Title:
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Author:
Carl Sagan
I can honestly say with little shame that I subscribe and (even more unbelievably) read "Scientific American", so when I read an interesting review for The Demon-Haunted World in the June 1996 issue I was intrigued. Around that time my friend, a firm believer in the supernatural and the occult, and I were having lengthy debates (its true) on this topic. You can imagine my delight when I read:
The Demon-Haunted World is impressively comprehensive: it discusses topics from alien abduction to witchcraft, making stops at astrology, crop circles, dowsing, faith healing, ghosts, past-life regression and telepathy.
I figured that now I could obtain a reference to reinforce my belief and show her the error of her ways. But I was more interested in the book for myself then for winning an argument.
As a young child, like any young child, I was afraid of the unknown, i.e. the monsters under the bed. As I grew older, however I realized how silly these notions were. Obviously there was no nation wide epidemic of midnight monsters-under-the-bed children-eating frenzies. Otherwise why we keep buying beds, outside of some sadistic population control/feeding ritual perpetrated by a deal between the monsters and the parents who really wanted a girl/boy. So whenever I got scared I found I could just rationalize the "monsters under my bed" away. Since then I have always had an interest in science, especially fields that try to make more sense out of the world we live in.
These days, those same demons from under my bed rear their ugly heads, however they now come in different forms. Today's "monster", instead of the boogie man and Freddy Kruger, is extraterrestrial, supernatural, or paranormal. Although I never fully believed in the ghost that haunts Toys R Us (he was on an episode of the very 80's pre-"Hard Copy" variety show "That's Incredible") there was always that question in the back of my head, that there had to be some basis, some underlying reason, for these claims from sensible people you see and hear in the media almost everyday. I am hoping that there are better reasons than just mass hallucinations and optical illusions for these phenomena and I am hoping those reasons are in this book.
Chapter 1: "The Most Precious Thing"- is obviously not referring to this chapter. There are no main points to this chapter, it is pointless. Where are the "comprehensive discussions" on psuedoscience? Instead there exists only a short anecdote of a Mr. Buckley and some pointless rhetoric about the importance of education. My interest in this book begins to dim, I hope that the pace will pick up next chapter.
Chapter 2: As the title "Science and Hope" suggests it contains more anecdotes and more superficial remarks of the marvels and wonders science can bring and how it can save us from society's ill. However no substance, I am losing faith in him as he tells an anecdote about an extraterrestrial scrutinizing human civilization and seeing only the evils it brings on to itself (while symbolic I did not expect his suggestion in the possibility of visiting intelligent alien life, which most scientists claim to be at about one in a billion).
Chapter 3: I was lead astray, lead to believe that the next chapter "The Man in The Moon and The Face on Mars" would be chock full of statistical evidence and factual cases. However, it proved less than enlightening, the need for man to recreate his image in nature to compensate for his loneliness and seemingly helplessness in the vast cosmos is an old argument (the manifestation of God in our image - and not visa versa, for instance). The only new knowledge received was that the mysterious formations of pyramids on Mars were due not to "alien Pharaohs" but strong winds half the speed of light over eons of years. Pyramids on earth, such as the Egyptian pyramids, also have some wonder attached to them, like the missing inclines and pulleys that were supposed to be used.
Chapter 4: While slightly entertaining, this chapter on "Aliens" is not extremely groundbreaking. Again nothing I haven't already heard, I had seen an episode of NOVA on the subject that was thoroughly more informative, succinct, and even more entertaining. I've noticed a trend in his writing, he draws you in with stories of typical supernatural cases, then stops without giving the process and reasoning used (or without describing what he does give you in more detail) in reaching more down to earth explanations. Instead you get more stories and more generalities usually all returning to the same ignorance and susceptibility of man conclusion.
Chapter 5: Amazingly this chapter was well written and comprehensive on a subject I assumed would be the most inconclusive. Titled "Spoofing and Secrecy" it attempts to relieve many readers of the paranoia associated with government conspiracies depicted on fictional television shows such as the "X Files". Providing evidence of files and reports of UFO (in)existence and giving rational explanations (whether they were good or not) for the early reluctance to disclose information, other than their typical ambiguous answer-alls (e.g. "in the interests of National Security") reminiscent of the McCarthy era. Also inside, a thoroughly factual argument on the true identity of some UFOs as weather balloons.
