Rating: 
Summary: Not the best book for sceptics - preaching to the converted?
Review: This book has become a cult classic in itself... but I feel part of the problem is that most of its readers are already in the "know", and that it won't provide a proper introduction to basic scientific practice.Here's a few random thoughts on this book - Subject Matter -
Some of the targets are pathetically soft, instead of going for lame cults and flat earthers, he should be tackling the bigger more dangerous ideas of society. In addition, Sagan only really deals with fundamentalists... he ignores that there are Christians who believe in evolution for example - this makes his thought too dualistic and not impartial, and he doesn't tackle the abuse of science, for example in the arms race. Or in fact latent fundamentalism amongst scientists in the past, such as the furore amongst certain physicists when quantum theory emerged. Writing style -
The self-righteous tone of the book is ironically reminscent of a preacher who has "seen the light". This will irk both hardened sceptic, and potential "unconverts", who won't be attracted away from their demons. He's a terrible writer! But at least this isn't his fiction. It is just about readable, and will provide a few easy laughs if nothing else. Practice and Tolerance -
Sagan didn't exactly apply his ideas in real life. For example, he frequently used emotional & mystical arguments to bolster his pet "SETI" program, as well as holding illogical preconceptions of how aliens would be or communicate. Also, and this is something often forgotten, Sagan penned a Von Daniken-esque piece or two about the possibility of ancient Close Contacts! Everyone, whether they admit it to themselves or not, is prey to illogical beliefs. Some of the ideas he seeks to debunk in this book are indeed bizarre and silly but they're harmless; in a democracy, people have that choice and we have to tolerate it. Intolerance is not positive, as he should have realised when talking about witch burnings. I recommend Michael Shermer's "Why people believe weird things" instead. Also for anyone who's interested in the case for and against scientific practices, have a look at these books - "Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science" by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt (Contributor) "Thomas Kuhn and the Science Wars"
by Ziauddin Sardar "The Golem : What Everyone Should Know About Science"
by Harry Collins, Trevor Pinch You'll get a better view of science and pseudo-science through these than Demon Haunted World.
Rating: 
Summary: Dr. Sagan's Big-Tent Revival.
Review: This is a book I feel like applauding or booing, depending on whether I'm in the mood to count virtues or vices. As for virtues, Sagan is not only a good writer, he comes across as a likable human being. The book is personal and warm, passionate, thoughtful, and well-written. It is full of interesting anecdotes, the point of which is well-stated. One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry when reading Sagan's mail from alien abductees. Maybe that's a test of our humanity. (Or humility.) Sagan's "baloney-detecting kit" is a useful set of principles for separating fact from fiction. As a Christian scholar and skeptic of skepticism, I found myself breaking it out and using it, and related principles, right away. For example, when Sagan exphasizes how prone memory is to error. "Our memories (like many preachers, Sagan is fond of saying "we" when he really seems to mean "you") are almost never challenged. They can, instead, be frozen into place, no matter how flawed . . . or become a work of continual artistic revision." Some of Sagan's protegies, repeating these arguments, almost had me convinced. (Skeptics, too, can avail themselves of the power of suggestibility.) So I conducted an experiment with my students, and found short-term memory extremely accurate. I also had a chance to test long-term memory on a family trip to my boyhood home, and found no evidence of "artistic revision" at all. So it seems to me Sagan improperly generalizes about memory from fringe cases. I also find myself skeptical of the priority of skepticism itself. "Look at all the foolish things people fall for!" is the basic argument here, "People are so gullible, so willing to believe!" Sagan gives many examples, the point of which is "Be skeptical!" Seems a bit like stacking the deck, to me. What about the harm that comes from an overly-critical view? What about the admiral who can't believe the Japanese are really attacking, or the parents who refuse to buy their children's story about a trusted uncle? Two human propensities -- foolish credulity and foolish incredulity -- are both common. But they cancel one another, and we're left with a problem -- what's the evidence? Sagan is against one, but hustles us towards the other -- because he buys it himself. Thus, he writes glibly of hte "Copernican Insight" and the scientific illiteracy of those who doubt it, even as top-notch astronomers discuss the strong challenge anthropic discoveries seem to pose to that principle. Most of Sagan's arguments are directed towards the fringe -- alien abductees, satanic abuse -- but he jabs inwards towards "mainstream religion" with frequency. Many of these jabs are directed at Christianity, but with only occasional accuracy. About the witch trials, for example, he overstates the number of victims on the order of 10 to 100, and makes all the old mistakes in linking them closely to The Church that even one fair-minded Wiccan historian has expressed embarrassment about. I don't think Sagan is being malicious, and often he does get his facts straight. But he is a professional scientist, and an amateur historian or political scientist. He simply over-estimates the intellectual magic and breadth of "science," and under-estimates the gullibility of his own and other scientific minds. And he clearly has not read good opposing arguments -- in science, history, or philosophy. Again, Sagan writes as if Democracy and Science, his favorite values, appeared POOF! Like a puff of smoke during the Enlightenment. This is historically naive. Serious historians have traced the slow growth of free institutions and scientific thought to origins in the Middle Ages and Christian