<OFF-TOPIC FURTHER-DISCUSSION="mailto:[log in to unmask]">
Stigers, Gregory - ANDOVER writes:
> /off-topic=true
> Regarding "The Demon-Haunted World" and its author. Having taken courses
> in the history of science, I have read some of Sagan's popular article
> in Parade magazine with horror and interest.
He devotes a chapter in the book to the 1993 Parade article which he says was
widely misunderstood. He prints excerpts from a wide variety of response
letters he received about that article. To put it diplomatically, a few of
the letter writers have rather unique belief systems.
> Only one have I been
> actually able to more or less agree with; that was the one on the
> similarity of UFO abductions with abduction stories thru history.
I've read that part and found it fascinating. The medieval incubi/succubi
stories have many elements in common with the UFO abduction stories.
> And he
> asked a very interesting question that he did not answer, which was
> probably the wiser choice: we should be investigating what it is in
> human nature that causes some people to have these experiences of truly
> believing that they were abducted, and even experience that
> psychological trauma of that abduction as though it were real. Did he
> touch on this in his book, Mark?
That same question about human nature is raised in the book. No definitive
answer is given, but possible explanations include hallucinations, sleep
paralysis (a friend once described such an episode to me; I had no idea this
was a well-documented experience), primitive brain wiring expressing itself
(i.e. the sleep "startle" reflex where you think you are suddenly falling
might stem from our distant ancestors' life in the trees), psychogenic
illnesses, etc.
I'm only about half way through the book. The secondary title is "Science
as a Candle in the Dark", and I think the blurb on the back cover describes
it pretty well:
"How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly
technology-driven lives if we don't understand the difference between
the myths of pseudoscience, New Age thinking, and fundamentalist
zealotry and the testable hypotheses of science?
Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines
and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies as witchcraft,
faith healings, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today's
so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning, with stories
of alien abduction, "channeling" past lives, and communal
hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan
demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is
not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness
that threatens our most basic freedoms."
> I have read about people of faith who worked with Sagan, who said that
> he was an evangelistic atheist (although I believe that he might have
> preferred the title agnostic, although I could be mistaken), who wanted
> others to be atheists, too.
Mainline religious beliefs have not been addressed so far at the book's
mid-point, but he does touch on historical zealotry excesses such as
witch burning.
> I keep in touch with the head of my alma
> mater's history of science department, and discussed one of Sagan's
> articles with him. He said that Sagan was more optimistic about
> science's ability to answer all of our questions than most in the
> scientific communities, including those in history and philosophy of
> science departments. The Voyager fans on the list may be reminded of an
> episode in which a practitioner of ritual religion pointed out that
> Captain Janeway's belief that their science could tell them what was
> killing Kess was a belief, no more warranted than their belief that
> properly carrying out a certain ritual would heal Kess. I better go now,
> duty calls, and I seem to be rambling.
Science and religion may both be beliefs, but the key difference is that science
is an iterative, self-correcting process which can offer many alternative
hypotheses, with each being repeatedly testable by skeptics, whereas religion
offers just one untestable Truth where you either have faith or you don't.
My own skeptical personality prefers to rely on science to explain Life, the
Universe, and Everything. I admit there are some questions that science cannot
yet answer, but I can live with the unanswerable mysteries, instead of seeking
religious answers to fill in the gaps for me.
</OFF-TOPIC FURTHER-DISCUSSION="mailto:[log in to unmask]">
--
Mark Bixby E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Coast Community College Dist. Web: http://www.cccd.edu/~markb/
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