The Demon Haunted World – Carl Sagan *****

An eloquent plea for reason and the scientific method when the media are pumping unexplained phenomena and X-Files fiction at us all the time. There’s nothing wrong at all with science fiction or fantasy, as long as we are aware that’s what it is – but Sagan points out just how easy it is for us to believe that the ‘truth is out there’ just because we want it to be.

Everything from presidents consulting horoscopes to witch burning and miracle cures come under Sagan’s logical but still human eye. Whether your demons are traditional or modern world alien abductors, spirit mediums or faith healers, he painstakingly shows that we are much more likely to invent the supernatural than to experience it for real.

Although Sagan goes on a bit, it’s a great counter to wide-eyed acceptance – as useful in business as it is in dealing with the unexplained. The cover asks ‘Are we on the brink of a new Dark Age of irrationality and superstition?’ and it’s a question anyone with an interest in science has to face up to.

Perhaps the only weakness Sagan doesn’t face is the scientists who have don’t take a scientific, rational view (‘let’s test this theory with experiment’) but instead refuse to even consider phenomena outside of their experience (‘There’s no point looking into it; it doesn’t exist.’) But we definitely need a few more sceptical works like this to put along the uncritical pap that TV companies regularly feed into our homes as ‘documentaries’.

Paperback:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

The Autobiography – Charles Darwin ****

I have to confess to putting off reading this book until the last moment, as I expected it to be a typical piece of Victorian sentimental unreadable stodge. I was wrong. Darwin’s little book (only 150 small pages with appendices) was originally written for his own children, and displays a very personal style of writing – though, as son Francis comments, his style was always more populist than was common then: “In writing he sometimes showed the same strong tendency to strong expressions that he did in conversation. Thus in the Origin, p440, there is a description of a larvel [sic] cirripede ‘with six pairs of beautifully constructed natatory legs, a pair of magnificent compound eyes and extremely complex antennae’. We used to laugh at him for this sentence, which we compared to an advertisement.” The main book is delightful because it demonstrates Darwin’s self-depreciating modesty, and the fascinating path he took from enthusiastic shooter of game, to amateur geologist (still his...

The Premonitions Bureau - Sam Knight ****

Not everyone would class this as popular science, but it concerns an attempt to take a scientific approach to paranormal abilities - notably premonitions (aka clairvoyance) and as such, it fits the category. Writing in the typical dramatic storytelling style of a US magazine, Sam Knight brings to life the remarkable tale of the work of two British figures from the 1960s. The central one is psychiatrist John Barker, with a supporting role given to newspaper and TV science reporter Peter Fairley. Barker had a long interest in extra sensory phenomena - the story takes off when he was inspired by a number of people claiming to have foreseen the Aberfan disaster (which terrible tragedy Knight covers movingly). As a result of the Aberfan premonitions, the pair were responsible for London's Evening Standard newspaper setting up a long-running experiment in the form of 'The Premonitions Bureau.' Aware that the Aberfan predictions were only reported after the event, and hence flawe...

Search This Blog