Rating: 
Summary: A book which should be given free to all children
Review: Dr. Sagan has written one of the most beautiful and compellingarguments I have ever read against 'New-Age' pseudo-science and thelike. This book reminds us what it means to be a rational human being and shows us that we all have an obligation to 'light a candle against the darkness'. A magnificent book and a fitting epitaph for one of the worlds great human beings.
Rating: 
Summary: Is There a God?
Review: Carl Sagan dedicates much of the book to extoling the virturesof science. One gets the feeling that for him science is the sourceof ultimate truth. I believe that there are limits to the scientific method and wish that he would have given them equal air time as well.
Rating:
Summary: usually fascinating, occasionally frustrating
Review: As other reviewers have said above, Sagan is wonderfully lucid in debunking many "popular delusions and madnesses of crowds." Strangely, however, he remains almost childishly uncritical in his acceptance of many things that many other thoughtful people consider to just as dubious--e.g. the current global warming and ozone hole theories, the efficacy of many bureaucratic programs. And the crude socialist political beliefs he (all too frequently) espouses are distracting and sad, coming from a man so learned in so many other fields. Still, well worth a read
Rating:
Summary: The antidote to suicidal enuch cult-kooks
Review: A must-read for the reality-challenged (who will never read it,of course). Blows away all the BS swallowed whole by the 97% ofAmericans who are scientifically illiterate. Wake up, people. Gullibility is lethal. This is not Star Trek; this is the real world--no UFO or Celestial Butler is coming to save you. Only your own brain--the most complex piece of matter in the known universe--can save you.Carl, I miss you. The world is a darker place. Would trade 39 delusional losers for one of you any day.
Rating:
Summary: Dr.Sagan rips Pseudoscience
Review: The good Dr. Sagan in chapter after chapter lines up the pseudo-scientists, the faith healers, the channelers, the alien abductees and their therapists, the aliens themselves and their therapists, the past life regressors and their therapists, the repressed memory witnesses and their therapists, the Fundamentalists, all the main Religions, the hypnotists, the spoon benders, the psychics, and all manner of frauds, scammers, and New Agers. He blast'em all with a mega dose of Scientific Method. The book is just over 400 pages of straight forward no nonsense "baloney" detection. Dr. Sagan has written to remind us that it is Science that has delivered our civilization, and complain that growing trends towards hokum and mystery will little aid in solving humanity's problems. Aided by cloying politicians, a gullible public, and a clearly cynical and greedy Media, purveyors of superstition and religion are gaining a foothold in our educational system; passing their belief as science.
There is a fairly civil explanation of Electromagnetic Theory (the Maxwell Equations) but its purpose is to explain why Scientific Research should never be state directed. Dr. Sagan fails to mention that it was JFK's direction, in 1961 to put a man on the moon in that decade, that provided the funding that supported the Dr. through most of his professional life. Oh Well. The book remains a call for intensive science education and research, and the rejection of all pseudo-science as dangerous and inappropriate for 21 st. century living.
Towards the end the Dr. is clearly fading and his wife Ann Druyan takes over the last chapters; each clearly marked as having greater political content. They including a well-deserved epitaph for Edward "H-Bomb" Teller, the obligatory Gun Rant, and the an Abortion Rant. In all this is a good and appropriate book well written with a little anger, some well placed and practiced sarcasm, and Dr. Sagans humor and amazement well on display. When "The Revolution" comes and (depending on your point of view) either the New Agers or the Religious Fundamentalists are building their pyres, this book will be one of the first into the flames. Science as a candle in the dark.
Rating:
Summary: Carl Sagan's Last, Best Effort
Review: By Jeff Schult (http://w3.nai.net/~jschult)
(Reviewer's note: I decided to leave this up, as is, after Carl Sagan's death. Perhaps he
wouldn't have put it this way, but he will live on long after death for me, wherever he is. We
don't get many heroes any more, do we ...)
Derby, CT -- Just in time for Millennialist Fever, Carl Sagan raises his voice ever so slightly in
defense of reason. That Sagan felt he had to write "The Demon-Haunted World" at all is depressing,
but the book will serve as a candle in the dark to those desperately pressing the cause of Science,
Reason and Skepticism in an anxious world.
The book is a bubble-burster and will delight the hardheaded
with its thorough and amusing debunking of contemporary
pseudoscience. Alien abduction believers, crystal healers and
Psychic Hotline fans will take offense. So will anyone who
would rather posit a supernatural explanation for the
extraordinary than subject the extraordinary to analysis. Even
the more sensitive of those with more traditional religious belief
systems are liable to cry foul.
How dare he?
Sagan dares because he sees his beloved hard science being set aside for a bunch of comforting
claptrap, and he fears for the future of a technological society in which hardly anyone understands
technology. Too many people are like his courtesy driver at a speaking engagement; they know
more about aliens, pyramids and the Atlantis legend then they do about the Periodic Table.
