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Review of: The Demon-Haunted World; Science as a Candle in the Dark
by Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World is a book about skepticism and the scientific method. It is also about the fallacies of our own psychology, our memories, etc. The context in much of the book is debunking alien abduction accounts, as well as various other forms of pseudoscience. Here is the synopsis:
Sagan begins by explaining what science is, and what it is not. More importantly, in my opinion, he discusses what the scientific method is. He explains that the scientific method is humble, questioning, observing, and desires correctness, or truth, over sensationalism, and easy answers. The scientific method doesn’t assume it has discovered unalterable truth. It inherently recognizes (in a quantifiable error usually, for those who’ve read scientific papers) error, and is always seeking for a better theory. It never assumes there is nothing else to learn, and it always seeks to interpret the evidence, not to impose a theory on the same. The best example of this, I think, is Newtonian physics, and Einstein’s subsequent relativity theories supplanting the former. Of course this is the ideal, and the scientific community, like all human endeavors, falls short.
Sagan then embarks on a journey explaining various forms of pseudoscience: alien abductions, mediums, astrology, UFO sightings, crop circles, etc. etc. He also devotes a chapter to the demons of previous centuries in conjunction with witch hunts. He tries to show the unreliability of our own memories, experiences, and the seeming bewitching of various therapists who become convinced of clients’ stories.
Sagan then begins the setup for his “baloney detection kit,” a kit designed to help us narrow down what we should accept as true. He begins with a parable about a claim of having a dragon in the garage. Every test that an independent observer tries to create or apply is easily dismissed with a convenient reason of why the test wouldn’t work. In the end, the observer has no way of proving, or disproving the claim, yet he is asked to believe it.
Sagan then introduces his baloney detection kit. This is the heart of the book, I believe. The baloney detection kit is a set of criteria or tests that a claim ought to be able to pass before we accept it as valid. Conversely, it also lists various specious arguments often used to “prove” a claim true, but, of which we ought to be wary.
Sagan goes on, in the latter half of the book to discuss the wonder that science has in and of itself, without any need to consult pseudoscience. He also discusses problems with science, its culture, the moral obligation of nuclear weapons, and scientists as well. In the end, Sagan tries to describe how science is a hallmark of democracy, freedom, and happiness.
Here is my own take on the book. First the negative. For me Sagan dismisses the metaphysical a bit too much. He seems to be so focused on debunking the regular religious fundamentalist attitudes (those of “I’m right because God speaks to me”) that he completely fails to see any metaphysical benefits for religion, or spirituality in general. This rubs me the wrong way a bit. His points are valid, but he perpetuates the same attitude (to be fair there are a few places where he relents) that those fundamentalist groups do – namely, us vs. them, and black and white thinking. I ask the question – is there not a middle way? A way in which both skepticism and mysticism can be satisfied?
Additionally, Sagan went on about the UFOs and alien abduction stories far too long for me. He kept bringing up story after story about individuals, therapists, then moving on to demons, witch hunts, etc. etc. I had long since seen what he was saying and was on his side. Indeed, the people who read this book are not going to be the religious fundamentalists, but rather those who already embrace his ideology. He’s preaching to the choir, and it got a little old for me.
Now for the positive. I actually really liked the book. Sagan sets out to explain why much of the religious and pseudoscience world has kept us from freedom, slowed our progress, and killed and tortured millions. He does a good job of this. Skeptical thinking is a powerful tool in our toolbox and I agree that it is sorely under-utilized by mainstream religions and fundamentalists alike. Much of this, in my opinion, can be understood with psychological phenomena like confirmation bias, and attachment theory. We are what we eat, or rather, have been fed. It takes someone willing to reach out, leave their comfort zone, and step into the darkness to realize they might be in the wrong, to realize their preconceptions might be mistaken, or that their belief system or worldview is not all it purports to be. But I digress.
There were a few chapters and stories that really caught my attention. First was the chapter about the limitations of our own memories. Sagan shows how therapists often use rather coercive techniques in extracting repressed memories from people having claimed abuse. He shows that in many cases it is very unclear whether the memory is made up to fit the pressing need the therapist is trying to fulfill, or really happened. He shows how bad our memories really are, how we introduce small errors into stories which grow, evolve, and become quite unreliable.
