Hammer of Truth

Libertarian Community Weblog

http://hammeroftruth.com/

The Demon-Haunted World

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a 1996 book by Carl Sagan.

The Demon-Haunted World is intended to explain the scientific method to laypersons, and to encourage people to learn critical or skeptical thinking. The book explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science, and ideas that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking, and should stand up to rigorous questioning.

Sagan claims that if a new idea continues in existence after an examination of the propositions, they should then be acknowledged as a supposition. Skeptical thinking essentially is a means to construct, understand, reason, and recognize valid and invalid arguments. Wherever possible, there must be independent validation of the concepts whose truth should be proved. He believed that reason and logic would succeed once the truth is known. Conclusions emerging from a premise, and the validity of the premise, should not be discounted or accepted because of favor.

Through these tools, the benefits of a critical mind and the "self-correcting" nature of science can take place. Sagan provides a skeptical analysis of several kinds of superstition, fraud, pseudoscience and religious beliefs, such as God, witches, UFOs, ESP, and Faith Healing.

Reference
Sagan, Carl, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark". Ballantine Books, March 1997 ISBN 0345409469 480 pgs. 1996 hardback edition: Random House, ISBN 0-394-53512-X, xv+457 pages plus addenda insert (some printings).


Some excerpts:
Literature Excerpts
More
A review
Amazon.com

Baloney Detection Kit

Baloney Detection Kit

Warning signs that suggest deception. Based on the book by Carl Sagan "The Demon Haunted World". The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:


Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts.

Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.

Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").

Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.

Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.

Quantify, wherever possible.

If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.

Occam's razor - if there are two hypotheses that explain the data equally well choose the simpler.

Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result?


Additional issues are:
Conduct control experiments - especially "double blind" experiments where the person taking measurements is not aware of the test and control subjects.

Check for confounding factors - separate the variables.


Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric

Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
Argument from "authority".

Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavorable" decision).

Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).

Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).

Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).

Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).

Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).

Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)

Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved").

Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect.

Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).

Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).

Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").

Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).

Confusion of correlation and causation.

Caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack.

Suppressed evidence or half-truths.

Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers. "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public."





(excerpted from The Planetary Society Australian Volunteer Coordinators Prepared by Michael Paine )
Taken from CarlSagan.com

Quote 2

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

- Benjamin Franklin,
Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Empathy

The Empathy Symbol



Because what the world really needs now is Empathy.


Empathy is the recognition and understanding of the states of mind, beliefs, desires, and particularly, emotions of others. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes", or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself; a sort of emotional resonance.

Speeches to Wake-up by

Over recent months there have been some memorable speeches worth revisiting. They speak of truth, values, citizenship, responsibility, openness, and accountability. These are words to abide by.

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Excerts taken from a speech by Former Vive President Al Gore, delivered in Washington D.C., January 16, 2006:

"Al Gore On the Limits of Executive Power"

"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. They recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."
An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet, "Common Sense", ignited the American Revolution, succinctly described America's alternative. Here, he said, we intended to make certain that, in his phrase, "the law is king". "

There have of course been other periods in American history when the Executive Branch claimed new powers later seen as excessive and mistaken. Our second president, John Adams, passed the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts and sought to silence and imprison critics and political opponents. And when his successor, President Thomas Jefferson, eliminated the abuses, in his first inaugural he said: "[The essential principles of our Government] form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation... [S]hould we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety."

In the words of George Orwell: "We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.

I call upon Democratic and Republican members of Congress today to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of American government you are supposed to be under the Constitution of our country. But there is yet another Constitutional player whose pulse must also be taken and whose role must be examined in order to understand the dangerous imbalance that has accompanied these efforts by the Executive branch to dominate our constitutional system.
We the people are-collectively-still the key to the survival of America's democracy. We-must examine ourselves. We must examine our own role as citizens in allowing and not preventing the shocking decay and hollowing out and degradation of American democracy! It is time to stand up for the American system that we know and love! It is time to breathe new life back into America’s democracy!
Thomas Jefferson said: "An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will" America’s based on the belief that we can govern ourselves. And exercise the power of self-government. The American idea proceeded from the bedrock principle that all just power is derived from the consent of the governed.

Freedom of communication is an essential prerequisite for the restoration of the health of our democracy.
It is particularly important that the freedom of the Internet be protected against either the encroachment of government or efforts at control by large media conglomerates. The future of our democracy depends on it."


The entire transcript is available here.

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From the Commonwealth Club of California, December 9, 2005
Here we have, from Scott Ritter former U.N. Weapons Inspector in Iraq, an excert from a speech given at the Commonwealth Club. The last half hour was open for questions.

Q- "How do we, as a nation, avoid the same mistakes we made in Iraq, in places like Iran, North Korea, and Syria?"

