The Demon-Haunted World

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The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Author Carl Sagan
Language English
Publisher Random House / Ballantine Books
Publication date 1996 / 1997
Media type Hardcover / Paperback
ISBN ISBN 0-394-53512-X / ISBN 0-345-40946-9
Preceded by Pale Blue Dot
Followed by Billions and Billions

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a book by Carl Sagan intended to explain the scientific method to laymen, and to encourage people to learn critical or skeptical thinking. It explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science, and ideas that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking, and should stand up to rigorous questioning.

Contents

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In the book, Sagan said that if a new idea continues in existence after an examination of the propositions, it should then be acknowledged as a supposition. Skeptical thinking essentially is a means to construct, understand, reason, and recognize valid and invalid arguments. Wherever possible, there must be independent validation of the concepts whose truth should be proved. He believed that reason and logic would succeed once the truth is known. Conclusions emerge from premises, and the acceptability of the premises should not be discounted or accepted because of bias.

Sagan presents a set of tools for skeptical thinking which he calls the "baloney detection kit". Skeptical thinking consists both of constructing a reasoned argument and recognizing a fallacious or fraudulent one. In order to identify a fallacious argument, Sagan suggests the employment of such tools as independent confirmation of facts, quantification and the use of Occam's razor. Sagan's "baloney detection kit" also provided tools for detecting "the most common fallacies of logic and rhetoric", such as argument from authority and statistics of small numbers.

Through these tools, the benefits of a critical mind and the self-correcting nature of science can take place. Sagan provides a skeptical analysis of several kinds of superstition, fraud, pseudoscience and religious beliefs, such as gods, witches, UFOs, ESP and faith healing.

[edit] Chapters

  1. The Most Precious Thing
  2. Science and Hope
  3. The Man in the Moon and the Face on Mars
  4. Aliens
  5. Spoofing and Secrecy
  6. Hallucinations
  7. The Demon-Haunted World
  8. On the Distinction Between True and False Visions
  9. Therapy
  10. The Dragon in My Garage
  11. The City of Grief
  12. The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
  13. Obsessed with Reality
  14. Antiscience
  15. Newton's Sleep
  16. When Scientists Know Sin
  17. The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder
  18. The Wind Makes Dust
  19. No Such Thing as a Dumb Question
  20. House on Fire
  21. The Path to Freedom
  22. Significance Junkies
  23. Maxwell and the Nerds
  24. Science and Witchcraft
  25. Real Patriots Ask Questions

[edit] Quotes

  • "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... I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
  • "It's perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive waste, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth."
  • "Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grand children's time ... when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstitions and darkness."
  • "Is it fair to be suspicious of an entire profession because of a few bad apples? There are at least two important differences, it seems to me. First, no one doubts that science actually works, whatever mistaken and fraudulent claim may from time to time be offered. But whether there are any "miraculous" cures from faith-healing, beyond the body's own ability to cure itself, is very much at issue. Secondly, the exposé of fraud and error in science is made almost exclusively by science. But the exposure of fraud and error in faith-healing is almost never done by other faith-healers."
  • "At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers; (2) that people under minor sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images "projected" at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation. I pick these claims not because I think they are likely to be valid (I don't), but as examples of contentions that might be true. The last three have at least some, although still dubious, experimental support."

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