thinking. (Treadgold, Davies, Dawson, Landes, etc.) Sagan points out: "If we only know our side of the argument, we hardly know that." Good advice, but when it comes to religion, it is clear he has not taken it. He seems only to have read very skeptical historians, and not always the best of those. Sagan encourages scientists to sail out into political waters. He does not seem to see the danger (obvious to me, having met with many examples) that historically and politically naive scientists will play upon the prestige of their fields to muck in matters of which they know less than they think. "To know what you know, and know what you don't know, this is knowledge," said Confucius. But Sagan castigates Americans for flunking an adult science test, holding up Japanese and others as models by comparison, apparently not aware that Japanese adults did far worse on the very same test. He implies the Bible speaks of a flat earth, or the inferiority of blacks. (It does neither.) Nor, on a more complex topic, do I think any fair historian would agree that Christianity subjugated women. I have offered an historical argument (in Jesus and the Religions of Man) that, on the contrary, nothing has liberated women more around the world than the teachings and example of Christ. In the spirit of Sagan's call for criticism, I welcome fair-minded rebuttal.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent book that goes beyond aliens and pseudoscience
Review: This book should be required reading for anyone interested in psychology, nutrition, politics, exercise, and any other field that has a myriad of pop books with lots of misinformation (particularly important is his baloney detection chapter). Dr. Sagan explores many of the tenements of real science. He also asks people to be more skeptical and weigh the evidence before deciding whether to believe something. And he emphasizes that scientific knowledge is always a rough draft that is constantly being refined and expanded (a difficult concept to swallow for people who need to have the whole truth now and aren't comfortable with constant change and doubt). And as such, he debunks the idea of a current, absolute scientific truth; science is about questions that can be disproved, not proved. Science is a process toward truth; a truth which has yet to be obtained. However, science may have produced our best draft of reality so far. A highly recommended book--extremely well-written.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading for the Well Rounded Mind
Review: I'd consider this book to be essential reading for an individual who's looking to balance religious traditions with scientific thinking. Sagan takes a remarkably balanced but skeptical view of unexplained phenomena, religion, mysticism, and the new age. The 400 pages can be summed up in two words: Prove it. Sagan makes a compelling and reasonable case for applying the rational and skeptical tenents of science to our belief systems. Give this book a try. You won't regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Question Things - Be Skeptical
Review: In this outstanding book Carl Sagan seems to be saying that everyone needs to be skeptical today. That we should all be questioning what many people put forth as truth. Mr. Sagan takes on many subjects here, offering us scientific and common sense thoughts on a variety of subjects. He provides counter-points to the many points that we have been fed by the media for years. He researched many subjects. Are there scientific reasons or actual proof concerning alien abductions, flying saucers, crop circles, Atlantis, continental drift, plate tectonics. He takes on the history and beliefs in witches, satanic ritual abuses, faith healers and the like. He puts forth info on nuclear winter, his take on education, public school systems, programmed TV, the media and the Church. What an all encompassing book. The common theme throughout it all seems to be the common person's willingness to believe what others have presented as truth and their unwillingness to think for themselves. He argues that we need a new generation of thinkers. That science and math should be taught with more vigor. That television could play an important role but is driven by something else. Read this book, think for yourself, and enjoy - it is a very good book.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: This book is just the thing to silence the tide of those who think they know what the scientific method is all about. it shuts the door on all the quackery that is being sold to a nation of people who get their news and science from People magazine and Inside Edition. the section on logic should be required reading for high school seniors. read it carefully and you will see that it is NOT anti religion, nor is anti spiritual. it is simply pro science, and not just facts and figures, but the scientific method as a WAY Of THINKING. he acknowledges science's shortcomings. if you can open your mind instead of grasping your fear, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Five stars and then some
Review: Are we falling back into the Dark Ages? The symptoms point to yes: the new religion is not Christianity, but New-Age belief and the legitimizing of the paranormal. The brilliant scientist and writer, Carl Sagan, shows how we are comforting ourselves with mystic beliefs, but hurting society by turning our backs to science and opening our wallets to charletans, who say that to doubt them, is to be closed-minded and spiritually deficient. It is unfortuante that people go to absurd extremes to find solace in pseudoscience, but fail to learn about the beauty, truth and complexity that we have discovered in the natural world. Demon-Haunted World is well written, well-researched and potentially life-changing. (A sidenote: it was in this book that I discovered Sleep Paralysis, a sleeping disorder I had been suffering with for a year, all the while thinking that I had gone crazy or was having seizures. This disorder is responsible for many accounts of seeing demons centuries ago and UFO's in the past few decades. I saw neither, but can totally understand how one could attribute these "attacks" to the paranormal. This was a great first-hand lesson in how our bodies and senses can fool us.)
