The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

I’ve been reading a pretty interesting book called The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (author of Contact). The book is basically an extended diatribe against pseudoscience or “junk science.” Sagan addresses such issues as alien abduction, UFOs, psychic healers, psychic mediums, etc. He believes that the general public is antipathetic towards true science, and instead embraces superstition and the supernatural as legitimate forms of scientific knowledge. Here’s an excerpt, which is also printed on the back cover:

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.

I found his examination of the alien abduction “phenomenon” especially interesting. Throughout history, people have been seeing things. In the Middle Ages, it was demons (that’s where the title of the book comes from). Hallucinations continued through time, going from demons to saints to witches, and now aliens. Sagan’s view is that whatever fears are in the minds of the public at a certain time in history, that’s what people will see, or claim to see. Makes a lot of sense to me… We look back at these stories of witch hunts and exorcisms and such things with the sense that we’re progressed above that, so how can alien abduction be taken so seriously by so many? Sagan is actually an enthusiast when it comes to extraterrestrial life. He was involved in SETI and other scientific methods to find alien intelligence. This makes his arguments all the more powerful. I have great respect for the fact that despite his personal goals and his desire to believe in alien life, Sagan was able to produce such a comprehensive work of skepticism.

I wonder what Carl Sagan would have thought about the whole Intelligent Design intelligent design concept. (I refuse to capitalize it.) One of the main themes of The Demon-Haunted World is the willingness of individuals to ignore science, and the scientific method in particular, because of its difficulty. Mainstream society even subtly encourages ignorance, because wild pseudoscientific theories are just more entertaining. It’s somewhat more disturbing in the case of intelligent design, because it goes beyond mainstream media and entertainment. Intelligent design backers are actually trying to turn a religious belief into a science, and teach it as a science. I have nothing against anybody’s religious beliefs, it’s the attempt to institutionalize them that I find appalling. One part of the book in particular made me think of the intelligent design controversy. Sagan describes a hypothetical dragon living in his garage to make the point that if there’s no way to disprove an assertion, then there’s no scientific meaning to that assertion. (E.g. you can’t test that the dragon is there by seeing it because it’s invisible, you can’t test by looking for footprints because it’s flying, etc… You can counter any way of experimentally testing the existence of the dragon by giving the dragon some arbitrary property.) Sagan’s dragon, in a way, is a precursor to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (albeit not as funny).

My only complaint/concern about this book is that it’s preaching to the converted. I can’t imagine someone who’s not already interested in science reading it. I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t really change how I think about the world, as I pretty much agreed with all of what he was saying. Even if a “non-scientific” person reads the book, he/she might be put off by Sagan’s harsh tone, condemning mainstream society for its gullibility. He/she might actually be insulted and turn away from science even more. (“These scientists think they’re so smart and that they’re better than us.”) I’m guessing that this is the fate that was eventually suffered by the book. It was written in 1996 and I don’t think it’s been particularly successful. Nevertheless, it was thought-provoking and worth a read.