unification measure, something in which all of us can partake. Together with reason it is among the greatest tools in our survival kit. Let’s keep them burning brightly.
“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us – then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.
The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”
Note: This review is republished from my official website. Click through for additional footnotes and imagery.
February 6, 2018
All of us of a certain age remember Carl Sagan and his fascinating television program Cosmos. He explained science in words that the layman could understand and he approaches this book in the same manner. His basic premise here is “how can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience, New Age thinking, and fundamentalist zealotry and the testable hypothesis of science”.
To support this premise, he provides case studies and examples of the various beliefs, myths and generally accepted ideas which many people accept as truth and proceeds to test them against the facts of science. It is guaranteed to disturb some readers or even make them angry as he doesn’t spare the sacred cows of alien presence, crop circles, ESP, and even religion. “Prove it”, he says, “show me the facts”, “give me something tangible”…….he does not give credence to eye witness reports and provides examples how these reports can change over time without the realization of the reporter. He never demeans those who say they were abducted by aliens or healed by faith healers; he merely show how these events have no basis in fact and unfortunately are sometimes scams which further muddies the waters. He questions, for example, if a faith healer is truly gifted by God to heal the “sick and the lame”, then why doesn’t an amputee grow a new limb. Or that even though the presence of crop circles was proven to be made by people having some fun, there are those who continue to believe that the circles were made by aliens. People believe what they want to believe and condemn science for attempting to question these beliefs.
He spends a little too much time on alien abduction, only because he was involved with the study of that phenomenon but it does tend to slow things down a bit. This book will be controversial to some readers and a breath of fresh air to others. In either case, it is a fascinating read.
To support this premise, he provides case studies and examples of the various beliefs, myths and generally accepted ideas which many people accept as truth and proceeds to test them against the facts of science. It is guaranteed to disturb some readers or even make them angry as he doesn’t spare the sacred cows of alien presence, crop circles, ESP, and even religion. “Prove it”, he says, “show me the facts”, “give me something tangible”…….he does not give credence to eye witness reports and provides examples how these reports can change over time without the realization of the reporter. He never demeans those who say they were abducted by aliens or healed by faith healers; he merely show how these events have no basis in fact and unfortunately are sometimes scams which further muddies the waters. He questions, for example, if a faith healer is truly gifted by God to heal the “sick and the lame”, then why doesn’t an amputee grow a new limb. Or that even though the presence of crop circles was proven to be made by people having some fun, there are those who continue to believe that the circles were made by aliens. People believe what they want to believe and condemn science for attempting to question these beliefs.
He spends a little too much time on alien abduction, only because he was involved with the study of that phenomenon but it does tend to slow things down a bit. This book will be controversial to some readers and a breath of fresh air to others. In either case, it is a fascinating read.
September 22, 2018
Though a bit dated because of its original publication date in the late 90s (see this review for a few updates, the pleas for facts, scientific method, and science scholarship are timeless. I downloaded the audio because the narration duties are shared between Seth Macfarlane and Cary Elwes, with an introduction by Sagan's last wife in her own voice. (The audio production is much more recent, 2017.... I suspect the whole fake news thing may have inspired it!)
Sagan takes on many issues of pseudoscience, at times directly debunking, at other times suggesting the logical questions to ask that might lead to better conclusions. Alien abductions, UFOs, crop circles, fairies, etc.
This was a great pick for Science September!
"We cannot have science in bits and pieces!"
"If we have no idea of the answer, we can... take the child to the library... every question is a cry to understand the world."
Sagan takes on many issues of pseudoscience, at times directly debunking, at other times suggesting the logical questions to ask that might lead to better conclusions. Alien abductions, UFOs, crop circles, fairies, etc.
This was a great pick for Science September!
"We cannot have science in bits and pieces!"
"If we have no idea of the answer, we can... take the child to the library... every question is a cry to understand the world."
December 10, 2018
This book is a favorite of mine. It’s non-fiction. It’s very full of science and scientific principles and explanations. It’s also full of respect for those who want to understand the world better. And that is Carl Sagan for you in a nutshell: A caring person, a scientist who throughout his life always took other people seriously, and endeavored to understand them and help them.
Very few scientists, I think, have taken the time to consider other people’s fears, their anxieties and compulsions. Sagan did, and because of that, he understood the appeal of simple explanations and answers, and dedicated a big chunk of his time to present the reality of our universe in a way most people could understand. And that is The Demon-Haunted World in a nutshell: a wonderful presentation of our surroundings based on the principle that startling claims should be supported by evidence that can be tested and challenged.