A- "If you're going to view this as a National Security problem we're probably just beating our heads against a brick wall. Because, we were sucked into this was in Iraq because of our fear and ignorance... because of what we don't know. And I would submit that we don't know, we "the collective", don't know much about Iran, Syria, and elswhere. Why? (And this is how we can empower ourselves) Because we stopped acting as citizens. That's the bottom line. Look in the mirror and ask yourself the following question: "Am I a citizen or am I a consumer?" Because the answer, honestly... we have become a nation that has walked away from our duties and responsibilities of citizenship. The preamble of the Constitution begins, "We the people". But we no longer act as "we the people". We the people, are'nt involved. We the people, aren't engaged. We're not out there acting as good citizens. We've wrapped ourselves in a cocoon of comfort that's derived from a life style that we have become addicted to. And what we do is we waddle down a path of relative prosperity. We don't want to rock-the-boat. And as long as we don't want to rock-the-boat as citizens we're not functioning as citizens. And if we don't function as citizens our National Security and Foreign Policy will be hijacked by those who have interests that are not necessarily the interests of the majority of Americans. And we will not be able to stop future conflicts. The only way to stop future conflicts is for we the people of the United States of America, to start injecting ourselves into the processes of government to ensure not only do we elect the right people to office, but we hold them accountable for what they do in our name."


The speech in it's entirety may be heard here. (Requires Real Player)

Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Hardcover), 2005. Foreword by Seymour Hersh. ISBN 1560258527

Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason

The Clash of Faith and Reason
This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in the modern world. The End of Faith provides a harrowing glimpse of mankind’s willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when these beliefs inspire the worst of human atrocities. Harris argues that in the presence of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer expect to survive our religious differences indefinitely. Most controversially, he maintains that “moderation” in religion poses considerable dangers of its own: as the accommodation we have made to religious faith in our society now blinds us to the role that faith plays in perpetuating human conflict. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism in an attempt to provide a truly modern foundation for our ethics and our search for spiritual experience.

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris is a genuinely frightening book about terrorism, and the central role played by religion in justifying and rewarding it. Others blame “extremists” who “distort” the “true” message of religion. Harris goes to the root of the problem: religion itself. Even moderate religion is a menace, because it leads us to respect and “cherish the idea that certain fantastic propositions can be believed without evidence”. Why do men like Bin Laden commit their hideous cruelties? The answer is that they “actually believe what they say they believe”. Read Sam Harris and wake up.
—Richard Dawkins, The Guardian

“The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated, almost personally understood… Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say in contemporary America… This in an important book, on a topic that, for all its inherent difficulty and divisiveness, should not be shielded from the crucible of human reason.”
—Natalie Angier, The New York Times Book Review (read the full review)

“Sam Harris launches a sustained nuclear assault… A bold and exhilarating thesis… The End of Faith is a brave, pugilistic attempt to demolish the walls that currently insulate religious people from criticism… The End of Faith is badly needed...”
—The Independent (U.K.) (read the full review)

“This book will strike a chord with anyone who has ever pondered the irrationality of religious faith… Even Mr. Harris’s critics will have to concede the force of an analysis which roams so far and wide, from the persecution of the Cathars to the composition of George Bush’s cabinet.”
—The Economist (read the full review)

“[Harris] writes with such verve and frequent insight that even skeptical readers will find it hard to put down.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle (read the full review)

“A radical attack on the most sacred of liberal precepts—the notion of tolerance… [The End of Faith] is an eminently sensible rallying cry for a more ruthless secularisation of society.”
—The Observer (U.K.) (read the full review)

“Harris’ tour de force demonstrates how faith—blind, deaf, dumb, and unreasoned—threatens our very existence. His exposé of faith-based unreason—from the religious fanaticism of Islamic suicide bombers to the secular fanaticism of Noam Chomsky—is a clarion call for reasoned debate in this age of terrorism. THE END OF FAITH shows how the perfect tyranny of religious and secular totalitarianism demonizes imperfect democracies such as the United States and Israel. A must read for all rational people.”

—Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard and author of America on Trial.
“Here is a ringing challenge to all Americans who recognize the danger to American democracy posed by the political alliance of right wing religion and politics and the failure of the tepid and tentative responses by liberal persons of faith. While one might dispute some of the claims and arguments presented by the author, the need for a wake up call to religious liberals is right on the mark.”

—Joseph C. Hough, Jr., President of Union Theological Seminary, New York
“At last we have a book that focuses on the common thread that links Islamic terrorism with the irrationality of all religious faith. THE END OF FAITH will challenge not only Muslims but Hindus, Jews and Christians as well.”

—Peter Singer, professor of philosophy at Princeton and author of The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush.
—The Los Angeles Times (read the full review)
—The Chicago Tribune (read the full review)
—The Globe and Mail (read the full review)
—The New York Sun (read the full review)