Carl Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark

Astrology, pseudoscience, anti-science, alien abduction, fundamentalist zealotry, wacky conspiracy theories, weird UFO beliefs, quackery, ESP, fortune telling, and other baloney stands in stark contrast to how science operates. Unfortunately the darkness of unreason still dominates our planet with way too many people still unable to tell the difference between reason and unreason. Wacky delusions of all sorts spread among us like viruses and many people seem to love to be infected. Carl Sagan does an excellent job when debunking the various myths, unreasonable beliefs and pseudo science. He is very logical, careful and respectful and he understands that anyone can fall for pseudo science and nonsense, because we want to believe and it takes effort to get the complete picture. Baloney can be awfully tempting. In addition, popular media, which is often sensationalistic, typically does not help.

In this book Carl Sagan debunks a large range of fashionable or popular nonsense, and explains how this nonsense can really hurt us. He explains the scientific method, what it is not, and how science is not only making life better for all of us, but can help us all make better decisions about what to believe. In chapter 12, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection", he presents a set of rules of thumb which helps you avoid falling in the baloney trap. The baloney detection kit is important because people fall for baloney all the time, the world over. This chapter has become a classic piece of literature that should be read often.

Science is a wonderful medicine for unreason (Science as a candle in the dark). Science is not a belief system or a theory. Science is a craft, a tool, a method for creating reliable knowledge. Science is not a theory it is more of an invention just like the printing press is an invention. Science is self correcting, and scientific knowledge is constantly improving, growing, and becoming more precise. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. Further a scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable, and the results must be possible for other scientists to reproduce. However, it is astounding how many people actually believe that science is some sort of a modern belief system. Just listen to various movie stars and other celebrities whose opinions seem to matter so much despite the fact that my nine year old understand science better then they do.

As an example, remember the "moon landing was a fakery" conspiracy theory (or hoax). It presented a set of extremely silly assertions that some found convincing. One example was, "the sky is black in the photographs from the moon and still without stars, and this proves that the photos were staged". Anyone with basic understanding of science knows that it is sunlight not the blue sky that prevents us from seeing stars during the day. The rest of the so called evidence was equally silly, and never mind the lunar laser ranging retro reflector arrays on the moon that we currently use to bounce laser beams off (they came with Apollo 11). Still millions of people including famous and powerful people found the evidence convincing, all while anyone with basic knowledge of science laughed them selves silly upon seeing this so called evidence. Another example is the crop circle hoax (two guys admitted to it). It is very common that people want to believe in something sensational or mysterious but ridiculous despite the fact that science itself is so fascinating. When possible we should use the Scientific method to get to the bottom of things, and above all ask questions.

This book is one of the most important books ever written in modern times, and it needs all the attention it can possibly get. With this book Carl Sagan proved that he was not only a great popularizer but that he was also a great thinker.

At 653 words this review was added into Sleeper54's Lean-n-Mean write off on 12/5-2008