Interestingly, when this book first appeared, many Americans believed that they were at risk of alien abduction, aliens were reportedly creating crop circles in England, and committing improper acts on mysteriously unmarked adults throughout the world. Hence, timing explains Sagan's sustained attention along the pages of this book to fantasies of extraterrestrial interference with humans. Something that may feel a bit dated for those who read it for the first time today.
At is core, the aim of Demon Haunted World is to debunk the paranormal and the unexplained in a study with a range of reference that is just phenomenal. For example, in just one essays Sagan enlightens the readers on (1) US constitutional history at the time of Thomas Jefferson, (2) the witchcraft trials of Wurzburg, Germany, in 1631, (3) the manipulation of historic memory in Russia under Stalin, (4) the monopoly of media ownership, (5) Linus Pauling and the test ban treaty of 1963, and (6) Edward Teller's enthusiasm for the hydrogen bomb, and he does it all with a prose that is both easy to follow and nice to read.
But perhaps most impressive, though, is the book’s predictive qualities. It predicted, for instance, the dumbing down of the United States.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…”
And that is why book like this, I think, should be part of general education and schools curricula, because knowing is not as important as learning how to learn.
Very few scientists, I think, have taken the time to consider other people’s fears, their anxieties and compulsions. Sagan did, and because of that, he understood the appeal of simple explanations and answers, and dedicated a big chunk of his time to present the reality of our universe in a way most people could understand. And that is The Demon-Haunted World in a nutshell: a wonderful presentation of our surroundings based on the principle that startling claims should be supported by evidence that can be tested and challenged.
Interestingly, when this book first appeared, many Americans believed that they were at risk of alien abduction, aliens were reportedly creating crop circles in England, and committing improper acts on mysteriously unmarked adults throughout the world. Hence, timing explains Sagan's sustained attention along the pages of this book to fantasies of extraterrestrial interference with humans. Something that may feel a bit dated for those who read it for the first time today.
At is core, the aim of Demon Haunted World is to debunk the paranormal and the unexplained in a study with a range of reference that is just phenomenal. For example, in just one essays Sagan enlightens the readers on (1) US constitutional history at the time of Thomas Jefferson, (2) the witchcraft trials of Wurzburg, Germany, in 1631, (3) the manipulation of historic memory in Russia under Stalin, (4) the monopoly of media ownership, (5) Linus Pauling and the test ban treaty of 1963, and (6) Edward Teller's enthusiasm for the hydrogen bomb, and he does it all with a prose that is both easy to follow and nice to read.
But perhaps most impressive, though, is the book’s predictive qualities. It predicted, for instance, the dumbing down of the United States.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…”
And that is why book like this, I think, should be part of general education and schools curricula, because knowing is not as important as learning how to learn.
November 23, 2022
3.5 stars
This is just the kind of validating book I needed in this crazy world of pseudoscience. It was so refreshing reading a book that was so grounded in common sense. I wish the writing and structure had been better edited but I still really appreciated the messaging.
This is just the kind of validating book I needed in this crazy world of pseudoscience. It was so refreshing reading a book that was so grounded in common sense. I wish the writing and structure had been better edited but I still really appreciated the messaging.
July 5, 2019
So if we take the Wayback Machine to the year 1995, you will find me out of college, working as an operations manager in retail despite my lofty aspirations to anthropology and later, nursing, as career choices. But I had a family to support, and the money was good even if the hours really sucked. What the hell does that have to do with this review? Well, I was involved in an awful lot of hiring and firing decisions when I worked for Foley’s (later Macy’s), and I noticed something interesting. Most of the people that I was interviewing were not particularly well educated. Their math skills were lacking, their ability to write above a fourth-grade level was compromised, and they were woefully short of critical thinking skills. Not all of the employees that I dealt with were like that, of course, there were many who were perfectly well qualified for the jobs which they were hired for, but it did spark an internal conversation within me. Later on in my career I found myself correcting essays for an MBA candidate who worked for me, because the man just could not communicate effectively in a written format.
Furthermore, I had found myself arguing for years with people who espoused what I thought were strange religious beliefs. I remembered the “Satanic Panic” in the mid-1980s. I could turn on the television and find a plethora of different 24-7-365 religious channels with self-styled “preachers” all clamoring for various amounts of adulation and cash, and I wondered how anyone could be suckered into believing things which were clearly not true in the objective sense. The more I thought about it the more it all began to connect inside my head. The internet as we know it didn’t exist yet so there wasn’t a big proliferation of Flat Earthers or moon landing deniers, but it was obvious that the seeds for such a thing had already been planted.
