Bingo: TBR. This has been on my TBR for ages.
[T]he history of science–by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans–teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.”
In the midst of these terrible times, one of my greatest despairs is the damage being done to scientific research. In an effort to soothe myself, I picked up a book long on my TBR, Carl Sagan’s The Demon-haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
Sagan’s book is a love letter to science and warns about pseudoscience and the decline of critical thinking. I love how direct he is about charlatans, uncritical believers, and the need humans have for comfort over truth. But he also approaches the non-scientific compassionately and with no arrogance. In these anti-science times this book is a cold drink on a hot day. There is so much clarity and truth and meaningful skepticism and humanity. The book is also surprisingly good at exploring social context/race/class/gender issues. Throughout the book, Sagan shows himself to be of both great intellect and great humanity.
The book is comprised of many essays that build upon each other until the end, where Sagan ties scientific inquiry to the project of democracy. The first seven or so chapters explore human beliefs in alien life, alien abduction, and human capacity for malleable memories. He covers the human tendency to see human features where there are none (for example, the structures on Mars that are often mistaken for an alien construction of a face), the belief in various “proofs” of alien life and activity (such a crop circles, which have all been proven to be hoaxes), government conspiracies, people’s deep beliefs of their own alien abduction and what may have influenced them, visions and apparitions like those who claim to see Mary, the Mother of God at various locations, and the delicacy around suggestion and recovered memories (particularly the satanic panic of the eighties). All along the way, Sagan emphasizes healthy skepticism as well as the human tendency towards superstitious or credulous thinking.
Sagan goes on to cover issues of credulity, skepticism, scientific evidence, and the essential role critical thinking plays in society. He publishes some letters he’s received about his scientific articles in Parade magazine, a widely circulated publication meant to appeal to the every-day, curious public. He does not make fun of the writers, even in the face of some very wild claims. He merely presents people’s reactions to skeptical claims of alien life (which, by the way, Sagan doesn’t rule out; his entire point is that there is no credible evidence of alien life to date). He has an interesting chapter on the “dragon in the garage.” In this scenario, someone can claim they have a dragon in their garage, and with every inquiry justify why someone else can’t see it (it’s invisible, it floats so there are no footprints, etc.)
There is a great chapter on how to detect “baloney,” with a list of fallacies and bad arguments. He plunges into charlatans, faith healers, psychics and channelers. He explores not only anti-science beliefs, but the harms science itself can cause (the development of bombs, particularly the hydrogen bomb). He emphasizes the importance of wonder as well as skepticism, and bringing joy back to the teaching of science in schools. He traces the origins of scientific enquiry and asserts there are no dumb questions when it comes to science, that nurturing curiosity and wonder in elementary and high school students is crucial to the advancement of science and critical thinking.
Sagan does not condescend to those with beliefs in psuedoscience. He says:
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.”
The last two chapters talk more explicitly about politics and science, and the need for explorations of ethics and attention to government and corporate influences. He intertwines knowledge and freedom (with a blinkered set of passages about Jefferson, whose slave-holding Sagan completely ignores). But I appreciate this quote:
Freedom is a prerequisite for continuing the delicate experiment of science…At the same time, science–or rather its delicate mix of openness and skepticism, and its encouragement of diversity and debate–is a prerequisite for continuing the delicate experiment of freedom in an industrial and highly technological society.”
Sagan is incredibly prescient about the political and cultural dangers of diminishing science. He might as well have seen right into our current situation. I mourn that Sagan is no longer with us; we need his brilliance and compassion and wonder more than ever.