Rather, like Sagan’s first book THE COSMIC CONNECTION, it’s composed partially of pieces originally published separately, in magazines or newspapers, making the book instead a collection of essays around a common theme, and perhaps inevitably giving some topics more attention than you might think they deserve. Rereading it now, I have to temper my assessment just a tad it’s a less than perfect book, because it’s not a single sustained thesis and development leading to an overall conclusion. I first read it in 1996, not long after it was published. And there are ways in which the ideals of science and democracy align. Furthermore, there are psychological reasons for why people are attracted to pseudo-science (and religion) and put off by real science. That theme, essentially, is that given the prevalence of pseudo-scientific claims in modern society (in the 1990s alien abductions were a popular theme) science is the methodology for determining what’s real and what’s bunk.
a major book of central importance for its discussion of a critical theme. This is a book I think of as one of my foundational nonfiction books, i.e.
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