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

The Marriage of Scepticism and Wonder
our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant
with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they
need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with
kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.
Clearly there are limits to the uses of scepticism. There is some
cost-benefit analysis which must be applied, and if the comfort,
consolation and hope delivered by mysticism and superstition is
high, and the dangers of belief comparatively low, should we not
keep our misgivings to ourselves? But the issue is tricky. Imagine
that you enter a big-city taxicab and the moment you get settled in
the driver begins a harangue about the supposed iniquities and
inferiorities of another ethnic group. Is your best course to keep
quiet, bearing in mind that silence conveys assent? Or is it your
moral responsibility to argue with him, to express outrage, even to
leave the cab - because you know that every silent assent will
encourage him next time, and every vigorous dissent will cause
him next time to think twice? Likewise, if we offer too much silent
assent about mysticism and superstition - even when it seems to
be doing a little good - we abet a general climate in which
scepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous
thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate. Figuring out a prudent
balance takes wisdom.
The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the
Paranormal is an organization of scientists, academics, magicians
and others dedicated to sceptical scrutiny of emerging or fullblown
pseudosciences. It was founded by the University of
Buffalo philosopher Paul Kurtz in 1976. I've been affiliated with it
since its beginning. Its acronym, CSICOP, is pronounced 'sci-cop'
- as if it's an organization of scientists performing a police
function. Those wounded by CSICOP's analyses sometimes make
just such a complaint: it's hostile to every new idea, they say, will
go to absurd lengths in its knee-jerk debunking, is a vigilante
organization, a New Inquisition, and so on.
CSICOP is imperfect. In certain cases such a critique is to some
degree justified. But from my point of view CSICOP serves an
important social function as a well-known organization to which
media can apply when they wish to hear the other side of the
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