The Demon-Haunted World

"First of all, Carl was my very good friend, and we had a lot of confidences over the years. He was the epitome of the scientific mind and the scientific thinker. In The Demon-Haunted World , one of his later books, he investigates pseudoscience, frauds and fakes, and the mistakes that scientists made over the years. It’s very comprehensive. He had a whole chapter devoted to “Carlos” – or Jose Alvarez, who travelled all over the world doing this act as a fake psychic, and then revealed the whole thing on Australian television. Carl was quite taken with that story, and he and Jose spent a couple of hours together at a scientific conference that they both attended. That’s one reason why The Demon-Haunted World is a favourite book of mine, but there are so many other quotations I could take from it. It was certainly not my introduction to Carl, but it was an introduction to certain aspects of the way he thought and the way he handled science that really fascinated me. I don’t know that there’s much invention done by the individual member of the public. It’s largely the effort, the fault and the responsibility of the media. The media are not terribly interested in whether or not what they’re saying is true, as long as it can’t be proven to be false blatantly and obviously. They are only interested in the sensation that it causes – if it’s going to be a headline, an article or a few minutes on a Sunday television broadcast. As long as it gets space and attention – that’s all they’re interested in. And then they go onto the next one, whatever that might be. Well, for one reason, they vote. It’s important to think that my vote could be neutralised by a person who accepts all the “woo-woo” influences – I use the term “woo-woo” to describe something that is believed without any hesitation and without any evidence to support it. There’s information out there that will affect the way some people will vote on the world in general. And that is very dangerous. What’s potentially out there is another thing entirely, and that’s what science fiction is concerned with to a certain extent. In Contact , Carl was accused of having invented an afterlife and a spirit world, but that was not his intention and he didn’t do that. He worked very carefully on that book and on the film that came out of it. The public has largely misinterpreted what Carl actually had to say. He was very down to earth and sober in all of his approaches to a subject. He dealt with facts as he saw or could envisage them."

"Carl Sagan has written many books, and there’s not a single one I wouldn’t recommend. The way he writes, he holds your hand and shows you the wonders of science and the universe. The Demon-Haunted World , a discussion of the history of science and why it’s so important, is probably his best book. Science has shown us that it’s not demons that make thunder. Science has solved the mysteries of the universe that we once used myths to explain. The universe is not a strange, chaotic place – there are rules to it. “Science isn’t an encyclopedia of facts to memorise. It’s alive, and it’s the process of how we expand our understanding of what goes on here on Earth and beyond” Carl Sagan’s two gifts to the world were first, to make science fun and approachable through his television series Cosmos . And second, to show how important critical thinking is. In this book, he takes on the paranormal and talks about the myths that exist to explain the unexplained. He doesn’t denigrate people who believe in, for example, alien abduction. He shows us how to approach problems sceptically and honestly, and not to make fun of people we disagree with but just to see them as having fallen prey to a quirk of thinking that, like an optical illusion, puts them on the wrong path. I wouldn’t say that, but I read it around the time I started doing this stuff so it was certainly there to inspire me along the way. There are times when I’m stuck, when I don’t know how to tackle a problem or when somebody is making fun of me for thinking there’s a scientific explanation and it’s not ghosts. Those are the times I think, “What would Sagan do?” In that sense, he certainly is an inspiration to me. I don’t know if I’ve ever taken delight in debunking. Most of the time it’s a pain in the butt. One of my favourites is the urban legend that toilets flush and sinks drain the opposite way in the southern hemisphere. Totally wrong. But hurricanes do spin opposite ways in the opposite hemispheres. So by debunking one myth we are led to discover the science behind what it’s like to live on a giant rotating ball, and how that effects motion. It becomes a lot of fun. I get to probe the science behind the myths and I quite enjoy that. Yes. It’s also a way to share my love of science and reality. Some people don’t like science because it was taught to them as a set of knowledge, instead of the exciting ongoing process it really is. Science is an adventure that never ends."