Rating:
Summary: skeptical of the paranormal, but also skeptical of Sagan
Review: 1. "Science is fun and easy." For an entire chapter, Sagan argues that the public could and would enjoy science programming if only the media would try it. "Learning about science is easier than most people think. Teaching about science is easier than most people think," goes Sagan's message. But then in the next chapter, he explains Maxwell's theories in words which I can't understand. I know more about music theory than most people, but I don't feel burdened by carrying those facts around in my brain. They all interconnect, so they all seem like only one simple fact to me. I would probably enjoy a TV program in which a musical composition is analyzed, but most people wouldn't. In like manner, a person who knows many interconnected facts about science could probably enjoy a science program, but not enough to make the Neilsons happy. Such a person, undoubtedly, is Sagan himself. Betcha he knew so many interconnected facts about science that they seemed like only one simple fact to him. This probably made him think that one could teach another person about science as easily as one could teach a person that "Dover is the capital of Delaware." 2. Is science really as interesting as the paranormal? Excuse me for a minute while I talk about myself: It would be nice if I could make a scientific discovery which would add to the total body of knowledge. That would be immensely gratifying to my hunting instinct. But how could I realize such a dream? First of all, I would have to understand Maxwell's formulas. That task alone leaves me flabbergasted, and that's only step one. My hopes of meeting an extraterrestrial or an archangel are small indeed, but greater than my hopes of making a scientific discovery. Consequently, the paranormal continues to interest me more than science no matter how much I read The Skeptical Inquirer. I once expressed these feelings at a skeptics club meeting. I suggested that most paranormalists believe as they do because they, like me, want to make discoveries which will add to the total body of knowledge. A Montessori teacher at the meeting countered by telling us of a workshop which she presented for public school math teachers. By hands-on demonstration, they showed many wonders which their visitors had never seen before. A square really is--well, a square! A cube really is--well, a cube! Those who were not too awe-stricken to move were frenetically writing notes. Her testimony proves to my satisfaction that we can meet an important need by learning about the known world. But we are creatures with many needs. Maybe learning about the unknown world could be a completely different need. Could one ever substitute for the other? Probably, probably not. Suppose one of the workshop visitors arrived home that night and came face to face with an alien offering an abduction. Would the answer be yes or no? 3. inquiry, not faith If I understand correctly, Sagan offers science education as an antidote to tabloid gullibility. Yes, I know, it's not facts about science which are so important, it's the scientific method. But would an upgrading of science education really do the trick? I doubt it. Scientists are blessed with both facts about science and the scientific method. So according to Sagan's logic, they should be the least gullible. The title of "least gullible," however, seems to go to stage magicians. Stage magicians have caught psychics who have fooled scientists. In fact, Randi hasn't missed one yet! Maybe the answer is not more science education, but more stage magic education. It's a fascinating and informative book, despite these few points of disagreement.
Rating:
Summary: A plea for reason
Review: With his usual blend of solid research and reader-friendly prose, the late Carl Sagan takes to task the rising tide of ignorance and irrationalism that has pervaded much of our society in the last quarter century. Incorporating a wealth of detail, and recalling trends and ideas from the past, he illustrates that although we are more scientifically advanced than ever and our world is replete with amazing advancements and discoveries, our comprehension of such things seems to be decreasing at a rapid rate, leaving the general populace unprepared for the swift changes that science and technology bring to our world. As ignorance mounts, as pseudoscience, quackery, and superstition creep into our ways of thinking, the flame of science and reason--the candle in the dark--dwindles, and a new dark age looms. New age beliefs, pseudoscience, the therapy/psychology culture, religious extremism, and especially alien abduction; all (and many more) are skewered by Sagan's sound reasoning and methodical research (appropriately backed by a good bibliography). The evidence he presents is formidable, leaving many ideas (and their followers) with feet of clay, and many sacred cows running for cover--even some in the fields of legitimate science, who have co-opted their methodology for the sake of political pressure and money; Sagan takes them to task, as well. Like Ellie Arroway in "Contact," he questions and questions, inquires and inquires, as a good scientist should. And Sagan, ever the scientist searching for solutions, offers possible remedies. He devotes most of a chapter ("The Art of Baloney Detection") to methods and ways of rationally approaching subject matter. He cites numerous examples of logical fallacies, errors in judgment, and dichotomous situations, and warns of the ways that even the most careful thinker can fall into illogical traps. Sagan, known to some as a "religion basher," does take issue with religion at times in the book. But much of what he says deals mostly with fundamentalism and extremism. Indeed, he states that "there is no necessary conflict between science and religion" (p. 277). He goes on to explore how many faiths have adapted to scientific change and discovery, and how both religion and science can be ways to seek the truths of our existence. (Naturally, he prefers science). After all, debate and doubt are traditions in both. Those who beliefs lean to the extreme are the only ones who need to fear scientific discovery. For more Sagan, see also "Cosmos" (book and series), "Broca's Brain," "The Dragons of Eden," "Billions and Billions," and the novel "Contact" (also a good movie).
Rating: 
Summary: explains why people believe wierd things
Review: However, this can be explained by: 'People are stupid' Read 'Cosmos' by Sagan instead.
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