Chapter 6: "Hallucinations" have always been the rationale behind modern abduction experiences. This chapter succeeded on the how and the why hallucinations occur, dream-like experiences that happen to normal people during stressful or sleepless periods. But failed to give a why to what we hallucinate. Why do so many normal people experience roughly the same encounters? How can two honest people hallucinate the same experience together, and without conferring with each other relate the experience identically, even under objective hypnosis (or can they)? Does this need to "dream up" these experiences dwell deep within the psyche? How much do we really know about hallucinations?
Chapter 7: Many of the preceding questions were answered in this chapter called "The Demon-Haunted World". Interestingly enough "Demon" is Greek for "knowledge", and "knowledge" in Latin is "science", obviously Sagan uses this little pun in his title (one interpretation: when some people see a "Demon Haunted World" he sees "a world frequented by science"). Demons take different forms, today they are aliens, but they have been with us since the beginning of civilization. While some periods of other-worldly visitation more pronounced than other times, demon encounters are basically the same borrowing only the distinct details from popular culture. Aliens have been the icon of mysteriousness since the turn of the century, chosen probably because their inaccessibility to those who might challenge their existence. They have thus evolved and are now so defined that a typical hallucinatory experience could fit this script and make sense to the subject. Cases dealing back to medieval Europe, suggest not that aliens have "entertained" us for many years, but that we have entertained ourselves with them and their predecessors since we first learned to dream.
--As an added note, today is opening day of the much anticipated "Independence Day" movie which has made its way onto the covers of both Newsweek and Time. A Newsweek survey says 48% of Americans "believe" in UFO's, in the same article a UFO "expert" who used to work for NASA says, "People like Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and the pig [a giant purple pig puppet he uses for demonstration] are the mouthpieces for the old way of thinking." The irony of that statement alone notwithstanding (which rationale is older?), a follow up article in the same issue has a picture of The Amazing Randi (he's been featured in Scientific American., NOVA, and now Newsweek as far as I know; he's probably best known for his appearance on The Tonight Show when he revealed the infamous Uri Gheller to be nothing but an upscale carnival hustler). I wonder how many times he's been on the cover of Time or Newsweek?
Chapter 8: For once, in a long time, reading this book has become more of a joy than a chore, however it still has its flaws. "On the Distinction Between False and True Visions" switches from alien encounters to angelic visitations. In particular Sagan attack the accounts of sightings of the Virgin Mary through out history, in the same manner as he attacks alien abductions, he asks "why are the admonitions so prosaic?". Prosaic, I learned, means mundane. Why, he suggests, don't they foresee specific future events like WWII, or why don't they warn them of the evil of the "witch hunts" of their time? I am not particularly religious but I have had over 8 years of religious education, and I believe my teachers would respond on these lines: God wants us to learn for ourselves, he gave us free will. Or, God works in mysterious ways. Or, if Nazis hadn't provoked WWII perhaps Russia would have stayed on good terms with the U.S.(the Munich fiasco) and Communism would flourish and then they decide on fulfilling the prophecies of Marx on world revolution and start a nuclear holocaust (however without Soviet/US hostilities what would spark the arms race to bulid a nuclear arsenal?). Or, maybe these visions serve some kind of higher spiritual purpose our simple minds just can't comprehend. While Sagan makes an excellent argument at the beginning of the chapter on the suggestibility of our subconscious and our ability to shape memories, when you make suppositions and conjecture the argument against psuedoscience begins to break down. Science operates by providing evidence, psuedoscience operates by evading it. Science says "I can prove it is", psuedoscience says "can you prove it isn't?"
