Question for those who have read Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World

[Yahweh]

I can categorically state I've... eaten human brain...

 

[Darat]

Originally posted by Yahweh (from here Where do you draw the line? )

..my personal thoughts are a bit like this:

…. the procedures are safe, scientifically valid, and realistic … because I …. can change this cup of water into solid gold using only the power of my mind...

…the scientific method is …. close-minded, …. it prevents …tests ….

What a nut case

 

[pupdog]

Jk143, you should email whoever owns the sites where those quotes were. Point out how flagrantly they are misquoting Sagan.

As has been suggested, this oftentimes does not work. A good example is at talkorigins, a discussion about blood associated with unfossilized dinosaur bones. The more the creationists were corrected, the more they misquoted, firmly establishing a completely erroneous notion. Kind of like Darwin's deathbed recantation.

 

[CFLarsen]

We don't even have to look outside this board to find people misquoting Sagan. Steve Grenard has done it, too.

You're right, Clancie. Not very honest.

 

[Hand Bent Spoon]

I suspect that's a dead site. It appears to have gone unmaintained since 1999 or so. Dead eMail address, dead guest book also point to this being a dead site.

 

[Flaherty]

I came across the following quotes on another website:



I have not yet read this book, but am looking forward to doing so. From hearing others talk about the book, the quotes don't strike me as being correct. Are they taken out of context or something?

Thanks in advance.

James

I have read the book at least 3 times and have read sections of it even more. I do not recall coming across anything with a flavor even remotely like this quotation. In fact, he praises CSICOP in the book. The quotation is bogus, IMO.

 

[Toastrider]

As noted above, the quote is there. It's just edited and taken out of context (the remarks about CSICOP are of Sagan quoting what other people have said about it, not himself).

Not dissimilar from certain elements in the media, but let's not open THAT can of worms...

--Toasty

 

[epepke]

As noted above, the quote is there. It's just edited and taken out of context (the remarks about CSICOP are of Sagan quoting what other people have said about it, not himself).

Not just out of context. They reversed the order of some sentences. E.g. Sagan's statement that CSICOP was imperfect follows all the closed-minded blah blah blah, but the "editors" made it come before.

Reversing the order of quotes is something even the usual class of slimy scum will not resort to and goes far beyond editing.

 

[Kopji]

From the Rampart 2271 home page comes this challenge:

It is likely believed, and perhaps rightly so, that a large segment of the world population is not ready to accept these startling new realities, that they would shake the very foundations of society. If the information were to be released too quickly, it could threaten the stability of the world economy, religious institutions, individual's personal belief systems, and the public's belief that their government is able to protect them. Anyone who disagrees with this need only look to the mass panic and suicides resulting from the 1938 Orson Welles broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. One can argue there are probably many other technological, political, and warfare-related reasons the information pertaining to these subjects has been kept secret and guarded closely for so long.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/2271/

As they recommended I looked up all the suicides resulting from the War of the World broadcast. There were none, but I already knew that. There is a nice article by Robert Bartholomew in csicop about the incident.

Yet there is only scant anecdotal evidence to suggest that many listeners actually took some action after hearing the broadcast, such as packing belongings, grabbing guns, or fleeing in motor vehicles. In fact, much of Cantril's study was based on interviews with just 135 people. Bainbridge (1987) is critical of Cantril for citing just a few colorful stories from a small number of people who panicked. According to Bainbridge, on any given night, out of a pool of over a million people, at least a thousand would have been driving excessively fast or engaging in rambunctious behavior. From this perspective, the event was primarily a news media creation. Miller (1985, 100) supports this view, noting that while the day after the panic many newspapers carried accounts of suicides and heart attacks by frightened citizens, they proved to have been unfounded but have passed into American folklore. Miller also takes Cantril to task for failing to show substantial evidence of mass flight from the perceived attack (1985, 106), citing just a few examples and not warranting an estimate of over one million panic- Americans.
http://www.csicop.org/si/9811/martian.htmlstricken

A popular myth was used as primary evidence to support the reasoning. HEY, I WAS TOLD TO LOOK.

What they really mean, is that I am a bad person because I do not trust what they say. I was not supposed to actually look up the reference. This untrusting attitude will harm me in life, and lead others away from the Truth…

 

[SFB]

...
Not dissimilar from certain elements in the media, but let's not open THAT can of worms...

--Toasty

Oh, go on ..... check the beginning of Chapter 11, for example.

 

[Checkmite]

Man, is it ever! Dr. Sagan was summarizing the views of others who dislike the organization, but the quote is "edited" to make it appear as though they were Dr. Sagan's own personal views or views that he endorsed, when the exact opposite is true.

In the very same book, Sagan even complains about an earlier incident in which Geraldo Rivera, holding a copy of one of his articles, quotes Sagan as asserting that hundreds of people are abducted by aliens every minute. Technically, he did say that...but the statement was meant to be ironic (which would be obvious to anyone who read the sentence immediately following that one - "It's surprising more of the neighbors haven't noticed").

 

[WWu777]

I came across the following quotes on another website:



I have not yet read this book, but am looking forward to doing so. From hearing others talk about the book, the quotes don't strike me as being correct. Are they taken out of context or something?

Thanks in advance.

James

W: I have the book. I don't remember the first quote above, but I do remember seeing the second quote.

By the way, Sagan's book is a reversed form of Christian fundamentalism. He also paints skeptics as a candle in the dark, while all the paranormal believers are in the dark. That's what Christian fundamentalists do too, when they claim all the nonbelievers are in the dark.

Also, Sagan pretends to be an expert on alien abductions, yet he never investigates or interviews the abductees like Budd Hopkins and other researchers did, which convinced them. Another example of an armchair quarterback.

 

[LFTKBS]

Re: Re: Question for those who have read Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World

By the way, Sagan's book is a reversed form of Christian fundamentalism. He also paints skeptics as a candle in the dark, while all the paranormal believers are in the dark. That's what Christian fundamentalists do too, when they claim all the nonbelievers are in the dark.

The difference, of course, is that Sagan has evidence to back up his claims, whereas the Christian fundamentalists do not.

Oh! How we always forget that!