The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark (Bookcassette(r) Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Skeptic's Bible
Review: Surely no semi-aware person in this unfortunate age of television dumbing down, condescending school textbooks, and widespread ignorance and gullibility fails to note the danger that is inherent in society due to a lack of rational thinking, healthy skepticism, and application of the scientific method among the common folk. This book is a plea to those people, and a "how-to" educate guide to those who do realize and want to do something about it. Perhaps the most interesting chapter in this well-rounded book is "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" in which Sagan demonstrates a "Baloney Detection Kit" listing the checklist for determining whether or not a particular assertion (whether scientific or not) is Gospel. Conversely, he also wisely offers the companion kit, what NOT to do. Among the other interesting things in this book are convincingly argued debunkings of such annoying to rationalist topics as UFO abductions, astrology, faith healing, chanelling, and their indiscernable ilk. Sagan consistently brings up parallel cases from olden times, i.e. witchcraft mania and demo xenophobia, that show that such fears and paranoia have always been around in different forms. This goes a long way towards exposing them for being fraudelent. Sagan also expounds here his views on such subjects as religion (a very rational argument on their scientific insignifigance, while also pointing out its virtues: a balanced view that should open many eyes, without, perhaps, offending the faithful), public education (corollaried with an abundance of letters Sagan has received from readers on the subject, many of them eye-opening), and politics; many of which I agree with, all of which I can respect. This is a very enlightening and useful book, and an elegant manifesto for the useful application of the scientific method and skeptical and rational thinking in our modern world. It's a shame that Sagan is no longer around to parlay such truth to our all-too-ignorant public. Still, the incredible works that he left behind, including this indispensable book, can still enligten us and perhaps make our world that much better for whatever dose of rationality it can inject into our "demon-haunted", close-minded society: science as a "candle in the dark" indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Essential treatise on skepticism for everyone.
Review: When people are on a certain side of the fence, it is difficult to cross ranks. This may be the book that does it (if not, nothing will). Bringing together a collection of examples to illustrate a growing set of problems, Sagan shows a very impressive understanding in this book. Starting with a very informed review of the belief in flying saucers and aliens from other worlds, sounds at first rather prosaic. Certainly if you believe that beings from outer space have visited earth, you will dismiss his insistence upon evidence. However, Sagan of any scientist would believe in aliens if there was any compelling evidence to do so. His life has centered on an almost obsessive pursuit of life on other worlds, yet without proof then there is no justification. Then he begins a very frightening summary of the propensity for abuses when people have no skeptical restraint, as illustrated in the witch trials and communist hearings. How easily people can experience hallucinations, also how easily credulous people can be duped and are willing to allow themselves to be. Then includes what is probably the most important segment in the book, a "baloney detection kit", which is a list of rules to prevent acquiring false beliefs. He also describes how education in America is faltering and how Fredrick Douglass was able to rise beyond prejudice through reading and learning, thereby gaining freedom. He shows how science works and sometimes when it has failed, but in few other fields can a single unknown overthrow a well-established theories and be expected to, if they have the proof and are competent in attaining it. Certainly, he argues, we are free because of the awareness of human failures through protection of the Bill of Rights. And sometimes includes excerpts of letter sent to him by people commenting on his statements, which are rather quite illustrative. Of course, it was only until I was about half way through the book that I began to be skeptical of what Sagan was saying, yet having scientific training much of it was not difficult. Certainly refute if you can, but try using his baloney detection kit against him and it will be difficult. Although it seemed that it would have been sufficient simply to have gotten it at a library, since its not the sort of book I felt I would wish to read again.

Rating:
Summary: A Big Jumble of Crap
Review: This book is worthless. It's not even worth reviewing. Carl Sagan doesn't address any particular occurance in detail (maybe a paragraph), he just generalizes things. Essentially this book is a waste of time. Read some Joe Nickell instead.

The author talks about aliens and UFOs, but he doesn't review any of the important cases. You won't learn anything after finishing this book. He doesn't even show pictures of the things he calls fake.

I'm a skeptic myself, but I think this is the most overrated book of the "skeptic genre." This is only for lazy people. I wouldn't suggest this book to somebody in an attempt to convert them, because, like I said, it's worthless. It may, however, put them to sleep.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant but flawed
Review: I have at times felt like a soul brother to Carl Sagan. I, too, am educated in science, and a skeptical and critical thinker - and a non-believer for fifteen years. However, I continue to challenge my assumptions, and I'm left concluding after reading this book that Carl Sagan stopped challenging himself.

The book is an exceedingly rigorous and disciplined application of empiricism and skepticism. Where appropriate, the book is outstanding - in this case, where he debunks UFOs and other paranormal claims. However, I think he is off the mark when he strays into his comments about belief in God. This book is not the final word about faith.