Chapter 9: "Therapy" deals with another pressing issue in recent years, regression therapy for sexual abuse, alien abductions, satanic ritual, etc. Doubts about the validity of memories recalling sexual abuse is a hot topic, and the accounts should be scrutinized. This chapter continues Sagan crusade against the unquestioning faith in fallible memories where the false often overshadow the truth, but that's been well documented and I think that the courts only allow regression therapy in special cases (however Sagan doesn't tell us this). What is shocking, is that therapists would knowingly encourage fantastic ideas rather than refute them, even though they know they are physically impossible. It is one thing to encourage these ideas because you believe in them, and its another thing to encourage these ideas even though you don't believe them for your own personal interests, but it is worst of all (in my own opinion) to encourage these ideas even though you don't believe them and honestly believe it is in their best interests. I don't pretend to understand all psychology, but unless being completely honest with your patient would be permanently crippling and severely detrimental, it is in his and yours and society's best interests to cauterize the wound and stop the spread of this infectious disease.
Chapter 10: "The Dragon in My Garage" besides being the title of this chapter is the subject of yet another amusing anecdote, but this one serves a more useful purpose than to entertain. It is an accurate portrayal of the evolution of myth to assumed truth, how a seemingly absurd idea can adapt itself and survive to become "common knowledge". But like most of the preceding chapters, this chapter continues to focus on ET. I'm beginning to think not so much how likely is intelligent extraterrestrial life, more like, in the infinite vastness of the universe, how far. Even if we could see them through a incredibly powerful telescope they would be trillions of light years away and eons upon eons ago. It would be maddening to know life exists on the other side of the proverbial looking-glass and we were forced only to look but not to touch. I also wonder if Sagan wants aliens to be as exotic as some of the accounts call them. He is always asking for someone to bring forward evidence of the superior scientific insight, special technology, and mind powers they supposedly possess. I'm not suggesting that aliens exist and live among us, but if they did visit us some day isn't it more logical to assume they would come from a planet like ours (Only Earth and a few known planets like it have the right ingredients for primordial soup), follow some what of the same evolutionary pattern (after all we are one of a kind species on our planet, it follows they would be somewhat like us - and I thought the aliens on Star Trek looked like us because their budget couldn't afford any more mascara.), and therefore have the same physical limitations we have? Although it would be certainly no small feat to accomplish interplanetary flight and the ability to fold time and space to reach the farthest regions of space who's to say they would know the meaning of life or predict the future, or even the solution to Fermat's Last Theorem (for those who have forgotten or don't know: An+Bn=Cn, where A,B, and C are positive consecutive intergers and n is greater than 2 - true, false, or indeterminable and why?)
--As another added note: today there is news of fossils of life existing
on mars that have been discovered. NASA is scheduling a press conference
tomorrow. I will be thoroughly shocked (note: heavy sarcasm) if this proves
to be another triumph of hope over experience. However the suggestion that
it could be some kind of single-cell organism or an alien
bacteria is quite probable. But so far no bones have been found of
little green men, and I suspect an international government/NASA cover-up.
Chapter 11: "The City of Grief" is
aptly named, this chapter contains the letters he has received since he began
writing and is chock full of religious fanatics, d elusional wackos,
and other overly vocal parts of society. The letters shows the great diversity
of people who decide their doomsday theories are deemed worthy to be written
and read in whatever manifestation of poor spelling and even poorer
grammar they're in. While interesting, and mildly disturbing, they are not
what I would consider required reading.
Chapter 12: The jewel in this book is the Baloney Detection Kit. To some it may just be, as Dr. Spock would say, common sense. To some extent I would agree, but it serves a valuable purpose as it states simple scientific guidelines in a concise and understandable fashion. My favorite, "Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much", a point I tried to make earlier. The overall idea is to except evidence and experiment over conjecture and rhetoric. In addition, he gives us examples of what not to do. Examples, similar to the ones I used for chapter 8, that show much religious and political arguments, from McCarthy to Moses, just don't hold water.
Chapter 13: Not only is Sagan
"Obsessed with Reality" but also in magician/debunker James Randi.
