Science and Social Awareness
Carl Sagan's Vision
by
T. Jayaraman
This is Carl Sagan's last book and in it he argues eloquently that there is no road to knowledge that can bypass science. The option of sheer ignorance is unavailable too, if only for the reason that science is here to stay. The work is based in part on earlier popular essays and talks and on material from a seminar on critical thinking that he conducted for several years at Cornell University.
To be ignorant of science, Sagan emphasises in more than one essay, is in reality to disenfranchise oneself. If we follow the pseudo-science track, ignoring the importance of real knowledge that can be continually tested, challenged and proved, we may buy a false sense of security, or avoid the mental effort and honesty that real science demands. In practice though, in cutting ourselves off from knowing what the real world is, we lose the ability to critically influence our future. Equally, good scientific education is ``our birthright'' and depriving children of it takes away from them the tools that they need to face the future.
The problem with science for many is that it is counterintuitive. In the history of science several ideas about nature, like the flat Earth for instance, that once seemed obvious have been proven to be false. Science is about discovering what is true. The obvious needs to be tested and verified before it can be accepted as truth. Skepticism is therefore an essential part of the scientific method and it is here that Sagan feels that many people fall short when it comes to distinguishing various false claims from scientific facts.
In a delightful chapter, the reader is offerred a set of basic tools for skeptical thinking, a ``baloney detection kit''. For instance, one basic test is that all `facts' must be independently confirmed. Another is that arguments from `authority' must not be given weight. Or yet again, is there more than one explanation or hypothesis that fits a phenomena and if so, which is better. In clear and simple terms, Sagan explains the essence of the scientific method as understood by working scientists, without strait-jacketing it into a formal philosphical framework.
This kit is accompanied by a list of common fallacies of logic and rhetoric. For instance, what Sagan calls the appeal to ignorance. Example: there is no evidence that UFOs are not visiting the earth, therefore they must be visiting us and hence intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe. Or again, the fallacy of suppressed evidence. Example: a widely reported `prophecy' of the assination attempt on Ronald Reagan (but no evidence is provided whether the `prophecy' was recorded before or after the event!). Sagan provides a wide variety of illustrations of such fallacies, ranging from advertising (``paid product endorsements ... are a steady rainfall of deception'') to politics, religion and pseudo-science.
The book takes a close look at the phenomenon of pseudo-science that paradoxically enough appears to have gathered strength in recent times. Sagan examines at some length the case of those who claim to have been abducted by ``extra-terrrestrials'' and then returned, sometimes alleging to have been the victims of ``experimentation'' by the ``aliens''. It is a classic of pseudo-science as seen in the U.S., featuring several characteristics including paranoia (what is the government doing to protect us?), conspiracy theories (the governments and scientists are keeping this a secret), and media hype and attention to abductees and their families. Sagan deals with particular care with the testimony of several psychiatrists who believe in the statements of their ``abductee'' patients made under hypnosis. These he suggests are examples of the false memory syndrome.
This is vintage Carl Sagan. He has examined the case in detail, knows every claim by pseudo-science, has heard them out and debated with them at length before ruling them out. Sagan argues that the receptiveness to the idea of ``aliens'' with evil designs is in part at least a remnant of the older belief in devils and other such exotic beings. A founding member of the Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), an organisation of skeptics well known for its sharp attacks on various pseudo-scientific claims, Sagan nevertheless argues for dealing with the those who are duped with a compassionate attitude, that acknowledges the human roots of superstition and pseudo-science.
In yet another example of uncritical attitudes especially in the media, Sagan describes the instance when James Randi, the magician, successfully duped the Australian media for days, in the Carlos affair. Carlos, a figure acted out by a friend of Randi's, claimed to be possessed by a two-thousand year old ghost. He had the media following his every move and reporting all his statements (scripted entirely by Randi) before the hoax was revealed.
Sagan offers a crisis-ridden picture of science education and media attitudes to science in the U.S.A. today. Levels of interest in science are dropping sharply in the school system while the media provides little by way of serious information on science. Pseudo-science has a field day in the media. Increasingly the funding agencies for science are turning away from open-ended, ``blue sky'' research towards short-term profited oriented goals. Ironically even as interest in UFOs and ``alien abductions'' mounts in the media, funds have been cut off for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project. Science, warns Sagan, cannot be driven entirely by market forces and a society that ignores basic science endangers its future.
In Sagan's vision, science and the scientific method are also firmly linked to critical thinking in general. His heroes are as much Thomas Paine( a hero of the American Revolution who is little remembered today) and Frederick Douglass( a black who escaped slavery to become a political leader, publisher and orator) as Galileo and Einstein. The thread that links the role of science and its connection to modernism and progressive values is for Sagan exemplified by the ``witchcraft trials'' of the 16th and 17th centuries. Sagan sees in the ignorant fear and superstition among the people that played into the hands of the inquisitors, an organic link between the lack of knowledge and the grim horror of the trials.
Sagan's view of the role of science in society harks back to a well-established viewpoint that sees science as a tool for the welfare of society. It abhors the military use of science and views the objective knowledge that science provides as liberating society from the clutches of superstition and intolerance. It sees in science that critical spirit of enquiry and adherence to truth that is essential to a democratic society.
Carl Sagan's vision of science and society is one that has its own independent roots in our country. But such views have fallen on hard times even here. In an India of widespread illiteracy and milk miracles, where the middle-class vies to watch the prophecies of Nostradamus on video on their new VCRs, and funding for pure and applied science research and science education is getting increasingly tighter, Sagan's vision and warnings are well worth pondering over.
We will miss you, Carl Sagan.