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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Paperback – February 25, 1997

by Carl Sagan (Author), Ann Druyan (Author)

7,383 ratings

#1 Best Seller in Scientific Research

See all formats and editions

Los Angeles Times Book PrizeWinner, 1996

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the renowned astronomer and author of Cosmos comes a “powerful [and] stirring defense of informed rationality” (The Washington Post Book World) in a world where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace.

LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER • “Glorious . . . A spirited defense of science . . . From the first page to the last, this book is a manifesto for clear thought.”—Los Angeles Times

How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience, New Age thinking, and fundamentalist zealotry and the testable hypotheses of science?

Casting a wide net through history and culture, 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. He examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies as witchcraft, faith healings, 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.

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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

“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

From the Back Cover

ious 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, di

About the Author

Carl Sagan served as the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He played a leading role in the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo spacecraft expeditions, for which he received the NASA Medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service.

His Emmy- and Peabody–winning television series, Cosmos, became the most widely watched series in the history of American public television. The accompanying book, also called Cosmos, is one of the bestselling science books ever published in the English language. Dr. Sagan received the Pulitzer Prize, the Oersted Medal, and many other awards—including twenty honorary degrees from American colleges and universities—for his contributions to science, literature, education, and the preservation of the environment. In their posthumous award to Dr. Sagan of their highest honor, the National Science Foundation declared that his “research transformed planetary science . . . his gifts to mankind were infinite." Dr. Sagan died on December 20, 1996.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

THE MOST PRECIOUS THING

All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
(1879–1955)

As I got off the plane, he was waiting for me, holding up a scrap of cardboard with my name scribbled on it. I was on my way to a conference of scientists and TV broadcasters devoted to the seemingly hopeless prospect of improving the presentation of science on commercial television. The organizers had kindly sent a driver.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” he said as we waited for my bag.

No, I didn’t mind.

“Isn’t it confusing to have the same name as that scientist guy?”

It took me a moment to understand. Was he pulling my leg? Finally, it dawned on me.

“I am that scientist guy,” I answered.

He paused and then smiled. “Sorry. That’s my problem. I thought it was yours too.”

He put out his hand. “My name is William F. Buckley.” (Well, he wasn’t exactly William F. Buckley, but he did bear the name of a contentious and well-known TV interviewer, for which he doubtless took a lot of good-natured ribbing.)

As we settled into the car for the long drive, the windshield wipers rhythmically thwacking, he told me he was glad I was “that scientist guy”—he had so many questions to ask about science. Would I mind?

No, I didn’t mind.

And so we got to talking. But not, as it turned out, about science. He wanted to talk about frozen extraterrestrials languishing in an Air Force base near San Antonio, “channeling” (a way to hear what’s on the minds of dead people—not much, it turns out), crystals, the prophecies of Nostradamus, astrology, the shroud of Turin … He introduced each portentous subject with buoyant enthusiasm. Each time I had to disappoint him:

“The evidence is crummy,” I kept saying. “There’s a much simpler explanation.”

He was, in a way, widely read. He knew the various speculative nuances on, let’s say, the “sunken continents” of Atlantis and Lemuria. He had at his fingertips what underwater expeditions were supposedly just setting out to find the tumbled columns and broken minarets of a once-great civilization whose remains were now visited only by deep sea luminescent fish and giant kraken. Except … while the ocean keeps many secrets, I knew that there isn’t a trace of oceanographic or geophysical support for Atlantis and Lemuria. As far as science can tell, they never existed. By now a little reluctantly, I told him so.

As we drove through the rain, I could see him getting glummer and glummer. I was dismissing not just some errant doctrine, but a precious facet of his inner life.

And yet there’s so much in real science that’s equally exciting, more mysterious, a greater intellectual challenge—as well as being a lot closer to the truth. Did he know abo ut the molecular building blocks of life sitting out there in the cold, tenuous gas between the stars? Had he heard of the footprints of our ancestors found in 4-million-year-old volcanic ash? What about the raising of the Himalayas when India went crashing into Asia? Or how viruses, built like hypodermic syringes, slip their DNA past the host organism’s defenses and subvert the reproductive machinery of cells; or the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence; or the newly discovered ancient civilization of Ebla that advertised the virtues of Ebla beer? No, he hadn’t heard. Nor did he know, even vaguely, about quantum indeterminacy, and he recognized DNA only as three frequently linked capital letters.