He isn't really obsessed with him, but he gives him due praise (I mentioned
"The Amazing Randi" somewhere around chapter 7)
and gives a short story dealing with Randi,
Jose a local 19-year-old boy from
Chapter 14: I had no idea that science was on the verge of extinction, but that is exactly my impression after reading this chapter on the growing menace of "Antiscience". Carl Sagan has declared himself a modern day Charlemagne, the Defender of Science. It is frightening that he feels he doesn't only need to defend science as the purest truth but as not being inferior to psuedoscience. As he goes on to describe the plight of classical Mendelian genetics in Soviet Russia, he says, "Soviet school biology texts in the early 1960s had as little about chromosomes and classical genetics as many American school biology texts have about evolution today." When I read that last sentence it conjured up memories of some of my old science teachers. One of which, my grammar school science teacher from first to eighth grade, was a remarkable and more than qualified teacher. She, we had no male teachers at my Catholic school, was more cautious on the subject of evolution than I realized. But she made a conscious effort to tell us that most of the misconceptions on Darwinian evolution weren't true and that the church "embraced" the fundamental principles involved while keeping true to "creationism". The other teacher I only had for half a semester (Mr. S------ went back to E-----, but he was one of the more capable teachers at M-----, no offense to you or your colleagues). While usually a direct teacher, he managed to tap danced his way around the subject and express his disapproval of all the politics involved in education and religion at the same time.
Chapter 15: Some people are afraid science is falling into "Newton's Sleep". I'm not suggesting these people are quantum physicists, instead they are critics who claim science is too "reductionist". They find science too narrow to accept "greater truths", that they can't accept that some things are too complex to be reduced to just a few simple rules. Many of these so called "greater truths" can't be proven and they say should just be accepted, there are a number of these theories given in this chapter. My favorite, born in the 60's, says that ALL things are arbitrary, including science, that there is no right or wrong, there is no true or false. I've finally found the perfect ideology, now even on "objective" math quizzes, I can actually reply "I cannot answer this question, as it is against my religious principles." Here are a few theories I've thought up over the years:
A powerful supercomputer (similar to the one in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe) given the exact state of everything, everywhere, and an understanding of all the known and unknown laws governing our universe could, theoretically, look backward to retell the past and look forward to know the future, using no outside information, on to infinity.
All sentient life see their universe differently, all things exist on different dimensions. Our universes are completely different, by a scale unfathomable to imagine. Though we can interact with each other through our own individual perspectives by interpreting their actions so they logically can fit within our minds.
Both heaven and hell are nothing but finite death. Because the spectrum of emotions can come full circle, so that both absolute happiness and absolute sorrow overlap and cancel each other out. So be good but not too good, be wicked but not to excess, salvation alone lies in purgatory.
Sagan also refers to some religions that the rituals and sacrifices performed would have "dire consequences" if they ever failed to occur. Some of these religions are old and forgotten, their rituals no longer being fulfilled and yet the sun still rises and the people have yet to be sucked into the earth, but it is an example of how fear is such a powerful motivator. As we approached another millennia, fear of the end of the world had consumed me. Two or three years ago there was a series of programs call "Ancient Prophesies", and I had and have not seen a more convincing program obviously biased to psuedoscience. It seemed that the only thing the scientists could say was that Nostradamus, and others like him, were just guessing with what seemed to be uncanny accuracy. These kinds of examples helps put into focus what we can accept under this powerful motivator, fear.
Chapter 16: "In a post-war meeting with President Harry S Truman, J. Robert Oppenheimer -- the scientific director of the Manhattan nuclear weapons Project -- mournfully commented that scientists had bloody hands; they had now known sin." Hence begins the chapter, "When Scientists Know Sin", a biblically symbolic Oppenheimer, like Pontius Pilate, tries to wipe the guilt from his hands. This may seem overly dramatic, but it stems from an issue that is as hot as politics and religion. Where, if it exists, lies the line between science and morality? Many complain that technology is moving to fast for us to slow down and question our actions. But it is for exactly that reason why we should not try to question each advancement on a case by case basis, there is enough beuracratic red tape involved already. I at least like to believe that science can not only hurt but heal. Even weapons of mass destruction, like the hydrogen bomb, can have seen and unseen benefits attached to them. Some of its still disputed benefits: serves as an equalizer among nations to create nuclear stalemate, can cause large scale earth moving, and possible protection against deflecting asteroids on a collision course with earth (however the number of people searching the skies for these time bombs, is small. Fortunately so are the odds of being hit with a meteor large enough to cause mass destruction, about 1 in 200,000). The reverse is also true about improved methods of healing, antibiotics are taken on a scale that is causing more resistant diseases to evolve. I usually don't take anything from penicillin to amoxicillin, but I could catch a mutated strain, unaffected by either of them, and (worst cast scenario) die. Science is a crap shoot, and though the ante is slightly higher, the dice aren't loaded one way or the other.
