Product Description

"A glorious book . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought."

*Los Angeles Times



"POWERFUL . . . A stirring defense of informed rationality. . . Rich in surprising information and beautiful writing."

*The Washington Post Book World



How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don't understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.



Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.



"COMPELLING."

*USA Today



"A clear vision of what good science means and why it makes a difference. . . . A testimonial to the power of science and a warning of the dangers of unrestrained credulity."

*The Sciences



"PASSIONATE."

*San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4773 in Books
• Published on: 1997-02-25
• Released on: 1997-02-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.com Review
Carl Sagan muses on the current state of scientific thought, which offers him marvelous opportunities to entertain us with his own childhood experiences, the newspaper morgues, UFO stories, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of pseudoscience. Along the way he debunks alien abduction, faith-healing, and channeling; refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality, and provides a "baloney detection kit" for thinking through political, social, religious, and other issues.

From Publishers Weekly
Eminent Cornell astronomer and bestselling author Sagan debunks the paranormal and the unexplained in a study that will reassure hardcore skeptics but may leave others unsatisfied. To him, purported UFO encounters and alien abductions are products of gullibility, hallucination, misidentification, hoax and therapists' pressure; some alleged encounters, he suggests, may screen memories of sexual abuse. He labels as hoaxes the crop circles, complex pictograms that appear in southern England's wheat and barley fields, and he dismisses as a natural formation the Sphinx-like humanoid face incised on a mesa on Mars, first photographed by a Viking orbiter spacecraft in 1976 and considered by some scientists to be the engineered artifact of an alien civilization. In a passionate plea for scientific literacy, Sagan deftly debunks the myth of Atlantis, Filipino psychic surgeons and mediums such as J.Z. Knight, who claims to be in touch with a 35,000-year-old entity called Ramtha. He also brands as superstition ghosts, angels, fairies, demons, astrology, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and religious apparitions.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In a chapter entitled "Science and Hope," Sagan (Pale Blue Dot, Random, 1994) writes: "This book is a personal statement, reflecting my lifelong love affair with science." Accordingly, he deplores pseudoscientific thinking and the credulous beliefs that emerge from it. Today, when science is critical for solving the world's problems, many people, instead, trust astrology and New Age spiritualism. Likewise, surveys reveal that a majority of Americans believe that Earth is regularly visited by space aliens. Using basic tools of science?empiricism, rationalism, and experimentation?Sagan debunks these and other common fallacies of pseudoscience. In doing so, he speculates as to how such beliefs arise. Some of his explanations are not entirely convincing (are alien-abduction tales really modern versions of medieval myths?), but he handles them with empathy so as to not demean the intelligence of true believers. The best chapters examine the state of science education and technical literacy in America and suggest an agenda for improving both. The book is overlong, occasionally redundant, and parts have been published elsewhere. Still, Sagan's theme is important, and his popularity might lure some readers from the UFO and occult books cluttering so many library and bookstore shelves. For public and undergraduate libraries.
-?Gregg Sapp, Univ. of Miami Lib., Coral Gables, Fla.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Required reading
Carl Sagan provides a strong yet humane antidote against the effects of the soothesayers, crystal healers and entrail-readers. While he won't change their beliefs in the unproven and unprovable, and he can probably never drown out our somehow inborn fear of things that go bump in the night, many of us need a gentle innoculation against slopping thinking from time to time. Just such an innoculation is provided here, in a mixture of wonder, humility, and compassion that reminds us again why we still miss Dr. Sagan.

A must read book
This book explains the reason why "intelligent" humans still believe in foolishness such as ghosts, demons, devils, gods and prayer. Turns out we aren't all that smart after all. It has the advantage of being the truth which some of us prefer to hear. As always, Carl Sagan was one of the most intelligent humans who has yet lived. May his tribe increase.

Changed my live and views! I love you Carl!
This one book helped me to reject 9 years worth of silly occult beliefs. I suppose I didn't 100% believe them, but they were things I wanted to believe. I knew that this book would change me and for awhile I was even nervous to read it, but a few months ago, my time had come.

He spends a lot of time spent debunking claims of alien abductions, comparing the scenarios (nighttime, sexual coercion, etc) to descriptions of "demonic possessions" in the Middle Ages, and believes that aliens are just a later incarnation of demonic possessions, based on things that are more prevalent today. He also talks about how crop circles were admittedly a hoax--but I wonder how many people even know that? I think there are still some people who believe in them. And about the "classified information" on UFOs mostly being classified because it's about foreign relations, not extraterrestrial aliens.

He also talks about people's claims of psychic powers and how none of them have ever been proven. He talks about how it is easy to trick people into believing in psychic phenomenon, because people really want to believe in it, how people see patterns in things that have no pattern (this is an evolutionary trait), and how people select evidence that points to the conclusion they want, while ignoring the contrary evidence. I used to be interested in ESP quite a lot, but now, thanks in no small part to this book, I see it for the load of garbage that it is. Astrology is just generically positive traits that people attribute to themselves, dreams are entertaining but don't mean anything, and as for the "psychics" that I met, they've never given any proof. Some people pretend to be psychic to get your money (you'd be better off wasting your money on gambling, or even lapdances) and some people really do think they're psychic, but they're just flattering themselves. No one who's claimed telekinetic powers has ever offered a demonstration, so again I think they're either lying or hallucinating.

I felt very liberated after reading these things, and instead of the open-minded confusion that I used to feel about contradictory belief systems, suddenly everything was clear and made perfect sense.

Sagan does knock down psuedoscience and superstition, but I still think that he has an open mind. He admits to a feeling of "spirituality" even though he doesn't believe in actual spirits; it's more of just a cosmic feeling when thinking about the universe. He talks about how in science, a person must have both an imaginative mind and a cynical mind: you can imagine lots of explanations for things, but unlike in psuedoscience, you can't cling to these wild ideas after they've been proven wrong. He even admits to a minute possibility that a few "phenomena" could be true. Of course it would be awesome to live in a world where you can levitate and where crystals have special powers, but that doesn't mean I'm going to believe in it despite the evidence.

In the last few chapters, he writes about education declining in the US. This is relevant because he believes lack of education makes people more gullible toward outrageous (but appealing) claims, and more vulnerable to charlatans. He worries that our society is going downhill because of this decline in education and that it could have serious consequences. (Kind of like Idiocracy?) Well...I didn't do so spectacularly in math or science, but even just knowing basic things about the scientific method and rationalism is very helpful. Unfortunately, psuedoscience is just more flashy--but in the long run, some people will realize it's nonsense.

I recommend this book to everyone! Especially if you believe in any of the "phenomena" he's talking about!