Demon-Haunted World

Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected, but good
Review: I never really wanted to be a skeptic. There are times in my life where I wish I could have faith in something I can't explain. I love the idea of ghosts walking beside me. I am facinated by dreams of an advanced race of beings coming to earth and sharing their cosmic wisdom with us, helping to put an end to our bloody wars. So when I saw this book, I thought that it might help me decide once and for all where I stood. Am I a dreamer or a doubter? Take your best shot, Sagan.

Well, it wasn't what I expected. Sagan didn't come at me with each controversial theory and rip it apart with his scientific mind. He did do this on a limited basis, but that wasn't really the focus of the book. This isn't Penn and Teller. It really boils down Sagan trying to educate people on the power of thinking.

Did I agree with everything Sagan has to say on this subject? Of course not. Did Sagan help me decide which side of the fence I would live on? Nope. But this book did teach me about how to search for answers to things that I may accept without thinking, which seems the logical thing to do when people WANT to believe in something strongly enough. I also learned that searching for answers doesn't make you a cynic, just someone who likes to look before they leap.

If you decide to pick this book up, which I would recommend you do if the subject matter intests you, understanding what this book is and is not might help you in the long run. It's not a book debunking myths. It's more an illustration of Sagan's belief that those who think will achieve.

Rating:
Summary: Ignorant, not Demon-Haunted World
Review: This book is well written and persuasive about the case that it makes, but I have given it only three stars because I think that the title and descriptions are misleading. This is emphatically NOT a book about Carl Sagan debunking alien abductions, witchcraft, etc. Rather, this is a book in which Sagan explores WHY people believe in such things without any supporting scientific evidence. I expected this book to consist of compelling and devestating arguments or demonstrations as to why alien abductions, etc. are not real. Instead, while Sagan offers the usual arguments (no physical evidence, etc.), I didn't find that he added anything new or particularly insightful. Indeed, to me some of his conclusions--or lack thereof--seemed to support the arguments he is supposedly arguing against. For instance, in cases of multiple abductions, where several people report being abducted together, sharing very detailed account, Sagan notes without further comment that one analyst contends that such instances are the result of multiple people having the same dream, which also doesn't sound very likely to me.

Where this book shines is explaining how little people rely on or even look to science in their everyday lives, and how in the resulting scientific vacuum pop culture and subconcious impulses result in people holding rather bizzare beliefs that are completely unsupported by, if not outright contradicted by, actual facts. Sagan also does an excellent job in examining the witch-burning phenomenon, which is almost undoubtedly one of the costliest (in human life) example of the supremacy of ignorance over rational thought in human affairs.

Finally, I would like to note that may of the chapters in this book are apparently reprints or reworkings of various articles, etc. written by Sagan. Thus, the material is sometimes repetitive, and overall the book is a bit disjointed.

In closing, I think that a more accurate title for this book would be "The Ignorance-Riddled World", because the emphasis is on ignorance and irrationality rather than offering specific refutations of the various refutations of pseudo-science.

TMR

Rating:
Summary: Sagan and Druyen prove their case quite well....
Review: The book rather successfully debunks the UFO abductions and Crop circle stories for the lack of any hard evidence that anyone of these cases has failed to prove. In short, people can be remembering false things under hynosis and circles can be created in wheat fields by people who know Geomentry. The book is also if you read between the lines, a formal protest against human xenaphobia that has been popularzied in so called Science Fiction TV shows and movies. The authors are saying that regretfully movies like 2001; A Space Odyssey, which they live and treat the universe as a large/wonderious place are rare, and the more popular ones like Alien promote fear and suspection among the general audience. I agree with that. In fact I agree with everything that they wrote in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Poor debunking does not help his cause
Review: The book had some flawed lines of reasoning in it. Although the claims he was debunking may be flawed, his counter-arguments were also flawed. For example, he did a fair amount of "second-guessing" what alleged aliens and alien technology would look like.

For instance, alleged medical tools used on alleged alien abductees were claimed to be "too bulky" by Sagan to be realistic. He used a variation of Moores Law (computers get smaller with time) to concluded the saucer-pilots would have much smaller medical tools. For one, we don't know how long Moores Law will continue. Second, maybe the instruments pack in thousands of functions. You cannot tell the quantity of different operations by the size of an instrument alone. Third, maybe they use technology where the parts need to be separated to some degree, such as an X-ray or sonic lens or the like. You cannot use flawed logic to counter other's flawed logic; otherwise you are no better off than the "believers", and risk losing credibility as a debunker.

Another form of second-guessing is in the description of alleged aliens. Sagan insists that intelligent aliens would not likely look like humans in a general sense. However, maybe they are us in the distant future. Science has not ruled out time-travel. Maybe there are many species of aliens, but only those who resemble us are interested in visiting us, creating a kind of selection mechanism. We don't know enough to dismiss anything about the appearance of alleged "visitors".

Further, "incredible claims require incredible proof" was over-extended. Many of the more reasonable UFO buffs believe that more research is warranted, not some fantastic claim. The threshold for deserving more study is much lower than making a definitive conclusion about things observed (such as being "from other planets"). The only "claim" they are making is that something very odd is going on. Sagan conveniently intermixed the two at whim to serve his debunking needs. It is a general trend of his to lump everyone together with the extreme "nut-ball" claims. There are plenty of extremist scientists (now discredited) that one can similarly lump Sagan with if they want to play a similar game.

Even if UFOs are just hallucinations, the fact that honest pilots and cops can have such vivid hallucinations (beyond mere "jumping lights" in many cases) is an interesting scientific question in itself. Letting pilots and cops hallucinate without knowing why is not smart science and perhaps bad for our safety. He is more focused on debunking than learning.