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Carl Sagan’s “baloney detection kit” – blog 6 of 10
– Carl Sagan’s Fine Art of Baloney Detection, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark It’s time for the sixth tool. So far you have got the facts (1 of 10), you had a substantive debate (2 of 10), you’ve covered arguments from authority (3 of 10), you have several hypotheses (4 of…
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Carl Sagan’s “baloney detection kit” – blog 5 of 10
– Carl Sagan’s Fine Art of Baloney Detection, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Half way through this thread and so far you have got the facts (1 of 10), you had a substantive debate (2 of 10), you know how to treat arguments from authority (3 of 10) and most recently…
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Carl Sagan’s “baloney detection kit” – blog 4 of 10
– Carl Sagan’s Fine Art of Baloney Detection, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark So, you’ve got the facts (1 of 10) and you’ve had a substantive debate (2 of 10) and now (Sagan’s third tool for detecting baloney) how to consider arguments from authority (3 of 10). The next tool…
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Carl Sagan’s “baloney detection kit” – blog 3 of 10
– Carl Sagan’s Fine Art of Baloney Detection, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark So, you’ve got the facts (1 of 10) and you’ve had a substantive debate (2 of 10), now you need to consider Sagan’s third tool for detecting baloney: Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have…
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Carl Sagan’s “baloney detection kit” – blog 2 of 10
– 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…
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“The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science.”
– Carl Sagan’s Fine Art of Baloney Detection, extracted from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Rules for critical thinking (1 of 10): Carl Sagan developed a “baloney detection kit” — a set of cognitive tools and techniques that fortify the mind against penetration by falsehoods. But the kit, Sagan argues,…
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“At night the stars put on a show for free … And darling, you can share it all with me”
– Gerry Goffin, Carole King The great song writing duo Goffin and King with Up on the Roof, first recorded by Little Eva, the Drifters and many others. Do the lyrics “evinces a quiet sense of sadness, an urban dissatisfaction that moves beyond anything conceived by the rose-spectacled Tin Pan Alley writers of the early…
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“The wondrous thing about science is that nobody knows the right answer.”
Dr. Becky Smethurst, Astrophysicist. Science Communicator. Author. The full quote from the preface of her book (Space at the Speed of Light: The History of 14 Billion Years for People Short on Time) is: “The wondrous thing about science is that nobody knows the right answer. This is not how we are taught science as…
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“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”
Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Kennedy_-We_Choose_to_Go_to_the_Moon(29533458786).jpg Speaking of perserverance as I was (see here) the US effort on behalf of mankind in the 60s and 70s shows exactly what humanity is capable of. The video of President Kennedy’s still excites and sets the hair on the back of the neck: Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th5A6ZQ28pE PS: I love coffee. BuyMeACoffee, leave a message…
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“Never give up, never surrender”
Jason Nesmith playing Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart (Tim Allen), Galaxy Quest Credit: https://media.giphy.com/media/2rIDTzizHRQv6/giphy.gif The best Star Trek movie never made! The quote is self-explanatory. Don’t give up when faced with roadblocks or challenges or if you hit problems. Also have the attitude to not give up and push through hardship. Because if we surrender at…
Stargazing Guy
Connecting people to the Stars
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“Science Fiction Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.”
– Peter H. Diamandis, Metatrends substack, 17 July 2026 Why are people so pessimistic about the future – and view the past as some form of pastoral utopia? On these pages we promote hope – not cope or mope. Hope lives here. An interesting insight is from Peter H. Diamandis in his substack, where he…
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“I believe in evidence.”
– Isaac Asimov, The Roving Mind (1997), (2 January 2 1920 – 6 April 1992) Scientist and science fiction author Asimov’s output of novels and books popularising and explaining science was prodigious. As a rationalist he often railed against superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs that tried to pass themselves off as genuine science and had this…
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What is a light-year?
A light-year is a measure of distance – not time (or anything to do with Disney’s Toy Story). It’s used to indicate the distance to stars and galaxies. It’s the distance light travels in one year in a vacuum, which is about: – 4.2465 light-years OR 5.88 trillion miles OR 9.46 trillion kilometres Light travels…
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How far is that star?
Basically, far! The Sun is the closest (and brightest) star. It is about: – 93 million miles – 150 million kilometres The next closest star (Proxima Centauri) is invisible to the unaided human eye and you need to be in the Southern Hemisphere to see it with a telescope (it’s too dim to see with…
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Death rates from disasters have fallen over the last century.
Good news. Recent data indicates that natural disasters are NOT going to kill us all. The global death rate from all natural disasters (drought, floods, storms, earthquakes, wildfires, extreme temperatures, etc.) has fallen by more than 90% over the last century. The total number of deaths has fallen substantially, despite there being four times as…
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“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
– Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie (Marie Curie) (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) She was a was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist. The first woman to win a Nobel Prize. The first person to win a Nobel Prize twice. The only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields.…
Stargazing Guy 