Mr. “Buckley”—well-spoken, intelligent, curious—had heard virtually nothing of modern science. He had a natural appetite for the wonders of the Universe. He wanted to know about science. It’s just that all the science had gotten filtered out before it reached him. Our cultural motifs, our educational system, our communications media had failed this man. What the society permitted to trickle through was mainly pretense and confusion. It had never taught him how to distinguish real science from the cheap imitation. He knew nothing about how science works.

There are hundreds of books about Atlantis—the mythical continent that is said to have existed something like 10,000 years ago in the Atlantic Ocean. (Or somewhere. A recent book locates it in Antarctica.) The story goes back to Plato, who reported it as hearsay coming down to him from remote ages. Recent books authoritatively describe the high level of Atlantean technology, morals, and spirituality, and the great tragedy of an entire populated continent sinking beneath the waves. There is a “New Age” Atlantis, “the legendary civilization of advanced sciences,” chiefly devoted to the “science” of crystals. In a trilogy called Crystal Enlightenment, by Katrina Raphaell—the books mainly responsible for the crystal craze in America—Atlantean crystals read minds, transmit thoughts, are the repositories of ancient history and the model and source of the pyramids of Egypt. Nothing approximating evidence is offered to support these assertions. (A resurgence of crystal mania may follow the recent finding by the real science of seismology that the inner core of the Earth may be composed of a single, huge, nearly perfect crystal—of iron.)

A few books—Dorothy Vitaliano’s Legends of the Earth, for example—sympathetically interpret the original Atlantis legends in terms of a small island in the Mediterranean that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, or an ancient city that slid into the Gulf of Corinth after an earthquake. This, for all we know, may be the source of the legend, but it is a far cry from the destruction of a continent on which had sprung forth a preternaturally advanced technical and mystical civilization.

What we almost never find—in public libraries or newsstand magazines or prime time television programs—is the evidence from sea floor spreading and plate tectonics, and from mapping the ocean floor which shows quite unmistakably that there could have been no continent between Europe and the Americas on anything like the timescale proposed.

Spurious accounts that snare the gullible are readily available. Skeptical treatments are much harder to find. Skepticism does not sell well. A bright and curious person who relies entirely on popular culture to be informed about something like Atlantis is hundreds or thousands of times more likely to come upon a fable treated uncritically than a sober and balanced assessment.

Maybe Mr. “Buckley” should know to be more skeptical about what’s dished out to him by popular culture. But apart from that, it’s hard to see how it’s his fault. He simply accepted what the most widely available and accessible sources of information claimed was true. For his naïveté, he was systematically misled and bamboozled.

Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But a kind of Gresham’s Law prevails in popular culture by which bad science drives out good.

All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95 percent of Americans are “scientifically illiterate.” That’s just the same fraction as those African Americans, almost all of them slaves, who were illiterate just before the Civil War—when severe penalties were in force for anyone who taught a slave to read. Of course there’s a degree of arbitrariness about any determination of illiteracy, whether it applies to language or to science. But anything like 95 percent illiteracy is extremely serious.

Every generation worries that educational standards are decaying. One of the oldest short essays in human history, dating from Sumer some 4,000 years ago, laments that the young are disastrously more ignorant than the generation immediately preceding. Twenty-four hundred years ago, the aging and grumpy Plato, in Book VII of the Laws, gave his definition of scientific illiteracy:

Who is unable to count one, two, three, or to distinguish odd from even numbers, or is unable to count at all, or reckon night and day, and who is totally unacquainted with the revolution of the Sun and Moon, and the other stars … All freemen, I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as pleasure and amusement … I … have late in life heard with amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be more like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but of all Greeks.

I don’t know to what extent ignorance of science and mathematics contributed to the decline of ancient Athens, but I know that the consequences of scientific illiteracy are far more dangerous in our time than in any that has come before. It’s perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology. If our nation can’t manufacture, at high quality and low price, products people want to buy, then industries will continue to drift away and transfer a little more prosperity to other parts of the world. Consider the social ramifications of fission and fusion power, supercomputers, data “highways,” abortion, radon, massive reductions in strategic weapons, addiction, government eavesdropping on the lives of its citizens, high-resolution TV, airline and airport safety, fetal tissue transplants, health costs, food additives, drugs to ameliorate mania or depression or schizophrenia, animal rights, superconductivity, morning-after pills, alleged hereditary antisocial predispositions, space stations, going to Mars, finding cures for AIDS and cancer.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 25, 1997
Edition ‏ : ‎ Reprint
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 457 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345409469
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345409461
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.83 x 8.2 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #4,081 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Scientific Research
- #4 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)
- #23 in Philosophy (Books)
Customer Reviews:
7,383 ratings