I take issue with Carl on a couple of his assumptions. First, he advocates without real justification that the only way to truth is through skepticism and the scientific method. Yes, science works, and he mentions that it has its limits, but he doesn't seriously consider those limits. Second, I wonder that his perception! of God is too narrow. Sure, skepticism is quite unforgiving of the simple faith of most people, but perhaps the concept may be both bigger and simpler than what he challenges. Is it really appropriate to apply skepticism to the simple question that existence may be about something, may have a grounding that gives us meaning?

I do recommend this book, but with a caveat: if you're really interested in finding truth, consider this book for what it is - an outstanding example of the application of skepticism. Carl Sagan was a wonderful popularizer of science and an uncompromising skeptic, and although clearly well read, he was not a philosopher or theologian. Keep challenging your assumptions - the bigger truths may be revealed to you, but only by reading many more authors.

Rating:
Summary: Great book about science
Review: I really enjoyed this book. Personally I enjoyed his discussion of the paranormal the best. I would love for some of my friends who believe in UFOs, Astrology or psychic ability to read this. He uses pretty sound logic to discredit some of these silly beliefs. I only give the book 4 stars because I feel the book wanders into politics sometimes. The book would have been a better read if the author would have stuck to examining pseudoscience and why people believe such nonsense.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This book is brilliant. It shows through dozens of examples how scientific thinking is superior to magical-thinking. In writing my book about autism, I found it to be common that parents are being caught by pseudo-science and not investigating things for themselves. I would have loved to have interviewed Carl about his comments on this autism phenomena going on right now. He would find it quite interesting, no doubt. It was very clear that Sagan cared very much about our planet(see Cosmos) and that would some readers would see as hate of much of the human race is actually a deep caring that supercedes status-quo humanitarianism.

I would recommend this book to the religious right and the radical left.

Jeffrey McAndrew
radio broadcaster and author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"

Rating:
Summary: Widens your horizon of scientific thinking
Review: I picked this one up after reading Sagan's "Billions & Billions..". I liked the main thrust of this book - scientic (skeptical) thinking. Sagan takes numerous 'case studies' to prove his point. But I think he came up short in describing cases where the ower of mind has been demonstrated time and again in spite of lack of scientific evidence. Cases like Greg Louganis winning Olympics show that not everything is within the realm of 'scientific thinking'. Sagan himself says that there are three things that are worth investigating (I'd be interested to know how far he was successful)..I can't find it now but I remember reading them in the book. I vaguely recall one being telepathy (?). The others sounded interesting too.

Also at one place(Ch 17 Page 303 in my edition) he says "Objections to pseudoscience on the grounds of unavailable mechanism can be mistaken..". I don't want to make the same mistake of Sagan's detractors namely, quoting out of context but what he intends is to not ignore ideas for want of proof. This to me seemed contradictory to what he proposes elsewhere (namely strong reliance on proofs).

In a different place(Ch 22 Page 373 in my edition) he seems to suggest that "many of our problems..only have solutions that involve a deep understanding of science and technology". While this may be true of "many" (though it's hard to quantify this) not "all" are solvable by Sci/Tech. What about emotional problems ? Problems involving mind have not yet been proven to be solved by Sci/Tech (medicines etc..)

In spite of minor deficiencies in explanation this is a powerful book if you want to hone your logical thinking (and so I set the subject of my reivew "Widening your horizon.." implying you need to have some basic scientific thinking to see points in Sagan's angle).

Worth reading definitely.

Rating:
Summary: Light that candle, Carl
Review: 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 extraterrestrial 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.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful, mesmerizing, comprehensive
Review: As I finished this book this morning over breakfast, I was struck by twin emotions: deep sadness at the loss of Carl Sagan (I remember his passing, it saddened me then); and a profound sense of gratitude that this amazing man put pen to paper, thus leaving us with a small piece of himself.

This book is a "de-bunker" as well as a warning. Sagan calmly leads the reader through a multitude of beliefs that, when examined closely, can not defend themselves at all. Even more important that evidence (in my opinion), he points out that, unlike science, those who believe in these ideas get ANGRY when questioned. Science, he points out, rewards the skeptic. And that is, I think, the crux of this book. Skepticism.

Another well laid-out point Sagan makes is that the US is really shooting itself in the foot by allowing children to become more fluent in consumerism than science and/or literary arts. This comes back to skepticism; are we teaching it? Not in my high school we weren't.

Overall this book is full of facts and examples to back up whatever point Sagan is making. The examples pull from Sagan's decades of experience and wealth of knowledge, and give the reader a feeling of what it is like to glimpse the mind of a real life genius who took the time to explain things to us dummies in a way that respected our intelligence like advertisers have never done. Not once did I catch Sagan trying to trick me to push this or that agenda, and I truly appreciate the intellectual honesty and respect.