Now I was brought up in a relatively progressive household. My mother was very curious, my older brother worked in biochemistry, and my father was very tolerant of my need to read and was always ready to answer questions for me even though he had no formal schooling to speak of, though he was extensively well-traveled and experienced in the ways of the world. And yeah, all of this sounds judgmental and kind of assholish of me when you get right down to it. And yet it’s now 2019 and this quote from “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” resonates more clearly than ever:
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
With this singular quote, Carl Sagan defines the cognitive dissonance that appears to affect a significant percentage of the U.S. population. Now you have to realize that Carl Sagan was often considered judgmental and kind of assholish too in his day. He was very intolerant of pseudoscience and was a huge proponent of reforming the educational system in the U.S. to be more geared towards the teaching of the sciences along with critical and rational thinking. “The Demon-Haunted” world boils down to Sagan debunking the world of ghosts and demons, cryptids and little grey men, and religious charlatans of all stripes. And the man can write about this stuff, through 450 plus pages of sometimes dense text.
DISCLAIMER: I am assuming that you know perfectly well who Carl Sagan is. From a personal perspective, he was/is one of my heroes, along with James Randi. Sagan was one of those rare scientists who could popularize science for the masses without talking down to the lowest common denominator. If you are NOT familiar with Sagan, then you should spend some time with his Wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
Now, I have to throw this out there to gum up the works a bit. I am and always will be a seeker of the higher truth. I’m convinced that the scientific method is the greatest reasoning tool ever invented in the history of mankind, and yet there are still phenomena that seem to fall outside of the realm of ready explanation. And Sagan himself seems to acknowledge this with this quote:
“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”
What I think Sagan is saying here is that there is a mental space where reason and the search for meaning meet, bringing together the “how” with the “why” of conscious existence. Carl Jung had a lot to say on this subject as well, and you can find similar ideas in the lucid and beautiful interpretations of Eastern mysticism that Alan Watts popularized back in the 1960s and 1970s. We may NEVER be equipped as a species to comprehend the true Tao, yet we are still cognizant of the fact that there IS a true Tao to be contemplated.
But I’m getting off track here. “The Demon Haunted World” is as important a book today as it was back in 1995 when it was first released. Perhaps more so, as the internet has led to the viral spread of false information and a more profound split between those who respect the idea of reasoned thinking and those who choose to bunker themselves in to a world of “alternative facts” and “fake news.” This is especially important in terms of climate science. We are at a tipping point in human existence, in the beginning phases of the sixth great extinction event in the history of the planet. We can choose to act on the information that we have, or we can choose the path of ignorance and then stand by as the inevitable happens and the human race is either wiped out or severely reduced in size and scope.
Here is the most famous and widely circulated quote from the book. If you have an internet connection and use any type of social media then you have probably seen it in some form or another:
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Let me tell you, gang, we as a society are there now. Sagan saw it, but he certainly wasn’t the only one to elucidate this thought. Orwell saw it, too. Margaret Atwood saw it. Aldous Huxley saw it. Sinclair Lewis saw it. Hell, even I saw it and I’m certainly no genius. If I could wish for one thing and one thing only, it would be that every person in America should be required to read this book. I think that it should be in every school, every library, every home. And I know that it won’t reach a lot of people. One can only look at the literacy rates in the U.S. to understand that we as a society no longer read books. Those of us on Goodreads and other book oriented websites are a distinct minority. But even if it just reached a FEW people it would be worth the effort.
I’ll get off of my soapbox now. I have had my say. I’m angry and disappointed in the direction that the country and world have taken during my lifetime. And yet “The Demon-Haunted World” still gives me hope, and I pull it down from the shelf every so often to remind myself that there are still works like this out there that can open minds and stimulate ideas. There is still a chance for this race of territorial primates to make the great leap into cooperative action buoyed by reason and science, and I have to hang on to that. It’s the only thing that I can do. That and to tell you that if you haven’t already read the book, then you need to. Please.
Furthermore, I had found myself arguing for years with people who espoused what I thought were strange religious beliefs. I remembered the “Satanic Panic” in the mid-1980s. I could turn on the television and find a plethora of different 24-7-365 religious channels with self-styled “preachers” all clamoring for various amounts of adulation and cash, and I wondered how anyone could be suckered into believing things which were clearly not true in the objective sense. The more I thought about it the more it all began to connect inside my head. The internet as we know it didn’t exist yet so there wasn’t a big proliferation of Flat Earthers or moon landing deniers, but it was obvious that the seeds for such a thing had already been planted.
