I enjoyed this chapter, (though there has not been one yet I found to be unenjoyable) I find sometimes that I may be a less sophisticated reader than others, because its not always clear to me how the tone of the threads relate to the chapter or chapters.
I find Carl Sagan's tone is not one of a trumpeter of science but of deference to topics he is very clearly familiar with, His delivery, is to me, a guileless message of what appears as simple truth, I don't want to be the person who falls for superstition's and or pseudoscience's, If the truth or reality can be reduced to the simplest terms, I'm all for it.

I think his message is guileless, in that I don't think he is deliberately trying to mislead us. But verily, the truth is not simple!! I don't know why we use that idiom 'simple truth'. It's like saying 'innocent bystanders'. One can be very guilty of standing by and just watching......nothing innocent at all at some times.

So the truth or reality can't be explained or reduced to simple terms. If we try to simplify we mislead. Higher mathematics and formulae are extremely complicated and unless one is a mathematician, we cannot understand them and so we must take on in 'faith' what the scientists tell us, and of course theories need to be adjusted from time to time after more research and development.

Superstition is ignorant and is to be deplored. But I did take umbrage at all the categories which he lumped together as pseudoscience. He could not have investigated all of them thoroughly and so he wasn't in a position to state as fact.....that which he could only possibly hold as opinion.

However, it makes for interesting discussion. No good having a discussion and all saying, 'Good Book that', 'Yeah, good book'.