I have no children, but if I ever do, I will point to Universities as we pass them and tell the little one that what happens in *those* buildings, with all of their problems, their hustle and bustle, their mistakes...that is the only bulwark we as society have against a second Dark Age. And that comment will be based, to a large degree, on this book.

Rating:
Summary: Preachy, Targets the Easy, The Debunking is Questionable
Review: The well written (as in the quality of English, maybe not the content), The Demon Haunted World, starts with Carl Sagan almost establishing himself as child genius as he looks fondly back on his youth and education. There is no doubt here that this is just as much a book about Sagan promoting himself as it is dishing pseudoscience. Take the premise of this book for example. Sagan says - "Be careful what you see and read.", but apparently the paradox of this statement does not seem to register with Sagan. There is little doubt that much ego is displayed on the page. In adulthood he recalls ripping through the unenlightened mind of a man via a chance meeting because the guy knows a lot of "pseudoscience" but nothing concrete. To Sagan pseudoscience is the same as illiteracy and he watched as the light in the man's eyes dimmed with every scientific revelation that counteracted his "strange" beliefs. Sagan never defines "pseudoscience" in this book. He mainly looks at alternative new age thought and goes, "There! that is 'pseudoscience'" as something we can not replicate in a lab. However what he seems to omit is that science evolves and that many of these new age thoughts could very well be the next step, and some are. For example if we are to concur with Sagan then there would be no coelacanths (A fish thought extinct for 70 million years) and yet science has found populations of it. To suggest that relic dinosaurs still exist is not in the realm of scientific thought, but science is proven wrong because science is still evolving. We do not know everything there is to know about science but Sagan only touches on this very remotely.

Sagan then points out that mankind needs more science in order to survive and avoid an environmental catastrophe. Unfortunately nothing of capitalism and the connection to the military industrial complex which hoards such discoveries is covered that well in this book. Sagan does touch on the fact that the best minds get to work for the best agencies, which happens to be any military connected outfit. Politics does play a massive role in keeping new developments suppressed before they filter down to the general population. Intel may have the fastest domestic processors but you can bet your bottom dollar that the military has access to chips that will make the latest home computer seem like the old Atari game console. We could have all the education that Sagan wants us to have and yet still miss his primary objective by a long shot. The funny thing is that when things go from bad to worse, it will more than likely be a "Holy Crusade" of sorts that try to set the record strait. Nowhere is this more observable than in the start of the 21st century as third world nations, sick of oppression, plunder and promises not kept, have resorted to terrorism in the name of the metaphysical to cut through the spoils of a scientific-based "Cold War" that left them in ruin. Let us also not forget that nazi-scientists where employed by the US after WWII to work on rocket designs, all done without public knowledge or the Japanese human biological experiment programs. How many of our illnesses and diseases are actually the result of science too? Sagan simply pushes these aside in less than two paragraphs. He says that these negatives do not outweigh the positives but the fact is that these things can be just as, if not more, dangerous than all the "pseudosciences" put together.

Sagan does not really put much forward for the case of science and his book does preach to the sceptics. In fact the book is one big sermon as Sagan goes through every single "pseudoscience" that he can come up with and says - look it is bunk! - without ever really trawling the depths of his assertions. His targets are also tender, and in most cases, the easy option for Sagan. For example a television psychic is his target while the more rigorous psychic tests done under scientific conditions are left aside. Sagan does come up with some very interesting things though and these are more stories that you would find in a copy of the National Enquirer or World Weekly News. Sagan devotes roughly two pages to the Roswell incident and says - weather balloons, end of story. In many cases he just toes the official line. There are books the size of his Demon-Haunted World that deal with topics he skims over in these two to three pages. The only reason to own Demon-Haunted World is to see what topics Sagan touches on and then to go learn more about them elsewhere. It makes a good reference book for the unknown or strange phenomena but little more than that. You will learn something here and go.. "Oh! I wonder what this is all about and why it got Sagan's attention."

I am a proponent of science but I certainly would not call this the "Holy Grail" of pro-science literature by a long shot. Nor would I call it a very suitable treatise on the bunkness of pseudosciences. This is a Sagan rant. It reads like a Sagan rant. If you are looking for thoroughly engaging material on why pseudosciences are not scientific then you will not find that here. If you want to listen to Sagan expound on the irrational thought of some people and the conmen who try to sell their pseudosciences then this book is for you.

This book tries to cover a whole range of issues in one volume. It is far too much of a task to try and do that and it shows. Basically look at the subjects he is talking about and then go read more about them elsewhere. This is far from the definitive book on the subject and that is the only thing that you can truly take away with you after reading this book.