Demon-Haunted World: Science as a

¶ … Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan Carl Sagan makes a number of astute observations in his book the Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. However, there are a few occasions on which the author misinterprets some information, its importance, and its effects upon the greater world. One of the most salient of these examples is his viewpoint on the influence of television in relation to science and its effect upon an increasingly global audience.

Within "Significance Junkies," one of the twenty five different chapters in this manuscript that consists of an independent essay (although many of them allude to points made in previous essays), the author bemoans the fact that true science, powered by skepticism and a reliance on the scientific method, is not represented on television, which instead only glorifies pseudoscience, speculation, hearsay, and a distortion of myriads of scientific facts and premises. No one can dispute this fact.

However, the author concludes that the overall impact of this distortion of science on television is that it keeps people away from this field due to its misrepresentation, effectively alienating both science and those who could potentially work in this field. On this point, Sagan is wrong.

Due to the intense amount of interest generated by the far reaching and largely preposterous claims of science on television, even greater amounts of people will become interested in independent scientific phenomena and the field in general, producing an opposite effect of what Sagan claims television is doing.

Sagan will be the first to concede that the study of true science, in many respects is boring -- based on intense scrutiny of even the most obvious seeming of facts and a skepticism that is bent on empirically testing virtually all things. Such meticulousness and the level of tediousness involved in it does not make for compelling television.

The author alludes to this fact in the following quotation, in which he presents a hypothetical situation involving one of the many pseudoscience television programs popular at the time of his writing. "If there is a mundane scientific explanation and one which requires the most extravagant paranormal or psychic explanation, you can be sure which will be highlighted" (Sagan 351). In this passage, Sagan denotes that scientific explanations are "mundane." Mundane television does not make for very many viewers.

The author would probably have readily agreed on this point, and the consequences for advertising and the potential revenue problems that boring television would inevitably bring. Yet the point that the author does not address is the positives associated with the degree of sensationalism that such pseudo-scientific programs produce. For one, they allow for a wide audience to view issues that are in some way related to science.

So what if the science is misrepresented and distorted? These programs can still serve as the gateway to the world of science for the simple fact that they assist in cultivating an interest in phenomena and occurrences that can only be fully invested via the usage of the scientific method. The programs the author mentions do not provide very many accurate answers or explanations for phenomena that can easily be explained via science.

But they generate the interest in viewers who may one day draw inspiration from such captivating, entertaining programs, and take up science in order to investigate similar occurrences. What is interesting about this point that Sagan largely misses is the fact that an alternate interpretation of some of his passages actually implies the degree of inspiration pseudoscience programs may spawn upon observers. Take the following quotation as an example. "The style-setting series 'In Search of.

.' begins with a disclaimer disavowing any responsibility to present a balanced view of the subject. You can see a thirst for wonder here tempered by even rudimentary scientific skepticism" (Sagan 350). Despite the fact that these programs are making every effort to not present a "balanced view" of the topics they cover, they still incite a "thirst" for the topic.

In fact, by producing such "wonder" regarding phenomena that is explainable via the scientific method and a skeptical approach, these programs are actually motivating readers to perform their own research and studies on these topics. Such research could certainly inspire students to pursue various aspects of science related to those depicted on television that captivate their imagination the most, and allow for them to enter that field as a result. The disclaimer even adds to this sort of result.

By readily acknowledging to viewers that there are alternate opinions and considerations related to a specific subject, the disclaimers for these pseudoscience programs are actually encouraging viewers to perform their own research -- the most prudent of which inevitably involves the scientific method. In this respect, it appears that Sagan has widely missed the overarching point and value of television in general, let alone that related to science. Television is so powerful as a medium becomes it offers a virtually unparalleled degree of exposure, perhaps only rivaled by the internet.

In that sense it matters very little whether or not the science on it is real or fabricated. It purpose in exposing viewers to a subject, which makes them aware of it and allows them to pursue their own research, is still achieved. And television is not the only such medium that has this effect on science and other topics.

Movies, Wikipedia, certain other web sites and books all serve as the basis as a starting point for true research which the most sapient of people will follow up with their own research -- inevitably leading the best of these to actual science and its methodology. In light of this fact, television programs can be excused for some of their lapses in actual science.

Star Trek, for instance, despite its technical scientific fallacies, probably did more to influence astronomers and scientists studying aliens than any book during its heyday in the 1960's and 1970's. The same is probably true of Star Wars in the 1970's and 1980's. These programs serve as the inspiration for young people, not so.