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Ann Druyan
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Award winning writer/producer/director Ann Druyan was the Creative Director of NASA’s Voyager Interstellar Message. With her late husband, Carl Sagan, Druyan was co-writer of six New York Times best-sellers, including “Comet,” “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,” “The Demon Haunted World,” “Billions & Billions” and “The Varieties of Scientific Experience.” She was co-writer of the 1980 television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.” Druyan was co-creator and co-producer of the feature film “Contact,” starring Jodie Foster and directed by Bob Zemeckis. She was the lead executive producer (for which she won the Producer’s Guild and Peabody Awards), co-writer (for which she won the 2014 Emmy) as well as one of three directors of Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, which was the largest global roll out of a series in television history and has now been seen in 181 countries.
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Carl Sagan
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Carl Sagan was Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He played a leading role in the Mariner, Viking, and Voyager spacecraft expeditions to the planets, for which he received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. Dr. Sagan received the Pulitzer Prize and the highest awards of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation, and many other awards, for his contributions to science, literature, education, and the preservation of the environment. His book Cosmos (accompanying his Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning television series of the same name) was the bestselling science book ever published in the English language, and his bestselling novel, Contact, was turned into a major motion picture.
Photo by NASA/JPL [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Customers find this book to be a great read that teaches critical thinking and helps differentiate between science and pseudoscience. The writing is well-crafted, with one customer noting its spectacular prose and narrative. Moreover, the book is considered essential reading, particularly for high school students, and provides an excellent guide to science as an epistemology. Additionally, customers appreciate how it lays out the importance of rational thought and breaks down myths.

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298 customers mention "Readability"282 positive16 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as brilliant and a great read, with one customer noting it should be read widely.

"Great book with an important story to tell. Loved it This is insightful and forces the reader to examine our Demon haunted world" Read more

"...With so much superstition and pseudoscience in the world, this is a great book to help people understand the importance of facts and science over..." Read more

"Excellent book. Enjoying it very much" Read more

"Great Book..." Read more

156 customers mention "Insight"151 positive5 negative

Customers find the book insightful, praising its approach to teaching critical thinking and skepticism, and helping readers distinguish between evidence-based understanding and myth.

"This is, of course, well written and thought provoking...." Read more

"Great book with an important story to tell. Loved it This is insightful and forces the reader to examine our Demon haunted world" Read more

"Great insights that are especially applicablen today with all our science deniers" Read more

"One of histories most intelligent humans, unfortunately what he says will fall on many deaf ears...." Read more

92 customers mention "Writing quality"89 positive3 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book, noting its spectacular prose and narrative style, while appreciating Sagan's humble and erudite approach.

"This is, of course, well written and thought provoking...." Read more

"...He was one of a kind, and a great writer." Read more

"...to believe any of this nonsense, and Sagan explains why, using engaging prose and a matter-of-fact approach...." Read more

"...It's wonderful! He spoke and wrote from the heart. You will feel what he felt, as you read it...." Read more

89 customers mention "Science content"83 positive6 negative

Customers appreciate the book's scientific content, particularly its excellent treatment of what constitutes real science and its importance in defending scientific principles.

"...; more importantly, it is a celebration of science and the scientific method..." Read more

"...Nonetheless, I respect Sagan as one of the great science popularizers...." Read more

"...ethics, warning(s), educational and societal concern, and of course, science. I am truly blown away by how good this book is...." Read more

"To me, this book is the most wonderful defence of science that I have read. It teams very well with Origins, by Neil de Grasse Tyson." Read more

53 customers mention "Critical thinking"51 positive2 negative

Customers appreciate the book's emphasis on critical thinking, describing it as a monument to rationality and essential for developing a clear mind.

"...This book is a call for more lucid, rational thinking in all aspects of our civic life...." Read more

"...It focuses on how science and rational thought can save us from the blind fears that our ancestors were forced to suffer through..." Read more

"...pseudoscience and mysticism, appropriate use of skepticism and critical thinking, and why science as a discipline is falling out of favor with..." Read more

"...zeal for science and his tried-and-true respect for scientific, deliberate thought...." Read more

51 customers mention "Information quality"51 positive0 negative

Customers find the book informative, particularly praising its excellent job of explaining the workings of science and serving as an excellent guide to science as an epistemology.

