The Demon-Haunted World, yes. “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

Reminds me of what Isaac Asimov said:

>"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' " > >― Isaac Asimov

>I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

>The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance

Would need a time machine to get the prediction more accurate

I adored Sagan. But I also loved listening to Art Bell.

Now, I'm nowhere near the sharpest tool in the shed but I was intelligent enough to discern that while both existed in the realm of "Space" one was based on fact and theory. While the other was fantasy.

Not sure where/how/why it happened but it seems many can't delineate between them anymore.

Add to that a rise in whacked out evangelicalism and every single crazy person out their has their own bizarre theories that they could fill their very own bible with.

For a laugh watch some of George Carlin's old specials from the 70s and see how relevant they remain and how salient his points are when it comes to politics.

I love all of Carl's books, but I still remember how much that one saddened, worried, and flat-out scared me. It's the only one I don't reread regularly.

And, of course, it was so damn prescient. It's like he looked forward two-plus decades straight into the gaping maw of today's volatile, toxic, antiscience world.

As Carl was always such a positive, joyous voice for science and the future of humanity, it's sad to me that he had lost so much hope for us as humans (at least, for the relative short term).

Not that he was wrong. Like I said, it's the only one of his books I don't regularly revisit. It's just too sad, and too accurate.

Carl Sagan is truly gifted teacher educator. Sucks he was so right in this case

one of the best books ever written

That's the one book I wish everybody would read.

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Did Sagan suggest any action items?

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Great book! Just read it as well!

Carl Saran tried very hard to convince people. But people in general are just too willfully ignorant to listen. He may have slowed the progress of the cancer on humanity but I'm thinking he cannot save the patient.

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Just don't forget one thing: "We have in this world the good science and the bad science", that's why we have a lot of people who don't believe completely in what all scientists say. And you have to respect their opinions, otherwise you will have a boring life being right all the time. Be safe.

...eh, sorry to burst your bubble here, but Sagan was not a great mind. He was a pretty pedestrian scientist - I mean, he taught at Cornell, but Thomas Sowell taught at Stanford - someone has to. They hire thousands and keep some, often for reasons that have little to do with intellectual achievement or capacity.

Now, I don't mean he was an idiot; he wasn't. He was a very bright guy. But one of humanity's greatest minds... not even close, sorry. Linus Pauling, maybe. Francis Crick, maybe. These were scientists who dominated their fields and maybe could have dominated any scientific field they chose to go into. They were smart. And they didn't even make (or, for all I know, even attempt) any significant achievements in the field of morality, which is where humanity really needs to improve.