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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 key 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 America 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.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (8.3%)

I suggest that in every one of these cases, religious or secular, we are much better off if we know the best available approximation to the truth—and if we keep before us a keen apprehension of the errors our interest group or belief system has committed in the past.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (63.8%)

Skeptical scrutiny is not only the toolkit for rooting out bunkum and cruelty that prey on those least able to protect themselves and most in need of our compassion, people offered little other hope. It is also a timely reminder that mass rallies, radio and television, the print media, electronic marketing, and mail-order technology permit other kinds of lies to be injected into the body politic—to take advantage of the frustrated, the unwary, and the defenseless in a society riddled with political ills that are being treated ineffectively if at all.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (56%)

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. So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new ones rise.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (55.4%)

I think we’re lucky that James Randi is tugging at the curtain. But it would be as dangerous to rely on him to expose all the quacks, humbugs, and bunkum in the world as it would be to believe those same charlatans. If we don’t want to get taken, we need to do this job for ourselves.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (55.4%)

A deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, sometimes with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up in a powerful emotion—wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that’s what P. T. Barnum meant when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic—however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (47.7%)

Not all claims to knowledge have equal merit.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (43.1%)

anecdotal accounts are subject to irreducible error. This is not a personal criticism of those who say they’ve been abducted or of those who interrogate them. It is not tantamount to contempt for purported witnesses.* It is not—or should not be—arrogant dismissal of sincere and affecting testimony. It is merely a reluctant response to human fallibility.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (41.4%)

I try not to think with my gut. If I’m serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble. Really, it’s okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (41.3%)