"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." ~Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)
(When asked merely if they accept evolution, 45 percent of Americans say yes. The figure is 70 percent in China.) When the movie Jurassic Park was shown in Israel, it was condemned by some Orthodox rabbis because it accepted evolution and because it taught that dinosaurs lived a hundred million ye
ars ago--when, as is plainly stated at every Rosh Hashonhan and every Jewish wedding ceremony, the Universe is less than 6,000 years old. [p. 325] This is Carl's last interveiw (1996) The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afo3WT4A_K0 The Demon-Haun
ted 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 cons
idered 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. Sagan said if a new idea continues in existence after an examination of the propositions, it should then be acknow
ledged 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 t
he 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 reason
ed 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 "th
e 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 & faith healing.
Inherit the Wind: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/SCO_INHE.HTM

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