Now I was brought up in a relatively progressive household. My mother was very curious, my older brother worked in biochemistry, and my father was very tolerant of my need to read and was always ready to answer questions for me even though he had no formal schooling to speak of, though he was extensively well-traveled and experienced in the ways of the world. And yeah, all of this sounds judgmental and kind of assholish of me when you get right down to it. And yet it’s now 2019 and this quote from “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” resonates more clearly than ever:
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
With this singular quote, Carl Sagan defines the cognitive dissonance that appears to affect a significant percentage of the U.S. population. Now you have to realize that Carl Sagan was often considered judgmental and kind of assholish too in his day. He was very intolerant of pseudoscience and was a huge proponent of reforming the educational system in the U.S. to be more geared towards the teaching of the sciences along with critical and rational thinking. “The Demon-Haunted” world boils down to Sagan debunking the world of ghosts and demons, cryptids and little grey men, and religious charlatans of all stripes. And the man can write about this stuff, through 450 plus pages of sometimes dense text.
DISCLAIMER: I am assuming that you know perfectly well who Carl Sagan is. From a personal perspective, he was/is one of my heroes, along with James Randi. Sagan was one of those rare scientists who could popularize science for the masses without talking down to the lowest common denominator. If you are NOT familiar with Sagan, then you should spend some time with his Wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
Now, I have to throw this out there to gum up the works a bit. I am and always will be a seeker of the higher truth. I’m convinced that the scientific method is the greatest reasoning tool ever invented in the history of mankind, and yet there are still phenomena that seem to fall outside of the realm of ready explanation. And Sagan himself seems to acknowledge this with this quote:
“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”
What I think Sagan is saying here is that there is a mental space where reason and the search for meaning meet, bringing together the “how” with the “why” of conscious existence. Carl Jung had a lot to say on this subject as well, and you can find similar ideas in the lucid and beautiful interpretations of Eastern mysticism that Alan Watts popularized back in the 1960s and 1970s. We may NEVER be equipped as a species to comprehend the true Tao, yet we are still cognizant of the fact that there IS a true Tao to be contemplated.
But I’m getting off track here. “The Demon Haunted World” is as important a book today as it was back in 1995 when it was first released. Perhaps more so, as the internet has led to the viral spread of false information and a more profound split between those who respect the idea of reasoned thinking and those who choose to bunker themselves in to a world of “alternative facts” and “fake news.” This is especially important in terms of climate science. We are at a tipping point in human existence, in the beginning phases of the sixth great extinction event in the history of the planet. We can choose to act on the information that we have, or we can choose the path of ignorance and then stand by as the inevitable happens and the human race is either wiped out or severely reduced in size and scope.
Here is the most famous and widely circulated quote from the book. If you have an internet connection and use any type of social media then you have probably seen it in some form or another:
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Let me tell you, gang, we as a society are there now. Sagan saw it, but he certainly wasn’t the only one to elucidate this thought. Orwell saw it, too. Margaret Atwood saw it. Aldous Huxley saw it. Sinclair Lewis saw it. Hell, even I saw it and I’m certainly no genius. If I could wish for one thing and one thing only, it would be that every person in America should be required to read this book. I think that it should be in every school, every library, every home. And I know that it won’t reach a lot of people. One can only look at the literacy rates in the U.S. to understand that we as a society no longer read books. Those of us on Goodreads and other book oriented websites are a distinct minority. But even if it just reached a FEW people it would be worth the effort.
I’ll get off of my soapbox now. I have had my say. I’m angry and disappointed in the direction that the country and world have taken during my lifetime. And yet “The Demon-Haunted World” still gives me hope, and I pull it down from the shelf every so often to remind myself that there are still works like this out there that can open minds and stimulate ideas. There is still a chance for this race of territorial primates to make the great leap into cooperative action buoyed by reason and science, and I have to hang on to that. It’s the only thing that I can do. That and to tell you that if you haven’t already read the book, then you need to. Please.
June 15, 2016
I’m not sure what potential audience Sagan had in mind for this book, and I’m doubly unsure if I’m in it. I doubt you will be sure, either; and this tension is one that runs through the whole of the book. Perhaps this is unavoidable. For, when a popular scientist writes a book, his readership is more than likely to consist, in the main, of reasonable and skeptical people; thus, when he spends the entirety of the work attempting to inculcate the scientific attitude, he is in the position of a musician performing at a music school—most of the audience will consist of other musicians. So we may ask: are the ones likely to read The Demon-Haunted World the people who Sagan intends to reach?
