Stargazing Guy

– Carl Sagan’s Fine Art of Baloney Detection, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

In my last blog, The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science, I referred to Carl Sagan’s “baloney detection kit” as a set of cognitive tools and techniques that fortify the mind against penetration by falsehoods.

Number 1 was about seeking independent confirmation of the “facts.”

Number 2 is:

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

Having knowledagble proponents debating the evidence allows for a rational discussion on all the known relevant facts , hopefully.

Proponents can sometimes carry emotional baggage about the issue, either for or against, and the debate may descend into contradiction or an angry row.

The more important an issue or topic, the more likely that emotion and anger will raise its head – and the more important it is to not allow that to happen.

It is nearly unheard of for a genuine scientific breakthrough to be met with enthusiasm from the majority of scientists within that respective field.  The Heliocentric Solar System, Continental Drift, Genetic Inheritance, and many more were initially rejected or ignored before being recognized as true.

Scientists are human and have a tendency to want to be right. When science is properly debated the resulting scientific argument should change the minds of scientists who don’t initially believe in the conclusion of the study.

I’ll give the final word to Sagan:

In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

Carl Sagan, Keynote address at CSICOP conference (1987), as quoted in Do Science and the Bible Conflict? (2003) by Judson Poling, p. 30

PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message with a date and time and we can share it, remotely, at the same time, and think about the Cosmos.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else, too, because as Adam Smith said, “we naturally desire not only to be loved but to be lovely”.

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