Chapter 17: Up to this point, Sagan had yet to really ask if it is really in everyone's best interest to know what we think is harsh reality. One has to ask one's self if we are approaching some of these people with the appropriate tacit due to any human being. This reminds me of a movie called "We're No Angels" were an escape convict, posing as a priest, speaks in front of a small conglomeration of towns people. He then says something, I feel, that is amazingly profound. To paraphrase, if it comforts you to believe in God then you do it -- regardless of whatever anybody else says. To search for truth is fine, but to impose it on others is hard to say. In chapter 9, I felt that it was our duty, as a society, "to stop the spread of this infectious disease", but now I'm not so sure about how ardent I feel.
--As an interesting side note: As a way to support his claim that:
"...at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new."
Sagan refers to something called "barrier tunneling"(as suggested in the passage above, the title of this chapter is "The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder"), a tenet of quantum physics, which, among other things, says:
"Once in a very great while, your car will spontaneously ooze through the brick wall of your garage and be found the next morning on the street."
Now the reason I mentioned this theory, its unusualness notwithstanding, is not because of the previous statement but for the footnote after "barrier tunneling*". The footnote reads:
"* The average waiting time per stochastic ooze is much long than the age of the Universe since the Big Bang. But, however improbable, in principle it might happen tomorrow."
And even though Sagan says in this chapter we must be "ruthlessly skeptical of all ideas", the single most stressed idea in the book, he seems to forget that it is still called the "Big Bang Theory". As far as I know, there is little proof left over from the beginning of time, I could be wrong. However, even though many scientist are beginning to agree on the Big Bang's plausibility, to my knowledge there is not yet enough evidence to drop the Theory, which happens as one theory gets widely accepted as the only possible explanation. And I am sure that someone must have brought his attention this fact, if its true, and I am sure then that he must have wanted to spontaneously ooze, right through the floor.
Chapter 18: "The Wind Makes Dust" asks the question, how old is science? Some historians say the originators of skeptical, inquiring, experimental science were the ancient Greeks. Though they were not always correct, they say, because science was still relatively new. Or maybe the ancient Ionians, who were the first to argue that the laws and forces of nature, rather than gods, were responsible for the order and existence of their world. It seems that in order for science to emerge in a culture, there requires certain conditions. In a changing environment of political or biological unrest, such as during periods of injustice by the hierarchy of ecclesiastic and secular authorities, the swirling of new ideas are not suppressed but embraced by the weary public. Also Sagan says, "liberation from superstition is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for science." Yet at the same time he admits that some great scientists were influenced by "the idea of one Supreme God who created the Universe and established not only commandments that humans must live by, but laws that Nature itself must abide by." But even older than the Ionians, are the hunter-gatherer societies that served as a precursor for the modern age. They certainly had the conditions needed for science to emerge: "vigorous substantive debate, direct participatory democracy, wide-ranging travel, no priests, and the persistence of these factors not for 1,000 but for 300,000 years or more." These people used science in tracking their prey with amazing accuracy, which was necessary for their survival, which can be seen in isolated hunter-gatherer societies that have manage to survive to this day. In fact, one could surmise, that science has been with us since the beginning.
