"Though he died too young, Carl Sagan left behind an impres­sive­ly large body of work, includ­ing more than 600 sci­en­tif­ic papers and more than 20 books. Of those books, none is more wide­ly known to the pub­lic - or, still, more wide­ly read by the pub­lic - than , accom­pa­nied as it was by Cos­mos: A Per­son­al Voy­age, a com­pan­ion tele­vi­sion series on PBS. Sagan's oth­er pop­u­lar books, like Shad­ows of For­got­ten Ances­tors or Con­tact (the basis of the 1997 Hol­ly­wood movie) are also well worth read­ing, but we per­haps ignore at our great­est per­il The Demon-Haunt­ed World: Sci­ence as a Can­dle in the Dark. Pub­lished in 1995, the year before Sagan's death, it stands as his tes­ta­ment to the impor­tance of crit­i­cal, sci­en­tif­ic think­ing for all of us."
"The Demon-Haunt­ed World is the sub­ject of the Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied Skep­tic video above, whose host Drew McCoy describes it as his favorite book. He pays spe­cial atten­tion to its chap­ter in which Sagan lays out what he calls his "baloney detec­tion kit." This assem­bled metaphor­i­cal box of tools for diag­nos­ing fraud­u­lent argu­ments and con­struct­ing rea­soned ones involves these nine prin­ci­ples:"
A significant scientific legacy includes hundreds of papers and many popular science works, one paired with a PBS television series. Popular science titles and films can reach wide audiences. Critical, scientific thinking is essential for everyone and requires practical tools. A nine-principle 'baloney detection kit' serves to diagnose fraudulent arguments and construct reasoned ones. Core principles include independent confirmation of facts, substantive debate by knowledgeable proponents of all viewpoints, and treating arguments from authority with skepticism because authorities can err.
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