PastorFliege
Sheril KirshenbaumI keep thinking about this 1995 passage from “The Demon-Haunted World” by Carl Sagan.
Andy Bates@Sheril acceptance without comprehension is really just religion isn’t it?
David Luce@andrewjohnbates @Sheril Which makes theists claiming to know the mind of God all the more obnoxious.
Dubi is here 
@andrewjohnbates @Sheril we can't, as individuals, understand everything. The scientific method is there to assure us that enough people who can understand have the ability to delve deep into something and voice their findings and insights, and reach some sort of consensus. That doesn't make what they say dogma, but it does mean you'll need more than "your own research on google" to determine they're all wrong.
@Dubikan @Sheril there’s much in what you say. Blanket rejection of expert knowledge is no better than uncritical acceptance. Maybe it comes down to depth of understanding - knowing a little about Eratosthenes can avoid flat earth misconceptions and reading Darwin can do the same for creationism. Understanding everything is plainly impossible, but trying to understand as many things as you can is (I think) essential.
@andrewjohnbates @Sheril I'm afraid people who know a little about something are often more susceptible to error than someone who just recognizes they know nothing about it.
@andrewjohnbates @Sheril of course. But I'm just worried that when someone says something like "acceptance without comprehension is really just religion", that restricts the best route for getting from "understanding almost nothing" to "understanding enough to be able to develop my own educated opinion". We have to remember there's a fairly vast region in between where "making up your own mind" doesn't make sense.
gnramires@Dubikan @andrewjohnbates @Sheril I believe the resolution of this apparent paradox is that we can trust science from generalization. We understand the basic methods of science, the important (and relevant) theories like evolution, classical physics and some cosmology, and so on. Then we need to trust or hope, in a logical way, that other scientists generally are doing their jobs, critically examining evidence and verifying their theories. The trust is strong, not absolute.
Colin Tucker@Sheril I miss Carl Sagan so much. He was truly one-of-a-kind.
Erik Kemp 🇪🇺Spot on, indeed. Just listening to Carl Sagan testifying for Congress in 1985: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI
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Source:
Scientists for Future Podcast: Folge #24 – Der Wald der Zukunft
@S4F
Website: https://s4f-podcast.de/2022/12/folge-24-der-wald-der-zukunft/
Media-file: https://s4f-podcast.de/podlove/file/125/s/feed/c/mp3/s4f024.mp3
As always, listening podcasts in @AntennaPod :)
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I know @LaurensDassen is active in the Dutch parliament to keep strategic industry:
https://mastodon.online/@LaurensDassen/109320406944610145
Carl Sagan testifying before Congress in 1985 on climate change
Original source: https://www.c-span.org/video/?125856-1/greenhouse-effectDECEMBER 10, 1985“Witnesses testified on how the greenhouse effect will change the g...
Whatsitsallabout@erikkemp @Sheril @S4F @AntennaPod @LaurensDassen he was bang on the money, do you think one day will start listening to what he had to say?
James Trickle uP@erikkemp @Sheril @S4F @AntennaPod @LaurensDassen Thanks for passing this along. I had not seen it before. He is my favorite famous person of all time.
dianemartingutel.com@Sheril My favorite thing about Sagan is that every time he expresses hope, it's always followed by "if we don't fuck it up first."
GlennMG@Sheril "unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true...", Carl Sagan.
Anna Lembke, MD, her book 'Dopamine Nation' is a great follow up to this insight of Sagan's.
Anna Lembke, MD, her book 'Dopamine Nation' is a great follow up to this insight of Sagan's.
James Tweedie (has moved)@Sheril I remember reading it at the time. The year Windows 95 was launched - one of the harbingers of the new order..?
sysfrank 🤣🤣🤣@Sheril I really think that this book should be required reading. Even when I consider, in my cynical moments, that the modern "know-nothings" and their kin would hardly seem to benefit from reading anything; I trust that Sagan realized the recalcitrance of ignorance, and as an educator wrote so that something would get through to those who needed to hear his message. So, my thoughts often turn here too.
Ryan Adamson 
@weezel @Sheril
One of the most profound experiences I have ever had was to look into the pool of the research reactor at ORNL. Before that, nuclear energy was an abstraction for me. Seeing that glow, feeling the heat, and observing the blue Cerenkov emission around the spent fuel, made it real; something more than a bunch of equations. Working there, I feel you know what I mean.