Perhaps I’m wrong; I hope so. I’d like to think that this book fell into the hands of several UFO enthusiasts and believers in the supernatural, and that Sagan was able to convince them. When he is debunking UFO sightings, Sagan is awfully convincing; considerable mental defenses would be necessary to block out the assault of reason and evidence Sagan presents. Yet here we face a particular irony: Sagan is attempting to inculcate a certain type of skepticism—the skepticism towards claims based on insufficient empirical evidence—but his message will likely be blocked out by a different type of skepticism: the skepticism towards those in authority. How easy it would be to dismiss his arguments with “he’s just pompous,” or “science is narrow-minded,” or “he worked for the government, so he’s just part of the cover-up.” The human mind is not, unfortunately, a truth-seeking machine; as Benjamin Franklin observed: “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
We see this very thing play out in Chapters 10 and 11 of this book. In Chapter 10, Sagan vigorously attacks the evidence presented in favor of flying saucers from other worlds. Then, in the next chapter—after having publishing the previous chapter in a magazine—Sagan includes response after response from readers. The result is no surprise. Those who were already skeptical about aliens tell Sagan he’s right on the money. Those who already believed in intelligent aliens (and several stranger things), on the other hand, tell Sagan he has no idea what he’s talking about, that they have seen the aliens with their own eyes, and that they are still in contact, communicating telepathically. Not a single solitary note says something to this effect: “Wow, Carl, you really convinced me! I believed in flying saucers before, but you made some excellent points!”
This is an example of what one might call the Paradox of Belief: believers who are open-minded enough to be convinced are the least dangerous to society; believers so closed-minded as to never be convinced, on the other hand, are the real trouble. So what's the point of proselytizing? What rational argument would convince an extremist? What empirical evidence would dissuade a fanatic? What, in short, is the point of this enterprise, since the open-minded moderates aren’t a societal hazard, anyway?
Alright, I know: I’m simplifying things. Sagan does include much sensible advice on wider issues—advice on topics ranging from education reform to new ideas for science programs. He isn’t putting all of his stock into his books. Sagan would have more science in the classroom, in the government, on television. If science was built into our education and our entertainment, if the scientific attitude pervaded society, it would have a better chance of reaching children early, when they're still open-minded; science would be too ubiquitous to ignore, too commonplace to avoid.
In fact, Sagan treats the scientific attitude as a sort of panacea for all the world’s ills. For Sagan, science engenders both wisdom and knowledge, it inculcates both free-thinking and caution. Science, with its heavy emphasis on checking and re-checking, on independent and repeated verification, takes full stock of human nature. We are, sadly, an errant and erring species; progress, in both science and—as Sagan goes on to say—government, depends on checks and balances, on emphasizing evidence, on distrusting authority and trusting facts, on a community of independent thinkers rather than a unified hive-mind. And, I must admit, imagining a world where even 5% of people were more familiar with the scientific attitude—that strange mix of curiosity and skepticism—fills me with excitement. I can hardly imagine how credulous I might have been if science wasn’t a part of my education from an early age.
Despite my sympathy for Sagan’s goals, I can’t help but think Sagan’s urgency comes as much from his wisdom as from his paranoia. Perhaps spending too much time thinking about massive meteors or talking to congressmen gives one a sense of impending doom. Whatever the reason, Sagan often gives the impression that he thinks the end is nigh, that humanity’s survival is standings on the edge of a knife, and that urgent action is necessary now, immediately, without further delay. Don’t get me wrong: I think Sagan was often right, even prescient. Even so, it’s hard for me to take his idea seriously that developing the technology to deflect an asteroid might inadvertently give some lunatic the power to destroy the world. For somebody who is so keen on being reasonable, this level of fear strikes me as at least a bit unrealistic. Of course, I might be the unrealistic one.
So, to repeat myself, I’m not sure this book was meant for me. I needed no convincing from Sagan to disbelieve eyewitness reports of supernatural phenomena, nor did I need any reminding that the human species is prone to folly and superstition. I doubt I'm unique in this respect. Yet I still can’t help admiring a man who worked so hard to convince us that ignorance is as dangerous as evil, and that skepticism is as necessary as knowledge. Sagan wasn’t like me: he had no time to be a fatalist. He was too busy trying to save the world.
