Stargazing Guy

– Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

The first eight of Sagan’s twenty most common and perilous pitfalls — many of which are rooted in our chronic discomfort with ambiguity — are available here – one and two (blog 1 of 11), three and four (blog 2 of 11), five and six (blog 3 of 11) and seven and eight (blog 4 of 11).

The ninth and tenth of these pitfalls is covered below, with Sagan’s examples.

9. misunderstanding of the nature of statistics (e.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence);

10. inconsistency (e.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftily ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they’re not “proved.” Or: Attribute the declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism. Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past);

Here are some other examples:

9. misunderstanding of the nature of statistics – “73.6% of all statistics are made up”. “Really?” “No!”

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.” Mark Twain popularized the quote most attributed to the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Benjamin Disraeli

10. inconsistency – “This replica of a coin manufactured by the Continental Congress in 1776 is authentic in every respect.” Here is a slightly more complicated example: “Sharks were on Earth millions of years before any of the dinosaurs, but a few of the early, small dinosaurs lived before the first sharks.” Source

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”.

Remember, hope lives here.

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