Chapter 19 "No Such Thing as a Dumb Question" is a common phrase among teachers alike. They want children to open up, if you stifle their ambition they become insecure and introverted. And that's what they think happens to children when they grow up to be teenagers and aren't so eager to ask as many questions, that they are afraid to be persecuted by their peers. To some extent that is true, but I don't believe they've necessarily "lost much of the wonder, and gain very little skepticism." Sagan says that those who do ask questions are labeled as "nerds' or geeks' or grinds'." While I must have missed the "Saved by the Bell" episode were he picked up "grinds", he doesn't realize that criticism doesn't come only from the "jocks" but from fellow "grinds", and its not only the peer pressure that causes the change between pre-adolescence to post-pubescence. When Socrates would pose a question to a group of learned scholars, he would always turn their answers into questions and use them to make the group rethink their own answers. And to add insult to injury, when they had answered his follow-up questions to his fashion he'd say that they knew the right answer from the beginning and he just misunderstood; and when they agreed with him he would again turn their "right answers" back into questions and throw them right back at them. Socrates would hurt the two things more valuable than anything they own, their reputation and worse, their pride; this infuriated them and they would criticize him for not answering his own questions but instead shoot down their answers. The pressure for teenagers, at least the kind I know, is not always directly from others but themselves. Call me paranoid or cynical, but I think we try to measure ourselves on others. Not as overt competition but as a way to determine your status among your classmates, knowing that you'll always be smarter (better looking, more popular, etc.) than these people over here but never than those over there. As such, asking "dumb questions" (by that I mean ones you could find the answers for yourself, discreetly, perhaps by reading ahead in the chapter or doing some research on your own time) could lower your status (like the learned scholars) in not only your eyes but your peers and even your teachers. Even if a teacher considers it admirable to ask some half-intelligent questions, even if they think its for the sake of the slower kids, ask too many and best case scenario is your a dumb kid that tries really hard. And the while effort may make the teachers proud of you and even increase your status in their eyes, you still know where you stand and it isn't the head of the class.
Sometimes I find myself asking questions (like the five below) before I ask questions in a group discussion, just so as to prevent "dumb questions". I wouldn't be surprise if others do something similar, if not in exactly the same form:
1) Does it have an answer? (If not, then I'm wasting tax-payers money that could've been spent on valuable public education.)
2) Is this the right time to ask my question? (Obviously you don't ask about mandelbrot sets in gym class, or how to properly do a sit-up during analytical geometry. But you don't want to ask a question to something you know will be addressed in the next lesson, especially if this lesson has nothing to do with it.)
3) Does the teacher know the answer? (This is more obvious depending on the teacher, if not either approach him/her separately or not at all. I suggest that if the said teacher doesn't want to try to increase his/her knowledge on the subject not to approach him/her. I find that the same teachers who don't want to increase their knowledge, also don't like to be annoyed with questions on their free time.)
4) How pertinent is my question? (Will my life end if I don't know the answer right now, will it end if I never find the answer. Of course my life will end eventually, and most likely any unanswered question I have will not be its cause. But not knowing the number of people from the Third Estate who refused to disperse from that famous tennis court just prior to the revolution, will probably have little or no impact on my future.)
5) Why am I even asking this question? (This is the one question I find myself asking a lot. It's rare to ask a question merely for the sake of knowledge. There are many ulterior motives: personal aggrandizement, the respect and jealousy of your peers, the hope of impressing your teacher, or just the personal satisfaction that you were right. In which case, you really don't care about the answer. Your question sounds more like a statement. You try to slip in prior knowledge, knowledge you know no one else has, and you give it not because you want to share your knowledge, only because you want a reaction. Actually, its kind of like relating a story about Socrates even though it has nothing to do with what you're trying to say, and not deleting it even after you realize it. They can make you feel good about yourself, but even your teacher bought your BS, none of your classmates will. The older you get the more they realize your intentions, your less likely to receive their respect or jealousy, more likely their indignation. It is seen as pathetic excuse for attention or obvious bragging, probably because they've thought about doing it too.)
Chapter 20: In the preceding chapter I disagreed that children don't ask as many questions as they get older just because of peer pressure and their own insecurities. But I do agree that their loss of interest in science, as said in this chapter "House on Fire", is primarily dues to some of these factors. He's also right about the lack of effort toward popularizing science on TV or even in the classroom. This restricts the number of people interested in science to those who go out of their way to subscribe to science magazines or read scientifically oriented articles in the newspaper, this is, of course, the people who could afford to. A warning though about trying to popularize science at school, I literally laughed at loud at the suggestion of one parent:
"Schools could easily give much more recognition and rewards to kids who are outstanding in science and math. Why don't they? Why not special jackets with school letters? Announcements in assembly and the school newspaper ... This cost very little and could overcome peer pressure not to excel."