Perhaps I’m wrong; I hope so. I’d like to think that this book fell into the hands of several UFO enthusiasts and believers in the supernatural, and that Sagan was able to convince them. When he is debunking UFO sightings, Sagan is awfully convincing; considerable mental defenses would be necessary to block out the assault of reason and evidence Sagan presents. Yet here we face a particular irony: Sagan is attempting to inculcate a certain type of skepticism—the skepticism towards claims based on insufficient empirical evidence—but his message will likely be blocked out by a different type of skepticism: the skepticism towards those in authority. How easy it would be to dismiss his arguments with “he’s just pompous,” or “science is narrow-minded,” or “he worked for the government, so he’s just part of the cover-up.” The human mind is not, unfortunately, a truth-seeking machine; as Benjamin Franklin observed: “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.”
We see this very thing play out in Chapters 10 and 11 of this book. In Chapter 10, Sagan vigorously attacks the evidence presented in favor of flying saucers from other worlds. Then, in the next chapter—after having publishing the previous chapter in a magazine—Sagan includes response after response from readers. The result is no surprise. Those who were already skeptical about aliens tell Sagan he’s right on the money. Those who already believed in intelligent aliens (and several stranger things), on the other hand, tell Sagan he has no idea what he’s talking about, that they have seen the aliens with their own eyes, and that they are still in contact, communicating telepathically. Not a single solitary note says something to this effect: “Wow, Carl, you really convinced me! I believed in flying saucers before, but you made some excellent points!”
This is an example of what one might call the Paradox of Belief: believers who are open-minded enough to be convinced are the least dangerous to society; believers so closed-minded as to never be convinced, on the other hand, are the real trouble. So what's the point of proselytizing? What rational argument would convince an extremist? What empirical evidence would dissuade a fanatic? What, in short, is the point of this enterprise, since the open-minded moderates aren’t a societal hazard, anyway?
Alright, I know: I’m simplifying things. Sagan does include much sensible advice on wider issues—advice on topics ranging from education reform to new ideas for science programs. He isn’t putting all of his stock into his books. Sagan would have more science in the classroom, in the government, on television. If science was built into our education and our entertainment, if the scientific attitude pervaded society, it would have a better chance of reaching children early, when they're still open-minded; science would be too ubiquitous to ignore, too commonplace to avoid.
In fact, Sagan treats the scientific attitude as a sort of panacea for all the world’s ills. For Sagan, science engenders both wisdom and knowledge, it inculcates both free-thinking and caution. Science, with its heavy emphasis on checking and re-checking, on independent and repeated verification, takes full stock of human nature. We are, sadly, an errant and erring species; progress, in both science and—as Sagan goes on to say—government, depends on checks and balances, on emphasizing evidence, on distrusting authority and trusting facts, on a community of independent thinkers rather than a unified hive-mind. And, I must admit, imagining a world where even 5% of people were more familiar with the scientific attitude—that strange mix of curiosity and skepticism—fills me with excitement. I can hardly imagine how credulous I might have been if science wasn’t a part of my education from an early age.
Despite my sympathy for Sagan’s goals, I can’t help but think Sagan’s urgency comes as much from his wisdom as from his paranoia. Perhaps spending too much time thinking about massive meteors or talking to congressmen gives one a sense of impending doom. Whatever the reason, Sagan often gives the impression that he thinks the end is nigh, that humanity’s survival is standings on the edge of a knife, and that urgent action is necessary now, immediately, without further delay. Don’t get me wrong: I think Sagan was often right, even prescient. Even so, it’s hard for me to take his idea seriously that developing the technology to deflect an asteroid might inadvertently give some lunatic the power to destroy the world. For somebody who is so keen on being reasonable, this level of fear strikes me as at least a bit unrealistic. Of course, I might be the unrealistic one.
So, to repeat myself, I’m not sure this book was meant for me. I needed no convincing from Sagan to disbelieve eyewitness reports of supernatural phenomena, nor did I need any reminding that the human species is prone to folly and superstition. I doubt I'm unique in this respect. Yet I still can’t help admiring a man who worked so hard to convince us that ignorance is as dangerous as evil, and that skepticism is as necessary as knowledge. Sagan wasn’t like me: he had no time to be a fatalist. He was too busy trying to save the world.
July 25, 2020
The Demon-Haunted World was originally published in 1995. Twenty five years may have passed since, but this book remains as important today as it was back then.
