Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD
ed., Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1996.]
Many of these doctrines are rejected out of hand by fundamentalist
Christians and Jews because the Bible so enjoins. Deuteronomy
(xviii, 10, 11) reads (in the King James translation):
There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his
son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth
divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a
witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a
wizard, or a necromancer.
Astrology, channelling, Ouija boards, predicting the future and
much else is forbidden. The author of Deuteronomy does not
argue that such practices fail to deliver what they promise. But
they are 'abominations', perhaps suitable for other nations, but
not for the followers of God. And even the Apostle Paul, so
credulous on so many matters, counsels us to 'prove all things'.
The twelfth-century Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides
goes further than Deuteronomy, in that he makes explicit that
these pseudosciences don't work:
It is forbidden to engage in astrology, to utilize charms, to
whisper incantations . . . All of these practices are nothing
more than lies and deceptions used by ancient pagan peoples
to deceive the masses and lead them astray . . . Wise and
intelligent people know better. [From the Mishneh Torah,
Avodah Zara, Chapter 11.]
Some claims are hard to test - for example, if an expedition fails to
find the ghost or the brontosaurus, that doesn't mean it doesn't
exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Others are
easier - for example, flatworm cannibalistic learning or the
announcement that colonies of bacteria subjected to an antibiotic
or an agar dish thrive when their prosperity is prayed for
(compared to control bacteria unredeemed by prayer). A few -
for example, perpetual motion machines - can be excluded on
grounds of fundamental physics. Except for them, it's not that we
know before examining the evidence that the notions are false;
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