"...It's a fascinating and informative book, despite these few points of disagreement." Read more

"...challenge to read sometimes - but I found this to be very pleasant, informative, and relatable in an odd way." Read more

"...history of the founding father's of the U.S. who were "realistic and practical, wrote their own speeches, and were motivated by high principles."..." Read more

"...Despite it's readability and the amount of knowledge the book imparts, what I enjoyed most is that the book equips me...." Read more

50 customers mention "Reading requirement"48 positive2 negative

Customers consider this book essential reading, particularly for individuals interested in science and as mandatory material for high school students.

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"...This is a fantastic book that should be a required read for all who enjoy science." Read more

49 customers mention "Skepticism"44 positive5 negative

Customers appreciate the book's approach to skepticism, praising how it breaks down myths and examines unusual beliefs. One customer notes that skepticism is crucial for quality of life, while another highlights its critical reminder of the dangers of superstitions.

"...Demon Haunted World" is a seminal work of science, rationality, and skepticism...." Read more

"Excellent book. Breaks down myths and popular nonsense spread by irrational religious thought." Read more

"...more than an impassioned defense of science, The Demon-Haunted World meanders through philosophy, history, politics, religion, and grin-inducing..." Read more

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Sasha Lauren, Author
a buoyant book brimming with the sagacity and soundness of judgment of the late, great Carl Sagan
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2023
Format: KindleVerified Purchase

In a world of ungrounded thought, I feel comforted by Sagan's sagely, skeptical words. "Skepticism doesn't sell newspapers," he explains. He was heavily pro-science and upset about America's scientific illiteracy which fawns over fables and eschews facts. In this book, he takes no prisions from Atlantis and Lemuria, New Age pseudoscience, religious doctrinaire that attempts to validate themselves through prophecy, weeping paintings of the Madonna, Jesus' face on tortillas, fortune tellers (that btw target young women), psychics and channels including Ramtha, amulets, exorcisms, psychic surgery, witches, ghosts, flying saucers, astrology, reliance on prayer and miraculous healing, contradictory platitudes, and spiritual justifications for nearly any action.

"Some portion of the decision-making that influences the future of our civilization is plainly in the hands of charlantans," Sagan writes. "When we are self indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition."

Carl Sagan's question for a possible extraterrestrial was, "Please provide a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem."

"How is it, I ask myself, that UFO occupants are so bound to fashionable or urgent concerns on this planet? Why not even an incidental warning about CFCs and oxone depletion in the 1950s, or about the AHIV virus in the 1979s, when it might have really done some good?"

Sagan thoroughly elucidates the most common strategies used to defend perilous fallacies of logic and rhetoric.

In this book, he includes some history of the founding father's of the U.S. who were "realistic and practical, wrote their own speeches, and were motivated by high principles." He also uses examples of leaders and events in Europe, Russia, and China, and how they thought in ways that were superior to the dreck we have spiraled down to. He admires Jefferson's response to the Sedition Act and Linus Pauling's stance against nuclear weapons and involvement in the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. Sagan himself took an anti-nuclear stance.

Carl Sagan wisely implores us to question everything our leaders tell us.

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

As far as Sagan's brief mention of drugs used for certain DSM diagnosis, the expert I defer to in that realm is Robert Whitaker and his book "Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill."

I read portions of Sagan's book over again, and skimmed a few parts that seemed a bit repetitive. Overall, a very worthy read that I give a strong five stars.

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Saif Ahmed
Amazing, inspiring wonder, and dread
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2025
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
I can not praise this book enough, nor can I recommend it more highly.
Dr. Sagan, through Cosmos, was a childhood hero, effortlessly explaining the infinite complexity out the Universe, in simple terms.
He writes in the same manner, using language that is simple, effective and beautiful.
The chapter on Baloney detection should be an educational course, taught at every level so students re learn it multiple things during school years.
Despite it's readability and the amount of knowledge the book imparts, what I enjoyed most is that the book equips me. It provides tools and techniques to be more aware of myself, my fellow humans, and the world we exist in.
It defines a responsibility reach and everyone of us should take; to process information better. That also scares me. For one, it lays out, in grim detail, where the human race has failed to do so, and subsequently, failed itself. Secondly, the human condition dictates that, at some point, each and everyone of us will fail to process information correctly.
Thinking well is a life long struggle, and an individually responsibility. I hope we are up for it.
Highly recommended.
I wish Dr. Sagan were still alive; to hear him speak world be incredible.