As a whole, this book represents the defense of scientific thinking and skepticism against pseudoscience and superstition. Carl Sagan explains why scientific thinking is essential and breaks down some of the most popular myths and pretensions of pseudoscience. According to Sagan, the temptation to irrationality is not only a cultural error but a dangerous leap into darkness, which endangers our most basic freedoms.
Carl Sagan spent part of his life trying to teach science and its way of thinking to the general public. He had a gift for it, one that many top scientists don’t have. In The Demon-Haunted World we get to have a look at his capabilities. His prose, the intelligent way in which he makes his point and leaves the reader thinking about it, the clever anecdotes, and all the historical and cultural references (from before Ancient Greece to our times, as well as his personal life) are evidence.
In a time during which political entities (and not only) would rather make use of ignorance than science, I would say the message Carl Sagan is trying to convene remains even more relevant today. Its our duty as citizens to remain conscious of that. We can apply scientific thinking to our everyday life.
The Demon Haunted World should be read in schools. It addresses many topics that would otherwise never be spoken among students, teachers and even the general public.
“As I close this eloquent and fascinating book, I recall the final chapter title from one of Carl Sagan’s earlier works, Cosmos. ‘Who Speaks for Earth?’ is a rhetorical question, but I presume to answer it. My candidate for planetary ambassador can be none other than Carl Sagan himself. He is wise, humane, witty, well read, and incapable of composing a dull sentence.… I wish I had written The Demon-Haunted World. Having failed to do so the least I can do is press it upon my friends. Please read this book.” - Richard Dawkins
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.” - Carl Sagan
As a whole, this book represents the defense of scientific thinking and skepticism against pseudoscience and superstition. Carl Sagan explains why scientific thinking is essential and breaks down some of the most popular myths and pretensions of pseudoscience. According to Sagan, the temptation to irrationality is not only a cultural error but a dangerous leap into darkness, which endangers our most basic freedoms.
Carl Sagan spent part of his life trying to teach science and its way of thinking to the general public. He had a gift for it, one that many top scientists don’t have. In The Demon-Haunted World we get to have a look at his capabilities. His prose, the intelligent way in which he makes his point and leaves the reader thinking about it, the clever anecdotes, and all the historical and cultural references (from before Ancient Greece to our times, as well as his personal life) are evidence.
In a time during which political entities (and not only) would rather make use of ignorance than science, I would say the message Carl Sagan is trying to convene remains even more relevant today. Its our duty as citizens to remain conscious of that. We can apply scientific thinking to our everyday life.
The Demon Haunted World should be read in schools. It addresses many topics that would otherwise never be spoken among students, teachers and even the general public.
“As I close this eloquent and fascinating book, I recall the final chapter title from one of Carl Sagan’s earlier works, Cosmos. ‘Who Speaks for Earth?’ is a rhetorical question, but I presume to answer it. My candidate for planetary ambassador can be none other than Carl Sagan himself. He is wise, humane, witty, well read, and incapable of composing a dull sentence.… I wish I had written The Demon-Haunted World. Having failed to do so the least I can do is press it upon my friends. Please read this book.” - Richard Dawkins
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.” - Carl Sagan
January 30, 2019
As expected, this book was very interesting, insightful, and relevant to our world today. I felt Sagan's passion emanating from the pages, and it has given me even an even greater motivation to pursue the goal I've been chasing for the past 3 years, which is to be educated, willing to question authority whatever form it takes, and to engage my critical faculties and be able to form my own opinions. It was Carl Sagan that showed me the path in 2016 when I read his book Pale Blue Dot, which was the first science book I've ever read, and now, three years later, I know more about the world around me yet I am acutely aware of how ignorant I am and always will be.
I wish that more people would read this book.
The bits about Thomas Jefferson were new to me so I am going to make sure I read some of his work.
"Jefferson was a student of history - not just the compliant and safe history that praises our own time or country or ethnic group, but the real history of real humans, our weaknesses as well as our strengths. History taught him that the rich and powerful will steal and oppress if given half a chance. He described the governments of Europe, which he saw at first hand as the American ambassador to France. Under the pretence of government, he said, they had divided their nations into two classes: wolves and sheep.
Jefferson taught that every government degenerates when it is left to the rulers alone, because rulers - by the very act of ruling - misuse the public trust. The people themselves, he said, are the only prudent repository of power.