I thought we wanted to popularize science? This makes it sound like sports. Many students seek the hallowed halls of academe as a way of escaping the idiocy associated with meatheads and cheerleaders, even the most apathetic drugees and slackers can at least respect those who try to excel in their studies and not ask for all that self-serving stomach-turning attention. As for the comment of another parent, I can empathize, "most homework is busy work' rather than something that makes you think." However one of Sagan main concern is that American high school students only do 3.5 hours of homework a week, with a total of 20 hours a week on school, while Japanese fifth graders on the other hand spend 33 hours a week. At the same time he doesn't want kids who only like to learn rote, and not appreciate the wonder behind it. Though I can't speak of the kind of homework Japanese students are receiving, but I know that the kind I receive is similar to a TV sitcom (it takes just as long to finish, and is just as educational; however the sitcom is usually more entertaining, and if you're really talented you can actually do the homework while you watch it.)
Chapter 21: "The Path to Freedom" is literacy, to paraphrase Frederick Douglas. This chapter, written in conjunction with his wife, Ann Druyan, while easy reading it is one of the more weaker chapters. It serves to remind us of the terrible condition of literacy in this country, which, our fore fathers agreed, is necessary for the democratic process to work.
Chapter 22: Sagan suggests we learn about science and math through other sources, such as basketball. For instance, "hot hands" or shooting streaks are do to probability rules and not much unusual superstition. Those who look for extraordinary significances, are aptly named, as the in title of the chapter, "Significance Junkies". As for other sources of science, he has a couple of suggestions for TV shows. While they look interesting at first glance, I doubt they would capture the general viewing public's excitement, none of them unfortunately would last more than a few seasons on ratings alone. However, I would probably watch them all, but I am not the coveted demographic to advertisers. Middle class 20 to 35-year-olds who have jobs, are bigger retail consumers who aren't too loyal to one brand and are willing to try new products; however with their stressful jobs they just want to come home to mindless, smarmy, whiny sitcoms and anything produced by Aaron Spelling or staring any of his progeny.
Chapter 23: Science is male-dominated (what isn't?), after all the title of this chapter is "Maxwell and the Nerds" and not Maxine (however, Clark and not Maxwell is his first name, so it would really be Clara) and its well documented that its been male-dominated since the beginning (with some notable exceptions I'm sure). Sagan says he knows many wonderful women scientists. Fine. Its not that people are saying women can't become scientists, its just why would you want to? Unless you like trying to break through the glass ceiling and work among controversy and against conventional practice, and know that you won't be taken serious by much of the scientific community. Of course, I know that the situation isn't that grim for women scientists, but women who do become scientist not in spite but because of these reasons don't want to be scientists they want to be crusaders. Speaking of scientists, politicians have been expecting scientists to be given a task and have it done on command, but as Sagan reminds us scientists work by trial and error and is haphazard as evolution itself. As an example, the lengthy story of Maxwell, a scientist who starts out looking for one thing and discovering another, but other than that its just another of his quaint anecdotes.
Chapter 24: "Science and Witchcraft", is an odd title, but as he says in this chapter the suppression of science was a main factor that caused witch hunting to last so long. These last two chapters, he says, are the two most laden with politics. In fact he says that without democracy science would be seriously be impeded. Even our own democracy is sometimes threatened, such as by the Alien and Sedition acts of 1798, which were eventually dissolved by Thomas Jefferson in 1802. Sagan makes no secret his admiration of Thomas Jefferson, a defender of both democracy and science. In history it seems that politicians always had their reasons for their gross injustices: the Japanese lockup in 1942 -but there was a war on, unreasonable search and seizures -but there is a war on drugs. (On drugs, he says marijuana in particular has been known to have their harmful effects exaggerated. Even though they say its 10x as harmful as in the 60's, one doesn't have to look far to find another rock star or politician who "experimented", like its some kind of class project every one had to do, in their youth. No one seems to realize the success stories are as bad or even worse than the failures. This person or that, tried some in their wild days, who didn't, their fine now, so what's the problem? The nostalgia attached, just make it more attractive as successful people reminisce like it was some kind of necessary right of passage. So when you hear the D.A.R.E. officer come to your class and say that smoking one marijuana joint is like drinking a gallon of cyanide, its understandable that you become confused. And when there are inconsistencies we choose the one opinion that's most favorable, then the next thing you're going to hear are kids all over the world lighting up.) To get back to the subject of witch hunting, he is saying that many of the articles in the Bill of Rights were put in their by our fore fathers to prevent such gross injustices as witch hunting and every time you hear a politician trying to get around the Bill of Rights you have the right to be scared.
