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

Obsessed with Reality
they were cured and agreed that they were - in, say, televised
services by American faith-healers - were unable to find even one
person with serious organic disease who was in fact cured. Even
significant improvement in their condition is dubious. As the
Lourdes experience suggests, you may have to go through ten
thousand to a million cases before you find one truly startling
recovery.
A faith-healer may or may not start out with fraud in mind. But
to his amazement, his patients actually seem to be improving.
Their emotions are genuine, their gratitude heart-felt. When the
healer is criticized, such people rush to his defence. Several
elderly attendees of the channelling at the Sydney Opera House
were incensed after the Sixty Minutes expose: 'Never mind what
they say,' they told Alvarez, 'we believe in you.'
These successes may be enough to convince many charlatans,
no matter how cynical they were at the beginning, that they
actually have mystical powers. Maybe they're not successful every
time. The powers come and go, they tell themselves. They have to
cover the down time. If they must cheat a little now and then, it
serves a higher purpose, they tell themselves. Their spiel is
consumer-tested. It works.
Most of these figures are only after your money. That's the
good news. But what worries me is that a Carlos will come along
with bigger fish to fry - attractive, commanding, patriotic, exuding
leadership. All of us long for a competent, uncorrupt, charismatic
leader. We will leap at the opportunity to support, to believe, to
feel good. Most reporters, editors and producers, swept up with
the rest of us, will shy away from real sceptical scrutiny. He won't
be selling you prayers or crystals or tears. Perhaps he'll be selling
you a war, or a scapegoat, or a much more all-encompassing
bundle of beliefs than Carlos's. Whatever it is, it will be accompanied
by warnings about the dangers of scepticism.
In the celebrated film The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, the Scarecrow,
the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion are intimidated - indeed
awed - by the out-sized oracular figure called the Great Oz. But
Dorothy's little dog Toto snaps at a concealing curtain and reveals
that the Great Oz is in fact a machine run by a small, tubby,
frightened man, as much an exile in this strange land as they.
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