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The Associated Press Stylebook 2015 This new edition contains more than 3,000 A to Z entries detailing the AP’s rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, abbreviation, and word and numeral usage. Learn more
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"We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces." (p. 26)
The omen above was put to print in 1995 and echoed throughout Carl Sagan's prolific career as both practitioner and communicator of science. Swathed in a world so joined at the hip to science and technology, Sagan saw denial and ignorance of science as the greatest risks to human well-being and continuity. Is the past here to stay?
In the United States at least, conditions are none too sunny. Nearly 7 in 10 believe that angels and demons are active in the world. 61% and 48% believe in ghosts and UFOs of extraterrestrial origin, respectively. More than half (56%) deny the scientific consensus on climate change. One-third of the public still waffles on the science of evolution. And over half believe that God influences the outcome of sporting events. Dr. Sagan passed away the year after releasing The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, and in the decades that have come and gone since his oracular swan song, the American electorate seems as awash as ever in pseudoscience and superstition. As momentous, relevant and urgent as Sagan's message was, its infiltration remains woefully incomplete.
The venerated astronomer, astrophysicist and cosmologist regularly popularized his lifelong passion for replacing delusion with fact-sensitive grandeur.Read more ›
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In 1996, Carl Sagan published The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, a book that was at the time heralded as “Wonder-saturated” (The Washington Post) and “a manifesto for clear thought” (Los Angeles Times). Here Carl Sagan argued that “Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.” The Religious Right,realize this, and they see it as a way of thinking inimical to their dogmatic assertions, assertions drawn on a Bronze Age religion codified in a document put to paper in the first millennium B.C.E.
Ironically enough, as Sagan points out, “A Candle in the Dark“ was a Biblically-based book published in London in 1656 on the cusp of the Enlightenment, a book whose author, Thomas Ady, attacked the witch hunts of his time “as a scam ‘to delude the people’.” The arguments he raised will be familiar to us today: “Any illness or storm, anything out of the ordinary, was popularly attributed to witchcraft.”
Thomas Ady saw the absurdity of this reasoning 350 years ago. He saw that it was time to move past such primitive and superstitious thinking. I wonder what he would say today, hearing these arguments still uttered.
Sagan wrote,
“For much of our history, we were so fearful of the outside world, with its unpredictable dangers, that we gladly embraced anything that promised to soften or explain away the terror. Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death.”
Ady, writing more than three centuries ago, foresaw that nations “[will] perish for lack of knowledge.Read more ›
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One of the wisest statements ever made is, "Politics and Religion both have their superstitions." Thomas Jefferson. Sagan understood the meaning of this quote more than most of us. Sagan's wisdom is needed now more than ever.
Sagan, like the eminent scientist Richard Feynman, warned of scientists who conceive of political-ideological ideas, then concoct "experiments" to support their pre-conceived notions, ignoring, minimizing, or trying to explain away contradictory evidence or more plausible explanations. I have coined the term, "semi-science" to describe this antiintellectual approach. Never in history has so much semi-science been accepted by the public and even scientists. Semi-scientists have attempted to co-opt science to support their socio-political ideas and blatantly subjective value-judgments. In so doing, these semi-scientists attempt to reify their emotions into a supposed "system."
There are still those who refuse to accept Evolution; the Safety of Genetically Modified Foods, Vaccines, and other proven science. Denial of Climate change is also widespread. But just as bad as Climate Change "deniars" are those who promote unworkable, blatantly socio-political solutions to the problem under the guise of science. Coincidentally, many of these "solutions" are identical to those proposed by 60s environmental radicals before there was "science" to support their views. Interestingly, under their programs, the worst polluters are allowed to continuing polluting and improving their economies, while the U.S. further damages its economy.Read more ›
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This item: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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