• Published:March 3rd, 2008
• Comments:1 Comment
• Category:Books, Customer Reviews

Few people in recent memory have devoted themselves to the popularization of the wonders of science as late astronomer Carl Sagan had during his lifetime. His 1997 book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, is an exceptional work which advocates reasoned critical thinking over the banalities of psuedo-science. Unlike many of his peers in the skeptical set, Sagan didn’t chide, browbeat, or indulge in snide condescention; he understood mankind’s intrinsic hunger for answers, and attempted to demonstrate why the scientific method is crucial for understanding the world around us.

Not everyone agrees, of course. Of the (presently) 377 Amazon.com customer reviews of the book, 271 give The Demon-Haunted World the maximum five-star rating while 14 give it just one. Here are a few telling excerpts from the one-star review crowd:

He has always been very superficial when criticizing the so called “pseudosciences”, a term that, by the very way he uses it, only shows how his outlook on Science and on human Knowledge is short-sighted. Sagan sees Science as the supreme method for looking at and for understanding the Universe we live in, looking with despise on other ways of understanding reality (presently, I prefer to see Science as just one out of many different ways of grasping Nature’s mysteries).

I myself like to look at the Universe with my head tilted 45 degrees to the left.

It amazes me that this book is so extravagantly over praised. It really is a dull, creaky, moldy hymn to the belief that science can substitute for religion. Wrong. In a materialist universe, nihilism is the only point of view justified by the facts and the only objection to even crimes against humanity such as genocide is that you don’t personally like it (as Bertrand Russell admitted).

In other words, “Without my unquestioned faith, there would be nothing to keep me from going on a mass murder spree.” In that case, what can I say but “YAY, DOGMATIC ZEALOTRY” (and check to see if Kevlar vests qualify for super saver shipping rates).

I find myself perplexed at Sagan’s utter lack of consideration for the area thru which matter-science and spirit are interoperative. One example is his comment regarding abduction scenarios and why aliens never are “caught” by house alarms hooked to cameras and the like. I mean, I thought we were talking about alien phenomena, not the babysitter or neighborhood crook.

Unless your babysitter or neighborhood crook happens to be Gorthan from Rigel-Prime, trying to pick up some extra solar credits in between his usual gig of dispensing 50’s sci-fi movie clichés and anal probes…

To paraphrase Epicurus: I spit on science and all those who worship it if it does not make us happier. Sagan and all the members of the Church of the Scientific Inquisition need to justify every scientific discovery with an affirmative answer to the following: Will knowing this increase human happiness? If the answer is negative (as it clearly is for such things as the ability to manufacture bio-terrorist weapons) then let us bury that scientific discovery and be done with it. Sagan and his other scientism buddies worship science for its own sake. We need to judge everything according to whether it makes us happier or not. Once you make something other than human happiness be the criterion for what is good or bad, you have disengaged yourself from the species and are an enemy of mankind. If science helps-great! If it unleashes tools and weapons that no one can control-to the trash heap it must go!!

Using internet technology to pass vulgar utilitarian rants off as book reviews? Not increasing human happiness, I’m afraid. The trash heap is that way, compadre.

He must take us all to be dumb, inbred, crud breeders. To him we must be too dumb to tell a UFO from swamp gas or bigfoot from a guy in a costume.

Just a little defensive, eh?

What can I say,
The Devil is preety good at covering stuff up. He uses even the best Scientist and astronomers to crush anything spiritual.

Of coarse this book is garbage and I suggest that everyone who likes this book to please take yourself and your scientific thinking out of the box.

In the next coming years people you are gonna see some serious evil spirtual activity and because you have polluted yourselves with closing your mind of to it, you won’t know or be ready for the things that are going to occur.

Get thee behind me, rudimentary syntax and grammar skills — I WILL NOT BE PUT IN A BOX AND POLLUTED!