Carl Sagan
- The Demon-Haunted World
And if the world does not in all respects correspond to our wishes, is this the fault of science, or of those who would impose their wishes on the world?
Carl Sagan
- The Demon-Haunted World
The question, as always, is how good is the evidence? The burden of proof surely rests on the shoulders of those who advance such claims. Revealingly, some proponents hold that skepticism is a liability, that true science is inquiry without skepticism. They are perhaps halfway there. But halfway doesn't do it.
Carl Sagan
- The Demon-Haunted World
If some good evidence for life after death were announced, I'd be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere anecdote. As with the face on Mars and alien abductions, better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.
Carl Sagan
- The Demon-Haunted World
Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof, are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.
Carl Sagan
- The Demon-Haunted World
What a more critical mind might recognize as a hallucination or a dream, a more credulous mind interprets as a glimpse of an elusive but profound external reality.
Carl Sagan
- The Demon-Haunted World
We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements - transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting - profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.
