Topic > "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection" by Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan writer of the article, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection", reflects on the idea of ​​a supernatural reunion. Carl Sagan says he can feel this connection he has with his deceased parents as if they were still with him and not dead The only thing we say as overwhelming awareness is trying to face one's own death, especially loved ones We humans make the mistake of not admitting that we have lost someone or that someone is gone and won't come back to us. Say No to Plagiarism Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned” Get an Original Essay To further emphasize his point, Sagan introduces some others. scholarly writers who share their point of view. Gan in his article does not willingly believe in mediums who claim to channel the spirits of the deceased. He is aware that the practice is full of fraudulent mediums who prey on people who want to believe their loved ones he will speak to them from beyond the grave. He uses the example of another scholar named JC Knight, who supposedly channels a 35,000-year-old person named Rathma. He doesn't believe anyone except what Knight says because he thinks Knight must be telling the truth. His argument is that if we were truly talking to the deceased, why wouldn't they provide us with verifiable information? For example, why doesn't Alexander the Great tell us where his tomb is? John Wilkes Booth tells us about the Lincoln assassination plot? He feels that people want to believe in mediums because it would mean there is life after death, or eternal life. British scientist JBS Haldane proposed a type of eternal life called "Haldane's Consolation" (p. 2). He imagined a distant future in which the stars will darken and space will be filled with a thin, cold gas whose density will fluctuate over a long period of time. Over “immense periods of time” the fluctuations will reconstruct a universe very similar to ours (Haldane, pg2). If the Universe is infinitely old, there will be infinite reconstitutions. This would mean that there would be an infinite number of appearances of stars, planets, galaxies and life, so an identical Earth would have to reappear upon which we and our deceased loved ones would be reunited (Haldane, pg2). Sagan said that if that were to happen, he might see his parents again and again, but he believes it is not as comforting as religion. But if we don't remember our last life, how will we be able to remember this life next time? Sagan tells the reader that his parents are deceased and he wants to believe that they somehow still exist, somewhere. He wonders how they are doing and sometimes dreams that they are still alive only to wake up and cry over their death again. He understands why someone would visit their deceased in a cemetery and talk to them as if they were there. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Over a third of Americans feel they have contacted the deceased on some level. He says scientists are given a “nonsense detection kit” during training. If the new idea passes the kit's dumb tests, it may be accepted, but not as a definitive idea forever. Some of the tools are independent confirmations of the facts. Encourage debate among informed supporters of the idea, do not accept the opinion of the "authorities". They may not be experts, and even experts can be wrong. Formulate more than just a hypothesis because yours could be proven wrong or become stronger. Don't get attached to a hypothesis because it's yours. Disprove it if you can because others will. Quantify what you can so that it has a measure to compare and contrast with other hypotheses. If.