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Title: Demon-Haunted World by Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan ISBN: 0-345-40946-9 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 25 February, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.42 (289 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Are faith and scientific rigor mutually exclusive?
Comment: This is a must-read for anyone who has struggled with the conflicts between belief and proven fact. While Dr. Sagan may be too rigid in holding to the rigors of scientific proof, he nevertheless makes a very cogent argument for the use of his "baloney detection kit" when it comes to analyzing both ancient and modern-day myths. Carl draws a very clean line among the ancient myths of demons, the Inquisition, Salem witch hunting, slavery, and today's claims of alien abductions. He hits on some very deep natures of the human experience without over drilling his case. The tools of analysis that he uses are immediately useful for those of us who have been challenged with how to reconcile the differences between faith and fact-based deductive reasoning. Throughout the book Carl does a wonderful job of both enlightening through analytical tools and educating by the many scientific examples that he uses to make his case.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Call to Arms, er, Minds
Comment: Carl Sagan has written books on a variety of sciences, from biology and evolution in The Dragons of Eden to astronomy in his well-known Cosmos. In this book, however, he examines the nature of science itself. This is a book that has been sorely needed.
Too often, science is taught merely as a collection of facts and figures, rather than a process by which the truth about nature is discovered. Which is a shame, since that process can be used by anyone to disect the claims given by politicians and advertisers. Sagan tries to rectify this situation by explaining how scientists come up with explanations, devise experiments, and use rational debate to separate truth from mere speculation. He provides a list of errors in logic that allow the reader to spot a potential "bamboozle". And he ends with an impassioned plea that the American public needs to start thinking more critically, else we are helping to create a veritable monarchy by throwing away our voice and our responsibility.
The one thing that will probably rile up the average reader the most would be when religion comes up. Sadly there have been many times when religion has been used as part of a con, such as Peter Popoff's "miraculous" knowledge of people's medical conditions (which were actually fed to him by radio), or the Donation of Constantine where a document was "found" deeding the Wesetern Roman Empire to the Catholic Church. There have been times when religion has exhorted its followers not to think for themselves, but to follow blindly. And there are times when religions have made pronouncements that are verifiable but contradict gathered evidence, such as the assertation that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Sagan shines a harsh light on these instances.
However, I didn't see any passage that indicated that religion is a bad or even unnecessary thing. He even states, "I want to acknowledge at the outset the prodigious diversity and complexity of religious thought and practice over the millennia; the growth of liberal religion and ecumenical fellowship during the last century; and the fact that - as in the Protestant Reformation, the rise of Reform Judaism, Vatican II, and the so-called higher criticism of the Bible - religion has fought (with varying degrees of success ) its own excesses." In other words, religion has started using critical thinking of its own teachings.
Science is an inescapable part of all our lives now. Not to understand its underpinings in the twenty-first century may not be just foolish, it could quite possibly be deadly. This book is an excellent first step in obtaining that understanding.
Rating: 5
Summary: Light that candle, Carl
Comment: Simon, the slight, fair-haired skeptic in "Lord of the Flies," told his peers "I don't believe in the beast." These peers, both friend and foe, did believe, or thought they might, or thought they should, or at least wondered what would happen if they didn't. In the story Simon, alone, confirms beyond doubt there is no beast. He runs to tell the others but is killed for his trouble, for the others want a beast, or think there should be a beast, or at least wonder if life on their island prison would be so stupidly fun if there were no beast.
Carl Sagan was a real-life Simon in many ventures, and never more so than in "The Demon-Haunted World." (The good news is Sagan was not murdered. The bad news is, with much left to do, he was done in by pathogens.) This book should be read by every teacher, every policy maker, and every member of a legislative body.
Throughout the pages Sagan methodically works the reader through the pseudosciences of our day - UFOs, alien abduction, recovered memories, channeling, etc. - and the witch hunts and demonic possessions of centuries past. He doesn't discount categorically, but instead insists that extraordinary claims require an equal level of evidence at any time in history. He illustrates that extraordinary claims in this pseudo realm rarely, if ever, have non-anecdotal evidence that can be corroborated by a third party.
It's not that Sagan wasn't interested in, and even desirous of, the fantastic - note his lifelong search for extraterrerstrial life. But the last outcome he would have wanted was to be convinced of a far away intelligence that wasn't really there. He understood that to know what you don't know is just as important as knowing what is, in fact, true.
It was Sagan's lifelong work, since boyhood, to promote the power of real, reproducible knowledge. It was his hope, I think, to begin withdrawing us from our ancient addiction to unwarranted authority. This book was sorely needed when first published in 1995. We need it even more desperately today.
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Title: Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan ISBN: 0345346297 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 12 December, 1986 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer ISBN: 0805070893 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan ISBN: 0345384725 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 07 September, 1993 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Cosmos by Carl Sagan ISBN: 0345331354 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 12 October, 1985 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Billions & Billions by Carl Sagan ISBN: 0345379187 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 12 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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