I don't know just how loony American society is, and Sagan takes some too-easy shots along the
way. He devotes some space and merciless prose to the more fanciful of the tabloid press, the kind
that uses front page photographs of peace-seeking visitors from beyond the Pleiades shaking hands
with the president. Call me dangerously naive, Carl, but I have long been under the impression that
people buy such publications because they're funny. Just because the "Weekly World News" is
profitable does not mean we are heading into a new Dark Age.
But the overall evidence Sagan presents for the argument that the world is going gaga is compelling,
though frequently anecdotal. He tries to be polite about it; one suspects that he could have vented a
lot more spleen on the subject and probably does elsewhere. But here he is trying to win the
undecided vote, seeking to reach and gently tug at the intellect of those prone to abandoning it.
Admittedly, I'm with Dr. Sagan on this one, and have been mostly in his camp for all my life. Those
who wish to see science nitpicked, ridiculed and vilified have ample reading material these days. The
testimony of alien abductees is compelling even to some prominent psychiatrists; New-Age beliefs
are trumpeted from the top of the New York Times bestseller lists; Creationism is passed off by
some as at least the intellectual equal of Evolution and certainly the more moral belief.
All this is repugnant to the author, who states the case for Science with the clarity of language that
has made him the leading spokesperson for the scientific community for the better part of two
decades. Science is not a belief system; it is a discipline that demands the weight of evidence for its
theories and truths. And it takes a lot of hard work and education to make a good scientist, far
more than it does to make a good faith healer or astrologist.
Sagan does not profess a problem with belief systems as comforting philosophies to explain what
we cannot know; he makes it his business, however, to dissect human gullibility in matters where
science can be used to test. He does so in such a way that will invite dismissal from the more fervent
deists of the world, however. He would like to believe that there is a Heaven or some form of
reincarnation so that he might be reunited with family and loved ones in eternity, he writes; sadly, his
training leads him to believe that the possibility is remote.
But for the scientist, Sagan argues eloquently, there is more wonder in nature, more mystery in the
universe, more delight in the process of understanding than can be provided by any body of thought
that relies on a substantial mythology, or worse, parlor tricks and superstition.
How do we make more people understand that and appreciate Science and its proper role in
human affairs? Predictably, perhaps, Sagan's prescription requires of society those things it seems
least likely to give without having first gained the appreciation he seeks. Better, more educational
television. More government subsidies for research and pure science. Better pay for more teachers.
Innovations in teaching. Longer school days and years.
That we will elect to make those choices as a society is, in sciencespeak, improbable at this point.
But Sagan has put those choices on the table, and they deserve to be there.
Jeff Schult writes frequently about the Internet and reviews books for the American Reporter, where this review first appeared.
Rating:
Summary: Sagan's greatest legacy...Should be THE book you read in '97
Review: I've read a number of Sagan's books and this is, by far,
his greatest contribution to humankind. It is a sweeping
exposition on the power and necessity of critical thinking
in today's world - not only in the pursuit of "Science",
but in the pursuit of Life. If you read only one book in
1997, this should be the one.
Rating:
Summary: If this book makes you angry, you need to read it.
Review: Carl Sagan shows us that the rise of pseudoscience is not trivial, but a major threat to the survival of democracy. With humor as well as dead serious facts, he invites us to see science as a process leading toward truth; even when it hurts. Chock full of well told accounts of the struggle between our hunger for truths and our wish for the truth to be what we hope it to be
Rating:
Summary: The scientific rebuttal to New Age hooey.
Review: I am an X-Files fan. I shamelessly pay lip service to all manner of extra-terrestrial, supernatural, and otherwise "out there" theories about the universe and our role in it. I have to admit, some of them seemed appealing. But there was something missing - we never heard from the other side. This only provided more ammunition for the paranoid, "They don't answer because they know they're wrong!" Here is Carl's answer. * I never knew who made electricity (John Maxwell), and that the electromagnetic spectrum was created to counter Anton Mesmer's (the hypnotist, who created the word mesmerism) theory of animal attraction (that's where that saying came from!).
* I had no idea just how much hypnosis can influence others - read about the hypnotists who unintentionally plant suggestions into their young patients minds, and the accusations of devil-worshipping and satanic sacrifice that come about as a result.
* Carl slams the alien face on Mars with some hard evidence (there is an error in photography that is one of the nostrils of the figure on Mars).
* Crop circles are FAKE! The guys who invented them came out and admitted it...so why is everyone still talking about them anyway?
Before you make any decisions about the New Age, aliens, or any other popular quasi-theories that exist today, READ THIS BOOK.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for the human race as we enter the 21rst century
Review: The scientific method itself is more important than any one of its resulting hypotheses. Humankind should take special care of recognizing questionable claims, since there will be many unscientific and questionable claims being made during the next several years (around the beginning of the 21rst century).
This book is a good reminder to think twice before believing anything
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