Carl Sagan e 2012

Carl Sagan falou bastante sobre a superstição.
Obviamente que os argumentos a favor do Mundo acabar em 2012 enquadram-se aqui.

Leiam o “Kit de Detecção de Disparates” (Baloney Detection Kit) do Carl Sagan, clicando aqui.

Nas palavras de Carl Sagan:
“If we capitulate to superstition, or greed, or stupidity we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance.”

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
“Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?”
“Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our own ignorance about ourselves.”
“At the extremes it is difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from rigid, doctrinaire religion.”
“If we’re capable of conjuring up terrifying monsters in childhood, why shouldn’t some of us, at least on occasion, be able to fantasize something similar, something truly horrifying, a shared delusion, as adults?”
“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.”
“One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and – while the events of that year were certainly of some importance – the world did not, at least so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, Oh, did we say ‘1914’? So sorry, we meant ‘2014’. A slight error in calculation. Hope you weren’t inconvinenced in any way. But they did not. They could have said, Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and interceded with God so He spared the Earth. But they did not. Instead, they did something much more ingenious. They announced that the world had in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn’t noticed, that was our lookout. It is astonishing in the fact of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.”
“Skeptical scrutiny is the means by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”
“You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe.”
“I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.”
“Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.”