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

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin Five Way Interview

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (born in 1999) is a distinguished composer, concert pianist, music theorist and researcher. Three of his piano CDs have been released in Germany. He started his undergraduate degree at the age of 13 in Kazakhstan, and having completed three musical doctorates in prominent Italian music institutions at the age of 20, he has mastered advanced composition techniques. In 2024 he completed a PhD in music at the University of St Andrews / Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (researching timbre-texture co-ordinate in avant- garde music), and was awarded The Silver Medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians, London. He has held visiting affiliations at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL, and has been lecturing and giving talks internationally since the age of 13. His latest book is Quantum Mechanics and Avant Garde Music . What links quantum physics and avant-garde music? The entire book is devoted to this question. To put it briefly, there are many different link...

Should we question science?

I was surprised recently by something Simon Singh put on X about Sabine Hossenfelder. I have huge admiration for Simon, but I also have a lot of respect for Sabine. She has written two excellent books and has been helpful to me with a number of physics queries - she also had a really interesting blog, and has now become particularly successful with her science videos. This is where I'm afraid she lost me as audience, as I find video a very unsatisfactory medium to take in information - but I know it has mass appeal. This meant I was concerned by Simon's tweet (or whatever we are supposed to call posts on X) saying 'The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder: if you are a fan of SH... then this is worth watching.' He was referencing a video from 'Professor Dave Explains' - I'm not familiar with Professor Dave (aka Dave Farina, who apparently isn't a professor, which is perhaps a bit unfortunate for someone calling out fakes), but his videos are popular and he...

Everything is Predictable - Tom Chivers *****

There's a stereotype of computer users: Mac users are creative and cool, while PC users are businesslike and unimaginative. Less well-known is that the world of statistics has an equivalent division. Bayesians are the Mac users of the stats world, where frequentists are the PC people. This book sets out to show why Bayesians are not just cool, but also mostly right. Tom Chivers does an excellent job of giving us some historical background, then dives into two key aspects of the use of statistics. These are in science, where the standard approach is frequentist and Bayes only creeps into a few specific applications, such as the accuracy of medical tests, and in decision theory where Bayes is dominant. If this all sounds very dry and unexciting, it's quite the reverse. I admit, I love probability and statistics, and I am something of a closet Bayesian*), but Chivers' light and entertaining style means that what could have been the mathematical equivalent of debating angels on...

Search This Blog