Science as a method to make good choices.May 13, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sagan disproves most myths lot of people have believed, are believing and probably will believe in the future, no matter how many proofs exists against these ideas. But more important is, he gives a clear method how to filter all the crap you will encounter in the future, the way science works. He explains the importance of being open minded, but still skeptical. I will definitely try other books from Sagan in the near future.
Must read book for everyone, especially for credulous people.
Sharpen your critical thinking skillsMay 11, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's hard enough to understand how Sagan could know as much about astronomy as he did, let alone the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. But that his range of knowledge was also as wide as this book demonstrates on pseudo-science and supernaturalisms is stunning, even more that he could write so well on all these topics.
I wasn't aware just how evil the treatment of witches was: I'm glad Sagan spared at least some of the details. That chapter alone was worth the book for me. Nor was I aware to what extent people actually did believe that demons were real. The attitudes and behavior about witchcraft and demons truly makes me feel I do not understand at all the mindset at the time of Rome or even during the Middle Ages. The chapter on James Randi's Carlos hoax I'll treasure: next time someone tries to sell me on telepathy or reincarnation, I hope I think of this immediately. Good information and examples here as well about hypnoisis, UFO's, hallucinations and a good deal more. This book amounts to an implicit course in choosing a scientific outlook and becoming, as Sagan would have said, a "baloney detector".
It is appalling how small a percentage of people in the U.S. accept evolution and natural selection. Have we really needed brilliant scientists like Sagan and Dawkins to have wasted time trying to convince people of just how well-founded evolution is? And yet reading in this book about how many people believe in UFOs, telepathy, ghosts, astrology, it puts the unwillingness to acknowledge evolution into perspective. Scary? Or do you doubt that it is? In either case, this easy to read book is packed with reasons to prefer a scientific approach to life. Sagan's lectures in The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God provide good reasons not to feel threatened by science but rather feel welcome its help in enhancing our sense of wonder about our lives ... and turning to knowledge instead of being distracted by foolish beliefs.
Scientifically illiterate AmericansMay 8, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
insight as to why the sheep believe in ghosts, God, aliens, luck charms. Well done.
Should be required readingApril 28, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I wish Carl Sagan had lived long enough to produce a revised edition of this book to incorporate the rise of the Internet and the signal to noise ratio present on it. Not only does he give you a practical tool kit of critical thinking, he provides examples of how such a kit was used or ignored in our past. often with bloody and sad results.
People holding rigid convictions are often threatened by people who use critical thinking and for good reason. Critical and skeptical thinking plays no favorites and will confront religion as easily as it does the charlatan claiming to speak to dead relatives for money. Sagan repeatedly reminds the reader that a choice must be made, know the truth no matter how scary it may appear or delude yourself with comforting thoughts.
Reading this book will not get you to think Carl Sagan's way, it will teach you to think your own way. It can seriously alter your world-view when you begin to examine why you believe what you do. We need critical thinkers today more than ever as we become flooded with information from sources of unknown quality and intent. The human mind wants to believe what it is told and even the best minds fall victim to distortions and lies. Having a mental system in place to help you evaluate what you see and hear will go to great lengths to protect you from your own gullibility.
There is a reason the scientific method is emphasized by Sagan, it has been proven to work over and over. It is a self correcting system that thrives not on belief but on testable facts. It welcomes scrutiny and the attack of long held ideas in order to refine what we know to be true.
Sagan makes an elegant point that to be a critical thinker you have to be willing to change your mind when facts and evidence challenge what you currently think. Holding fast to a rigid conviction makes you a convict in your own mind and is such a waste.
An idea is only as good as the attacks it survives. To weakly attack an idea because you don't want it to fail undermines the point of thinking at all.
A Candle in the DarkApril 22, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm so lucky to have read this book several years ago when I was a young teen. In an age of increasingly bitter attacks on religion by folks who seem to be more angry at God than skeptical of him, it's refreshing to return to Carl's warm and persuasive technique. Rather than inviting the reader to attack religious ideas and their hapless hosts, Dr. Sagan presents skepticism, materialism, and the scientific method as what they are - invaluable tools of discovery for the curious mind.
It seems like we skeptics are, thanks to Hitchens and Dawkins, becoming the arrogant killjoys and persecutors that Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" makes us out to be. I've always considered this book to be the ultimate atheist primer, and never have we been more in need of this lucid, breezy, and amusing introduction to free thinking.
