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

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

Carl Sagan

Are we on the brink of a new Dark Age of irrationality and superstition? In this stirring, brilliantly argued book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Dragons of Eden and Cosmos shows how scientific thinking can cut through prejudice and hysteria and uncover the truth, and how it is necessary...

Podcasts 1
Quotes 2
The Bulwark Podcast

This book contained an uncanny prediction from Carl Sagan in 1995 about a future America where critical faculties declined, leading to a slide back into superstition and darkness due to the dumbing down of media content. The speaker felt the current political moment perfectly mirrored the warnings laid out in this book.

"

Every few years people circulate this Carl Sagan quote from 1995, his rather uncanny prediction. It was in 1995 in the book called The Demon Haunted World.

— Episode: Tom Nichols: Our Surreal Moment

Episode: Tom Nichols: Our Surreal Moment

This book contained an uncanny prediction from Carl Sagan in 1995 about a future America where critical faculties declined, leading to a slide back into superstition and darkness due to the dumbing down of media content. The speaker felt the current political moment perfectly mirrored the warnings laid out in this book.

"

Every few years people circulate this Carl Sagan quote from 1995, his rather uncanny prediction. It was in 1995 in the book called The Demon Haunted World.

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less, the lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

Note: The book recommendations on this page are discovered automatically from podcast transcripts, and may be incorrect or incomplete.