 The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996)
This one's been kicking around in the old think-bucket since I read it months ago, and it's time I wrote the damn review already. Actually, I listened to it via an illegally-downloaded audiobook, but it's still technically a book so it still technically counts. Plus, Carl Sagan would have wanted it that way. (?)
The premise is that science is the only antidote to crazy beliefs in things like witches, aliens, wolfmen, draculas, Keebler Elves, and God.
I have to admit as a devoted Art Bellist, I was quite skeptical of Sagan's unrepentant skepticism. I mean, what's the point in living if you're not planning for PX, looking for ABCs in England, listening to EVP, or trying to prove ESP? (Two shiny bits to the fellow who can accurately decipher that last sentence.)
And yes, Sagan's sharply-driven point that science is better than religion does make him sound like the Billy Graham of Science. But he offers some damn good arguments for why he's right, among the best the statement that while religion may claim to predict a lot of things (like the end of the world and the damnation of people such as myself), science accurately predicts things every day, from the motion of the ocean to the potion of your lotion.
The book is thoroughly thorough in examining all types of phenomena from all angles, making a strong case for many New Age beliefs as being completely "n the mind." And it takes a fascinating historical approach, drawing parallels between the horrors of witch hunts and alien abduction stories, arguing that in both instances the victims were caused to believe or claim totally false experiences out of coercion and/or post-hypnotic suggestion.
He also reserves an angry boner for how our country's faltering education system will lead to an inability to think straight. The result will be a people who have no ability to discern fact from fiction, who believe their leaders without hesitation, are incapable of true skepticism and too ignorant to know which questions to ask and when and why.
By Sagan's Ghost, it already happened! He's like a modern-day Nostradamus!
My biggest problem with the book is that it absolutely categorically refuses to accept anything that can't be explained by science.
My second-biggest problem with the book is that the audio version is read by a snooty British fop who makes the whole thing sound like a bitter tea party, in stark contrast to Sagan's classic nerdlinger mush-talk that inspired decades of bad impersonations.
There's no room in Sagan's cosmos for any religious or spiritual experience that isn't explained by brainwaves, wrongly-interpreted coincidence, or outright insanity, temporary or otherwise.
By his logic, the poltergeist in my apartment didn't really knock over the top-heavy bottle I set precariously on the edge of my table, and never actually hid the keys that turned up in an unexpected place. I mean, seriously Carl, if ever there was proof of life after death, these two examples are IT.
And while Sagan takes great pains not to offend God-lovers, it's patently obvious that he thinks people who believe in God or any other shade of higher power or nonscientific system from Karma to Kabbalah to shish-kebabbalah are nothing more than drooling maniacs worshipping Tinkerbell.
Yet Sagan's devotion to the Gods of Science is so complete I could see the blue-tinted spirits of Newton, Galileo, and Einstein (assuming I even know what Newton looks like). It's only slightly hypocritical to write a book that decimates one type of mindless belief and take excruciating pains to promote another type of mindless belief.
But good old fat-brained Sagan knew to expect that criticism too, and made a big deal about how self-correcting and evolutionary science is. And how beneficial it is when used properly by the right people. Yeah. Problem is, science is increasingly used to improve mood drugs and porn delivery systems, while the rest of us are spoon-fed a steady diet of anti-nerdist propaganda.
Does Sagan really expect anyone to care, when there's SUVs to fill up, endangered animals to teach how to "high-five," acres of trees waiting to be churned into elitist, fancy-pants books like this?
Though chances are Sagan didn't expect your average crack baby to sit around reading this book in the homeless shelter, it's best seen as one very smart man's attempt to rally some support for an old-fashioned and totally impossible ideal: rational thought without respect to personal bias.
I guess as long as we have rich people with time to write thick books about how no one is as smart as them (as opposed to poor people with time to criticize them), we'll have books like Demon-Haunted World.
But then, intelligence, compassion, a strong sense of what's fair, and a striking ability to put it into words are all rare qualities. Plus, Sagan really wants science in the hands of the people, and he's got a lot of big idears how to get it there, and it means spending less on warfare and more on book fairs, and if I don't fucking get a paid writing job from than line alone, I give up.
And every time you want to pull Sagan's nostril hair for being such a long-winded priss, he turns a corner, scores a new point, and re-engages your interest for another fascinating chapter.
So for all my bitching and moaning, I gotta say this is very well worth the read (or listen), and will likely inspire several smart-sounding rants at dinner parties, as it did for your faithful author. Hopefully in your case it won't be at a werewolf convention, because take it from me, plastic fangs fucking hurt.
Review by Crimedog |