Second, a story. Sagan tells the story of a father, whose daughter, due to some dreams/nightmares she was having (after attending a fundamentalist religious function), began accusing him of sexual abuse, and satanic rituals. The father had a perfectly clean record, was a staunch republican conservative, a sheriff, religious, and all who knew him claimed he would never do such a thing. At first the father denied doing anything. He had no recollection of any abuse, and couldn’t imagine himself doing so. Eventually the daughter’s increasingly loud accusations, coupled with a therapist “dragging out” repressed memories, led the man to plead guilty to all the abuse. He then became convinced that he in fact did perpetrate all these crimes, and resisted all attempts to show that he was innocent, and was a victim of a “memory recovery” technique gone wrong. The fact is, this man did nothing wrong, and there was evidence to show it. But he had already confessed to the crimes and was coerced into cooperation. In jail, after the fact, he realized he’s been duped, but alas it was too late. This man’s life was ruined, where a little more skeptical thinking could have saved him from a life of imprisonment.
These two pieces of Sagan’s book hit home for me. I am now much more skeptical of my own memories, and am more willing to admit when I could be mistaken.
The baloney detection kit is absolutely brilliant. It isn’t actually, anything new or spectacular. It is simply all the tools for choosing what to believe, conveniently packaged in a nice list, with nice examples. It also includes a list of many of the spurious arguments used to perpetuate myths, lies, legends, and/or other pseudoscience. I love the list, and have referred to it since on many occasions. I believe we would all do well to have such a list against which we can check our beliefs.
Although Sagan did little to address current religious ideas and ideologies, it is undeniable that many of the same arguments apply. At the end of the day, it is really not about UFOs, alien abductions, witch hunts, or demons, but an attitude. It is the gullible, believing without checking, and then asserting those beliefs as fact and literal external realities that Sagan is against. And rightly so. We see this a lot in Mormonism. Joseph, while we claim he was fallible, is never presented as such. We believe Joseph’s claims 100% based on a spiritual confirmation without even checking the most basic historical facts. And this method of determining the truth of his claims is condoned by our leaders, our missionaries, etc. In fact, I think it is really hailed as the ultimate source of truth (unless it goes against the what the prophets say), regardless of how reliable/unreliable it may be. Unfortunately, I think spiritual confirmations don’t have a very good track record in the history of the world for determining what is truth, or even what is accurate IMHO. For me, this is one thing that bothers me about mainstream religion. I am fine with people who check in with all the facts, yet choose to believe in the possibilities. But for me, I don’t accept arguments for literal external realities based on spiritual experiences, and am much more skeptical of my own experiences. I am more inclined to believe that there is a rational explanation for my experiences without the need to assign them to acts of God, or some other divine intervention. My spiritual experiences are special to me, but I choose to interpret them for me, and choose to see them in a metaphorical light. But to each his own!
I highly recommend the book for at least two reasons. First, it gives the reader a good idea of what science is, is not, and more importantly the scientific method, which I believe, is the best method of determining truth ever conceived. Second, while rational thinking, logic, and skepticism have limits, I believe they are an invaluable tool that should be used by everyone in conjunction with their metaphysical thoughts and experiences, and other forms of detecting truth.
Great review! Thanks for taking the time to explain so much. I’ve heard about this book many times from various people’s comments, but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. You got me more interested. What Valoel said. 
Really, great review.
In this book, Carl Sagan laments the supposed ignorance, superstition, and gullibility of the general public to show such widespread interest in such things as alien abductions, demons, ghosts, witchcraft, astrology, reincarnation, ESP, channeling, precognition, divine intervention, and all kinds of New Age mumbo jumbo. Of course, being a typical skeptic, Carl Sagan’s answer to most of these ideas was that there must be some mundane and perfectly “natural” explanation for all of these unusual beliefs. Based on the title, I was hoping the book would talk more about demons and hauntings but unfortunately it mostly talked about alien abductions more than anything else. Sagan’s theory was that reported alien abductions were basically the same thing as demon hauntings and mostly the product of hallucinations or lucid dreams based on what people were conditioned to expect so in different cultures and times people were more likely to report stories about demons, fairies, etc. rather than aliens. I guess Sagan thought alien abductions were more deserving of serious investigation because they are technically possible within the framework of his atheistic world-view.
Sagan also tries to clearly distinguish between real science and what he likes to label as pseudoscience (almost everything else). The main difference according to him is that real scientific theories should be possible to independently test and derive the same conclusion. Unlike many skeptics he admits that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” but he assumes that claims that can’t be proven to the satisfaction of most skeptics are relatively “worthless” anyway. One problem with this idea is that many generally accepted historical “facts” cannot be re-tested at this point because they were unique one-time events and now anecdotal evidence is all we really have left in many cases. Sagan acts like eyewitness accounts are completely unreliable but then cites historical examples like the Inquisition and various witch hunts as supposed proof that religious zeal and superstition are dangerous even though we already haven’t been executing any accused witches since 1692.
Personally I think some of these scientists should apply some of the same rigorous scrutiny and skepticism to some of their own prejudiced ideas especially when it comes to matters of opinion about non-scientific areas of interest such as politics and religion. For example, even if some of these beliefs that bother them so much are actually wrong I’m not convinced that most of them really do much harm to anyone either way. I just don’t believe that it’s really necessary or realistic to expect everyone to believe the same thing and I think it would generally be better to just let people believe whatever they want to in most cases as long as they aren’t hurting anyone.