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Amazon Customer
Required reading for everyone
Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2025
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Great book with an important story to tell. Loved it
This is insightful and forces the reader to examine our Demon haunted world

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Hans Kerrinckx
How to think critically.
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2016
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books, a lot of them translated in different languages.
Besides his ability to convey his ideas and vast scientific knowledge to laymen, I admire his scientific skepticism and methodology.
His book “The Demon-Haunted World. Science as a Candle in the Dark” most have shocked a lot of people. Sagan wrote this book over twenty years ago now, but its relevance today is uncanny and scary. He is very critical about pseudoscience, the lack of skepticism, superstition, and the influence of religion on scientific research (the literal Bible beliefs). Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs.
Especially lack of scientific education, the superstition and the religious narrow-mindedness of the average American are the major topic in this book. Sagan states early on in the book that "some 95 percent of Americans are scientifically illiterate."
Some quotes:
- “Nearly half of all Americans believe there is such a thing as psychic or spiritual healing.”
- “For 200 years Americans have prided themselves on being a practical, pragmatic, nonideological people. And yet anthropological and psychological pseudoscience has flourished in the United States— on race, for example. Under the guise of “creationism,” a serious effort continues to be made to prevent evolutionary theory— the most powerful integrating idea in all of biology, and essential for other sciences ranging from astronomy to anthropology— from being taught in the schools.”
- Charles Carroll’s The Negro a Beast (St. Louis: American Book and Bible House) taught its pious readers that “the Bible and Divine Revelation, as well as reason, all teach that the Negro is not human.” This book is still available an on sale on Amazon!
- In October 1992 the NASA initiated by far the most promising, powerful, and comprehensive search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Just one year later, Congress pulled the plug. SETI was not of pressing importance; its interest was limited; it was too expensive. But every civilization in human history has devoted some of its resources to investigating deep questions about the Universe, and it’s hard to think of a deeper one than whether we are alone. […] Far from being narrowly based, the SETI program, strongly supported by the scientific community, is also embedded in popular culture. The fascination with this enterprise is broad and enduring, and for very good reason. And far from being too expensive, the program would have cost about one attack helicopter per year.
Sagan is particularly on target with regard to politics. He states that the USA has national candidates now willing to say and espouse anything no matter how outrageous, provoking, or hateful. He warns about such despicable behavior and its effect on national decisions.
In a nutshell: Carl Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World. Science as a Candle in the Dark” is a great book on how to think critically. Some zealots (not necessarily religious ones) may get offended. A little repetitive about UFOs, though.

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Cristina Wergrzn
Recomendo a leitura
Reviewed in Brazil on February 8, 2025
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Excelente o livro. Entrega feita no prazo e em perfeitas condições.

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Simera H
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Reviewed in Canada on November 10, 2017
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I sit before my computer, typing out a review of what is my favorite book. I’m daunted by the magnitude of this task, having just finished the book for the fourth or maybe fifth time. I wish I could remember when I bought this book, likely close to a decade ago, but I’m sure that I must have been awestruck to discover a book written by a man who has influenced my life and my interests to such a great extent.

One of the great memories of my early life was that of waiting to plop down in front of the TV set for a few Sunday nights in 1980, as our PBS station aired a thirteen part series called Cosmos. Accompanied at the TV by my mom and grandmother, Cosmos captured my imagination in ways that will last my whole life. It was a series not merely discussing outer space, but in fact, it addressed the history of humanity’s understanding of our place in the world, the universe, and in life. Why is the memory of a TV show so incredibly dear to me? I could say that the show opened my mind to concepts and philosophies and possibilities that I never imagined, and that’d be a fair and true statement. What really makes the series so pivotal in my life, though, is that I shared such a formative experience with my mom and my grandmother; two people to whom I owe my life, my intelligence, and, hopefully without too much hyperbole, my essential spirit. At the age of nine, it’s not very likely to imagine that I would have planted myself in front of a television tuned to PBS on a Sunday evening, but the patient guidance and love of my mom and grandmother gave me the gift of knowledge and wonder.

Needless to say, I’ve always been partial to the works of Dr. Carl Sagan. Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is the first work of Dr. Sagan’s that I’ve read as an adult and in the many years I’ve owned this book, I’ve read it at least four times. Why re-read a book so often? The answer is found in my reverence of the book’s message, its point, and its passion. Not only have I read it often, but I have made an irregularly observed tradition to start each new year with a fresh reading. At least three times, I’ve picked the book up within hours of watching the ball drop in Times Square, heralding in the new year.

