excellent book,sagan saw the future.April 20, 2008 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
warning: sheepole people need not bother reading this book.You need to be able to have a semblance of Critical thinking, and this book helps shed light on ufo's,ghosts, and all the other invisible friends.anyone who can see the trouble this country is currently in, needs to read this book. science allways prevails!
A superior book, but it won't be read by those who need it.March 31, 2008 5 out of 5 found this review helpful
If there was one thing that the late Carl Sagan could not stand, it was pseudoscience. This was a man who spent decades trying to make REAL science more attainable for the layman, and how do we repay him? By accepting lunacy such as New Age faith healers, the "face" on Mars, and crop cirlces being made by aliens as fact, that's how. Well, not ALL of us. But certainly enough of us that we have no right to scoff at the people in 14th Century who wore bird masks because they believed it would ward off The Black Plague.
The Demon Haunted World is a long overdue kick to the arse of the proofless idiocy that is wrongly associated with true science. Science requires a painstaking trial and error system called The Scientific Method - which will push me past 1000 words if I try to explain. All that pseudoscience requires is gullibility. Science is fed by hard work and intellect. Pseudoscience is fed by misguided emotion. Sagan never once said anywhere in this book that science is perfect. Along with great things such as penicillin, food refrigeration, and the Internet that can be credited to science; things like nuclear weapons, Agent Orange, and DDT could be blamed on it as well. Sagan acknowledged that. When all things were taken into consideration, science was the horse he chose to put his money on. And with good reason.
Another great thing about this book is how Sagan said he was open to what the pseudoscience crowd believed - as long as they provided hard, concrete evidence. Which none of these people have been able to do. He didn't totally reject ideas that didn't mix with established science. He just didn't like the way these were casually accepted without proof, or at best proof that had a very questionable basis. For the thinking person, it takes much more than someone throwing a hubcap in the air and taking a picture of it for there to be proof of intelligent life from other planets. Doing such a thing doesn't even prove that there is intelligent life on THIS planet. Yet, people have done such things before and there was always someone there to fall for it every time.
There are a couple of problems with this book that are not related to quality but still must be addressed. First of all, the book was written in 1994 or thereabouts because he makes references to the movie Dumb and Dumber and the TV show Beavis and Butthead. He comments on how they both celebrate stupidity. It has gotten much worse 14 years later with reality shows and George W. Bush. Also, look who wrote the book. How many people outside the scientific community read Sagan? Especially those who need to read him the most - the tabloid readers? But these are just minor gripes that shouldn't really be taken to discourage anyone from reading.
The Art of Baloney DetectionMarch 29, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Carl Sagan is a baloney detective. When asked his opinion on intelligent life elsewhere in the universe he answers that he tends not to think with his gut. In other words its ok not to know the answer to all our questions; its better to wait patiently for further evidence.
Sagan touchingly reveals that sometimes he fancies hearing the voices of his deceased parents, but although he'd like to believe they still live on, he is all too aware how such feelings make us vulnerable to charlatens or prey to people convinced of their own psychic powers.
The book draws parellels between various seemingly unrelated phenomena: alien abductions, childhood satanic abuse, the european witch craze and the face on Mars.
New Age channelling and evangelical religion may seem harmless enough but look where thinking with "your gut" got our ancestors. The european witch craze was a scam by the catholic church for robbing those it falsely accused of witchcraft. And when priests bless the instruments of torture there is no role for evidence. Testimony under torture takes the place of evidence, vision takes the place of reason.
Science may be an imperfect guide to truth but its superior to all other forms of knowledge. Science unlike wishful thinking or divine revelation is based on sceptical habits of thought. You'd be sceptical when buying a used car so why not be just as sceptical when examining extraordinary claims like Atlantis or the canals of Mars.
There is a great deal of interesting material about the unreliability of memory. Its easy to get someone to remember being lost as a child even if the event never happened. Memory gets even more unreliable under hypnosis where it is vulnerable to suggestion by the therapist. If the therapist believes in childhood satanic abuse or abduction by aliens its no wonder that those in therapy start remembering being abused by humans or aliens.
An understanding of science is necessary for making informed decisions in a technological democracy. The values of science and the values of democracy are essentially the same. Sagan is all too aware that big business and the abuse of technology often go hand in hand. So understanding how to think about the science will allow us to bring democratic thinking to bear upon its possible abuse.
Like Richard Dawkin's Unweaving the Rainbow Sagan hopes to convince that the truth is better, more inspiring, more wonderful than make believe. It has the added virtue of being true.
Sagan asks some interesting questions for champions of ufo abductees. If humans are the result of an alien breeding experiment how come we share 99 per cent of our dna with chimpanzees? Why are the aliens so backward in their knowledge of genetics that they are taking so long to breed human alien hybrids? Why don't they just take some human cells and clone them? Isn't it funny how the Venusians have stopped visiting now we know that Venus is uninhabitable.
I'd recommend this books along with Dawkins Unweaving the Rainbow.
Enthusastic Overview and Endosement of FreethoughtMarch 26, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Required reading. I'd be up for having this book be required for all high school or first year college students.
Sublime! The "manifesto for clear thought"!!!March 15, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book changed my life. EVERYONE can and should read this book!
I second what one reviewer noted below: "Science at it's best-accurate, timely, well-argued, emotionally and mentally invigorating, spiritually uplifting; and filled with boundless enthusiasm and hope. Like the author, Carl Sagan himself."