One of the most profound experiences I have ever had was to look into the pool of the research reactor at ORNL. Before that, nuclear energy was an abstraction for me. Seeing that glow, feeling the heat, and observing the blue Cerenkov emission around the spent fuel, made it real; something more than a bunch of equations. Working there, I feel you know what I mean.
smallerdemon@Sheril The madness being the people who are not clinging to what even feels good, but to the clinging to just pure fear and only being able to articulate it as rage against things they have no comprehension of.
Chris Rauh@Sheril amazingly, this applies both to the old religions as to a new era where all is decided by machine learning models (oracles?) - trusted without comprehension and understood by few, if any, data priests.
1Gr8ful1
Stargeezer Smith
Sean G@Sheril FUD. Was more true in his time than it was now.
Pensive™️@bragi
No, it’s worse now. Talk to an anti-vaxer and you’ll see.
No, it’s worse now. Talk to an anti-vaxer and you’ll see.
@Sheril Wow. Thx for sharing this.
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Nadait Gebremedhen@Sheril remarkably prescient
Arnab Gupta@Sheril Carl Sagan was one of a kind. This is only one of his magnificently prescient and/or trenchant and/or cautionary comments on our civilization. Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov: they saw our future, in the good ways and the bad. Up to us to choose the path we take. #science #sciencefiction #sciencefuture #socialcommentary
Jan Hildegard
LostInPompeii@Sheril Prescient, my hero too.
Richard Hull@Sheril Thank you, that's some quote indeed. As Antonio Gramsci said in 1929 "I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." Difficult, in these times, but necessary.
Fernhead@Sheril One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Leigh Honeywell@Sheril I read that book as a young teen and I gotta say it was absolutely formative
Kit@Sheril Painfully prophetic.
Ermatostene@Sheril I have been re-reading exactly that passage just recently. We could see the makings of his anticipation 27 years ago, we can see the reality of it today. And now we move into Idiocracy territory.
patrickdaniels@Sheril iIhave huge love for Sagan, thanks!!
Sheila Arnold@Sheril Wow! Prescient.
KABurks@Sheril When you look at what's happening in the world and compare it to this passage, it does give one pause.
StefanoGaivota@Sheril
Brings to mind this:
"...some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
David Lohr@Sheril Sheril, I too, keep thinking not about Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World" but how Immanuel Velikovsky haunted him instead. Maybe Apple should've let the Power Macintosh 7100 second code name stand because, well, Beavis.
PamelaS@Sheril What a treasure. That book should be on the required reading list, but alas, I’m sure others would find reasons for it to be banned!
rightarmrandom@Sheril this was such an excellent book. Incredibly far sighted. The thing perhaps it could not have foreseen was the all-out assault on the notion of objective truth which has been supercharged by social media.
KBrzozowski@Sheril All I can say is wow. Too bad no one paid attention.
Sirpushalot@Sheril I recently finished reading that book. Still relevant. Still scary. Still hopeful.
@Sheril "Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder."
Michael Leask 🇨🇦@Sheril that was from his book Pale Blue Dot if I’m not mistaken. He is influential for me with lifelong learning and the understanding of critical thinking. Thanks for posting this quote and I think it is true what he said.
It's Just Jenn 🏳️⚧️@Sheril
"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
Ash
Ash (@[email protected])
@[email protected] I bought Enlightenment Now yesterday, which has an optimistic take: https://www.blinkist.com/en/nc/books/enlightenment-now-en/overview?utm_source=gsn&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=15792641445&utm_content=140403235148&utm_term=__601320663563_t_dsa-1578456356062_Cj0KCQiA37KbBhDgARIsAIzce17N9N1n_eYZweCh-_CLDADxMQ-1PR-6JFQzQL92WAGDl9j7u_HYgFUaAqJfEALw_wcB&gclid=Cj0KCQiA37KbBhDgARIsAIzce17N9N1n_eYZweCh-_CLDADxMQ-1PR-6JFQzQL92WAGDl9j7u_HYgFUaAqJfEALw_wcB
Cj@Sheril Carl Sagan was an amazing man who was a gift to us all.
Betsy@Sheril well, as the Emperor says in "Amadeus"... there it is.
Maksi Sanctum, CNA, BSPH/c@Sheril Hard not to with parts of our government actively seeking to privatize education when the many better nations provide higher education as a part of their normal programs.
ozkrmz
Mtnpolar@Sheril I truly did not love his books but what you posted by him is spot on.
Stoneface Vimes@Sheril he wasn't far off, was he.