Chapter 25 "Real Patriots Ask Question" is more politics, and he says prior to it that "politics is not a science". Yet that contradicts, I feel, when he says, "The methods of science -- with all its imperfections -- can be used to improve social, political, and economic systems..." He further hypothesizes that all politics is a series of experiments, like Hegel - when theory and antitheory clash the victor becomes the zeitgeist of the time. All politics is evolutionary, the good (not in the moral sense) survives and the bad washes away. Democracy was an experiment, without which science would be seriously impeded (as suggested earlier). If politics is not a science, then it is at least governed by its laws. Freedom is necessary for the expansion of science, as I believe science can help the spread of freedom throughout the world.
Addenda: Since Sagan offers one, I felt abliged to do so also. The following things are things I wrote in the summaries that I'm not sure about:
--Missing inclines for the pyramids (I saw this on that "Ancient Prophesies" show I mentioned earlier, needless to say I'm not sure on its validity.)
--The Amazing Randi not on the cover of Newsweek or Time (in retrospect, after reading about the Carlos affair, its quite likely he was.)
--The courts not allowing regression therapy as evidence or testimony (furthermore, I could be wrong that telling people that an ogre is really going around eating children, isn't really the best thing for the average person in the long run.)
--Aliens could look like us (maybe Star Trek really couldn't afford any more mascarra.)
--The Big Bang Theory (maybe it is accepted enough to lose the word "Theory")
Book Summary:
This book, like this book journal, is sometimes longer than it needs to be. Even in the beginning, I complained that the chapters lacked substance. Mostly anecdotes and generalities, without much statistical evidence and whatnot. However the average reader may be put off by dry facts, maybe that's why science is slipping through our fingers, after all aren't we trying to reach those people? While I doubt many of those people would even pick up this book with the word "science" on the cover (regardless of the words "Demon-haunted" which tend to catch your eye). That friend of mine I mentioned earlier was interested at first when I said I was reading this book. However in retrospect I doubt she would pass the first six chapters, or for that matter the first few pages. This book is somewhere in limbo, too boring for the general paperback reader and too slow for those with a penchant for science. I feel though if I didn't have to write notes while I read it, it would make a nice bed-side book and it would be less tedious to pick up and read (after all it did take me all summer to finish it).
The book itself has its gems, the Baloney Detection Kit, or the story of Carlos (unlike most of the stories, it wasn't just an anecdote but something I was surprised I never knew). As for how the book read, it was slow up until chapter six, then it started to pick up speed and peaked through chapters 12 and 16, finally slowing down in chapter 21. (As for why in some places the chapter summaries were consistently longer than the last, some as long as a page or two, it was because I felt like I had more to say as the book progressed but does not necessarily reflect whether one chapter had more information or was more interesting than the next. For example chapter 12 was much more useful and interesting than chapter 19, but I wrote more in 19 because I disagreed with his views unlike 12 which I found insightful.)
Nevertheless, it serves its main purpose, to persuade the reader to its writers views. Even though I admit being inclined to agree with his ideas from the beginning, he did bolster my "faith" in science. People say that science is dying, some say that their just isn't anything left to be explained (however this is an old assumption that has yet to prove true), others say that it has lost its glamour its ability to insight wonder. I would agree with Carl Sagan and say that even if public interest in science is dormant now; that in every young face is a want to learn and to dream, and regardless to how idealistic this may sound, I think that if we made a conscious effort, as parents or school teachers or whatever or whoever we are, to inspire the youth of tomorrow, that candle can flicker brighter than ever to show us the way. But if you think all that was a heap of BS, I really don't think you will like this book.
In conclusion, if I had to choose this book from, say a list of other science books, I would probably choose it again.