Many who know me, already know this is my favorite book, but I’m deeply challenged when I’m asked what the book is about, and several paragraphs into my review, I’m probably overdue in attempting to answer this exact question. In this book, Dr. Carl Sagan tackles one of the key problems facing our time, as well as repeated throughout the history of our civilization, and that is the propensity for humanity to delve into our darkest superstitions and most bleak behaviors when our knowledge or ego is challenged. It seems that throughout the history of our species, we’ve turned our backs on critical thought and skepticism at times when those with claims to power and zealotry and wealth have found it advantageous and profitable to subvert the masses.

Why discuss witch burnings and crop circles and claims of government coverups of alien abductions from 50 years ago? The answer lies in the here and now. At a time when every facet of our daily lives revolves around technology; when each and every human being lives under the threat of annihilation by nuclear weapons; when communications are global but subject to being monitored in violation of the founding documents of our nation (granted this is a problem that would occur years after Sagan’s death, yet it’s exactly the type of behavior Sagan speaks of), we find that critical thought wanes in the population of our own nation, not to mention that of the entire world. Credulity and old habits creep into our consciousness. Our world, our freedoms, and our lives come under attack.

Go to the movies and watch ghosts haunt a house or watch the undead torment campers in the woods. Turn on the TV, and you’re likely to find tales of alien spacecraft being hidden by the government. You’re equally likely to channel surf past a shopping network selling new age crystals. But where on broadcast television are you likely to find a substantive debate on issues of education or technology? Where do you see educational programming talking about the technology that engulfs our very lives? As Sagan points out, imagine the irony that kids can watch a cartoon about a prehistoric family with a dinosaur for a pet (I actually protest... I enjoyed the Flintstones!), but may never have the opportunity to watch a show about the invention or technology of television, itself!

At what cost to our freedoms, will we accept great claims without great proof? What decisions do we as a world culture need to make to grow and prosper and what can we learn from our history, replete with credulity and domination and fear mongering?

Should we shrink from the challenges of education and critical thinking, what price will we pay? Will it be our personal or national economic stability? Will we see our freedoms curtailed (as if we haven’t witnessed that already)? Or will we pay with the extinction of our species?
 The thesis as I understand it, of this book is that we, as a culture and society, may be repeating a common mistake of our history: accepting a diminution of our critical thinking skills at our own distinct peril. Because of the threats we face though, this time we stand at these crossroads at possibly the least opportune of times. Throughout history, those in power or those who seek it, have abused our fears and used them to control the masses to their own advantage or profit. This book begs to serve as a wake up call to anyone willing to accept the challenge not only to read it, but to deeply ponder each of its points and positions. It offers the methods of critical thought as the grand lighthouse by which we can safely steer our course through the treacherous times and malevolent forces we face. Dr. Sagan, true to the book’s title, offers the methods of science as a candle in the darkness in men’s souls.

This book occupies a special place in my life, as I’ve stated. I believe that this is a book of such enormous importance, that it should be required reading in every senior level high school class in the country. It may not be comfortable reading, and Dr. Sagan wrote on an astronomically high reading level (forgive the pun, as Dr. Sagan was of course a world renown astronomer) that it may take weeks or months to fully drink in the material, but the discussion that Dr. Sagan presented are vital. The arguments he presents are vital to our intellect, our freedom, and to our humanity.

For making me think and contemplate, reading after reading, this book scores five stars.

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Francisco Cortés
Muy completo
Reviewed in Mexico on February 6, 2025
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Muy buen producto

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Nico
Libro da avere
Reviewed in Italy on April 23, 2025
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Da leggere assolutamente

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Client d'Amazon
Satisfait
Reviewed in France on July 20, 2017
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Très satisfaite de ce produit. C'était un cadeau d'anniversaire qui selon ses dires et sans lus aucuns doute à fait un heureux.

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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Paperback – February 25, 1997

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5.0 out of 5 stars a buoyant book brimming with the sagacity and soundness of judgment of the late, great Carl Sagan

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, inspiring wonder, and dread

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for everyone

4.0 out of 5 stars How to think critically.

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a buoyant book brimming with the sagacity and soundness of judgment of the late, great Carl Sagan

Amazing, inspiring wonder, and dread

Required reading for everyone

How to think critically.

Recomendo a leitura

Love

Muy completo

Libro da avere

Satisfait