In my opinion, many brutal communist regimes were the end result of too much ivory tower academic intellectualism where people became overconfident in their own ability to understand everything and accurately determine outcomes in cases that turned out to be more complicated than they thought. I’m not saying that Sagan is one of the worst examples of this kind of thinking; actually he seems fairly reasonable most of the time and stresses that one of the best things about science is the built-in capacity for error correction. However, I worry that too many people just take it for granted that scientists generally know what they are talking about which isn’t always the case. Seriously, if some of these “scientists” had their way I’m sure they would have imposed unnecessary inconveniences and poverty on people as a vain attempt to combat the supposed problem of global warming.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:However, I worry that too many people just take it for granted that scientists generally know what they are talking about which isn’t always the case. Seriously, if some of these “scientists” had their way I’m sure they would have imposed unnecessary inconveniences and poverty on people as a vain attempt to combat the supposed problem of global warming.
Every organization whether it is religious, governmental, or scientific wants to impose their belief system on others. The general conclusion is we are right so if we make everyone do what we say they will be better off. At least with science you would hope it is based on some kind of tangible evidence. Look to religions like Islam or even Mormonism to a degree if you want to see bad ideas with no evidence of their correctness imposed on individuals for there own good.
Cadence wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:However, I worry that too many people just take it for granted that scientists generally know what they are talking about which isn’t always the case. Seriously, if some of these “scientists” had their way I’m sure they would have imposed unnecessary inconveniences and poverty on people as a vain attempt to combat the supposed problem of global warming.
Every organization whether it is religious, governmental, or scientific wants to impose their belief system on others. The general conclusion is we are right so if we make everyone do what we say they will be better off. At least with science you would hope it is based on some kind of tangible evidence. Look to religions like Islam or even Mormonism to a degree if you want to see bad ideas with no evidence of their correctness imposed on individuals for there own good.
The public school system is another perfect example of of an institution that has imposed “bad ideas with no evidence of their correctness imposed on individuals for there own good.”
I have read excerpts from this book, and was going to pick it up. Not sure if it is on my short list as of now.
cwald wrote:Cadence wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:However, I worry that too many people just take it for granted that scientists generally know what they are talking about which isn’t always the case. Seriously, if some of these “scientists” had their way I’m sure they would have imposed unnecessary inconveniences and poverty on people as a vain attempt to combat the supposed problem of global warming.
Every organization whether it is religious, governmental, or scientific wants to impose their belief system on others. The general conclusion is we are right so if we make everyone do what we say they will be better off. At least with science you would hope it is based on some kind of tangible evidence. Look to religions like Islam or even Mormonism to a degree if you want to see bad ideas with no evidence of their correctness imposed on individuals for there own good.
The public school system is another perfect example of of an institution that has imposed “bad ideas with no evidence of their correctness imposed on individuals for there own good.”I have read excerpts from this book, and was going to pick it up. Not sure if it is on my short list as of now.
This reminds me of another idea put forward in this book that I don’t really agree with which I have heard repeatedly from others as well that American high school students have fallen woefully behind students in Europe, Asia, Canada, etc. especially in math and science and this will supposedly be disastrous for our future. I agree that American high school students often don’t learn nearly as much as they could by the time they graduate from high school but the reason I am much less concerned with this than Sagan was is simply because I think that most students that will ever really need to understand math and science very well will typically have the opportunity to catch up with the rest of the world in college. The way I see it, typical Americans will learn more about math and science if and when there are more occupational or business opportunities where it is really advantageous for them to apply this knowledge.
It seems like most career paths are so specialized nowadays that I’m not convinced that it will really make much of a positive difference for the majority of students to score better on math and science tests if they will never really use this knowledge much in their everyday lives. Only a very small percentage will ever end up doing cutting edge research and the vast majority will simply end up applying existing and proven technologies in a way that depends more on routine procedures and practical experience than any theoretical or abstract knowledge. That’s why I’m not sure that that investing more in rigorous and formal science than we already do will really pay off that much over the long run as much as Sagan seemed to think it would.
I absolutely agree DA, that is why I say the public school system fits the model. It’s completely asinine what we have done with the graduation standards of requiring Alg. II +, extra science classes and two years of foreign language etc for every student to graduate, and we compound the problem because we are still so focused on the Carnegie (ass-time) Hours which was huge mistake when we started it, yet we continue to insist that a one shoe fit’s all approach is the best . It’s like we think we have to fit every student into a the same box — – clones —- kind of the same conservation we have about religion.
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