But he worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. So he advocated safeguards, insurance policies. One was the constitutional separation of powers; accordingly, various groups, some pursuing their own selfish interests, balance one another, preventing any one of them from running away with the country: the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches; the House and the Senate; the States and the Federal Government. He also stressed, passionately and repeatedly, that it was essential for the people to understand the risks and benefits of government, to educate themselves, and to involve themselves in the political process. Without that, he said, the wolves will take over. Here's how he put it in Notes on Virginia, stressing how the powerful and unscrupulous find zones of vulnerability they can exploit:
In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved . . ."
Recommended for everyone.
I wish that more people would read this book.
Ethnocentrism, xenophobia and nationalism are these days rife in many parts of the world. Government repression of unpopular views is still widespread. False or misleading memories are inculcated. For the defenders of such attitudes, science is disturbing. It claims access to truths that are largely independent of ethnic or cultural biases. By its very nature, science transcends national boundaries. Put scientists working in the same field of study together in a room and even if they share no common spoken language, they will find a way to communicate. Science itself is a transnational language. Scientists are naturally cosmopolitan in attitude and are more likely to see through efforts to divide the human family into many small and warring factions. 'There is no national science,' said the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, 'just as there is no national multiplication table.'
The bits about Thomas Jefferson were new to me so I am going to make sure I read some of his work.
"Jefferson was a student of history - not just the compliant and safe history that praises our own time or country or ethnic group, but the real history of real humans, our weaknesses as well as our strengths. History taught him that the rich and powerful will steal and oppress if given half a chance. He described the governments of Europe, which he saw at first hand as the American ambassador to France. Under the pretence of government, he said, they had divided their nations into two classes: wolves and sheep.
Jefferson taught that every government degenerates when it is left to the rulers alone, because rulers - by the very act of ruling - misuse the public trust. The people themselves, he said, are the only prudent repository of power.
But he worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. So he advocated safeguards, insurance policies. One was the constitutional separation of powers; accordingly, various groups, some pursuing their own selfish interests, balance one another, preventing any one of them from running away with the country: the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches; the House and the Senate; the States and the Federal Government. He also stressed, passionately and repeatedly, that it was essential for the people to understand the risks and benefits of government, to educate themselves, and to involve themselves in the political process. Without that, he said, the wolves will take over. Here's how he put it in Notes on Virginia, stressing how the powerful and unscrupulous find zones of vulnerability they can exploit:
In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved . . ."
Recommended for everyone.
May 8, 2020
I was surprised by how relevant this was even though it's almost 25 years old. Sagan wanders through a variety of topics (see ToC below) so chapters often feel like essays, although they flow together well & some are written with another. That means they vary somewhat in tone. All good, but some were better than others. The second chapter "Science & Hope" impressed me with the sheer number of sayings I wanted to remember. The next to the last chapter "Science & Witchcraft" was really eye-opening about the witch trials in 1600s Germany which Sagan uses to show why our criminal justice system is set up as it is. This is just one of several that makes a case for an informed, skeptical electorate.
Highly recommended in any format. I found the audiobook great reading, but am glad I got a text copy as well since there's so much information that I wanted to look back over & make notes about. None of my libraries had the book in audio, so I bought it from Blackstone Audio's consumer site, downpour.com, where it was only $10. Well worth every penny.
Table of Contents:
The most precious thing
Science and hope
The man in the moon and the face on mars
Aliens
Spoofing and secrecy
Hallucinations
The demon-haunted world
On the distinction between true and false visions
Therapy
The dragon in my garage
The city of grief
The fine art of baloney detection
Obsessed with reality
Antiscience
Newton's sleep
When scientists know sin
The marriage of skepticism and wonder
The wind makes dust
No such things as a dumb question
House on fire
The path to freedom
Significance junkies
Maxwell and the nerds
Science and witchcraft
Real patriots ask questions
Highly recommended in any format. I found the audiobook great reading, but am glad I got a text copy as well since there's so much information that I wanted to look back over & make notes about. None of my libraries had the book in audio, so I bought it from Blackstone Audio's consumer site, downpour.com, where it was only $10. Well worth every penny.
Table of Contents:
The most precious thing
Science and hope
The man in the moon and the face on mars
Aliens
Spoofing and secrecy
Hallucinations
The demon-haunted world
On the distinction between true and false visions
Therapy
The dragon in my garage
The city of grief
The fine art of baloney detection
Obsessed with reality
Antiscience
Newton's sleep
When scientists know sin
The marriage of skepticism and wonder
The wind makes dust
No such things as a dumb question
House on fire
The path to freedom
Significance junkies
Maxwell and the nerds
Science and witchcraft
Real patriots ask questions
Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,091 reviews