by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan
ISBN: 0345409469
Buy on Amazon
Found in 5 comments on Hacker News
crazydoggers · 2023-06-21 · Original thread
Just today I was listening to Consider This on NPR (transcript [1]) about the increase of election worker harassment. It's quite scary the level things have gotten, with serious death threats, harassment, vandalism, even one election worker's dog being poisoned.

What we still haven't come to grips with is that the internet and the information age have made propaganda and the ability to sway large swaths of the "stupid" (which I would more accurately call the uninformed credulous) exceedingly easy. Network effects cause this mob behavior to accelerate much more rapidly than before.

In Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World [2], he starts his book with an account of what Dietrich here would call the "stupid", a taxi driver that begins to question Carl in earnest about all sorts of conspiracies.

Carl shows through this exchange that it's not that people are stupid. Often many of the credulous are very intelligent, and curious. But what has happened is that our society has failed to teach critical thinking across the board, and has also failed in its ability to democratize education in a way the reaches everyone equally.

Public schools have been a failure in teaching critical thinking. Teachers are not versed or required to have standards in critical thinking skills. Our society also lacks a focus on childhood mental health, so children the most at risk often can't even begin to benefit from school, and will continue down the same paths as their parents. And so we are left with a perpetual problem that continues generation to generation.

If we fix our education and mental health systems, I believe a lot of the worlds problems will follow.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183289840/election-workers-a...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Da...

crazydoggers · 2021-05-22 · Original thread
I came back to check on comments here.

I cannot believe how poor most of these comments are. It’s unbelievable.

HN used to be a place where educated, well though out discussions occurred.

Now there’s barely an ounce of critical thought.

It’s horrible and sad.

Why? I can only surmise. HN perhaps has gotten more popular, more cool, so has had in influx of more people?

Either that or I’m getting older and the newer generation has lost even more critical thought ability than I’d imagined.

Seriously I cannot believe that almost all comments here are conspiracy minded comments arguing against an article that is simply clear and critical thinking.

I beg and implore anyone reading this to read the following book. Even if one person does and learns better critical thinking abilities, it’d be a win.

https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Da...

For the time being, I feel like I need to step away from HN comments altogether. It ends up being the most depressing part of my day.

crazydoggers · 2021-05-22 · Original thread
Again I can only lament the lack of science education in this country.

Triangles show up as triangular bokeh... therefore... must be aliens?? Im sorry that Twitter user thought it was denigrating those in the military.. but that’s a red herring argument and nothing to do with anything.

This is a much better read than Twitter...

https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Da...

crazydoggers · 2021-05-15 · Original thread
All the comments here simply show the very poor state of science education.

Everyone should read this book and then reevaluate comments about chiropractors.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345409469/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm...

And I’m not throwing shade. It’s not any single persons fault or a comment on character. I really do believe there’s a systemic problem with our education system. The reason chiropracty causes this to stand out is that it very successfully flaunts the scientific method and is still accepted at large (for reasons I won’t start going into, but most of which are covered in the book)

asaph · 2019-11-02 · Original thread
If only everyone read Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark[0], or at least the Baloney Detection Kit part.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Da...