Chapter 10: The dragon in my garage

Please use this thread for discussing Chapter 10: The dragon in my garage.

You know, whilst I found this chapter interesting wrt the effect of the patient on the psychologist, it has occurred to me that Sagan is using ridiculous examples to prove his point. Even the title of this chapter 'The Dragon in My Garage'.....am I alone in feeling a little insulted?

What is with all this alien nonsense. Why is he banging on about alien abduction, in the form of little green men....It is easy to ridicule this form of mental turmoil. It is pathetic.

Of course we can demand proof, in the form of photographs and artifacts, of people who are convinced of having encountered UFOs and alien life. Of course it sounds delusional.

All psychic phenomena should not be lumped along with the little green men. It is as though Sagan feels that if he convinces us that alien abduction is bunkum, then all the rest of super-natural occurences will be debunked too.

If alien abductions are an hallucination....he is insinuating that all the rest is hallucination. At least Richard Dawkins had the grace to call it the 'God Delusion'.

I think Geo pointed out that it Sagan may be harping on and on about Alien abduction because of the context of the time the book was written.

I just looked - Copyright 1996.

I don't remember there being an alien abduction craze in 1996
I think that all happened in the mid/late 70s.

Sagan seems to have this odd childlike fascination with little green men and is using it to discount all psychic and other unexplained phenomena. Maybe it's some form of shame that has carried over into his adult life - the big, famous, brilliant scientist used to believe in little green men, so now he is on a public crusade to rid the world of aliens, ghosts, and demons. but it's really all about self administered therapy for Sagan.

I just started this chapter, so I'll have to wait and see what he will be harping on about now.

The last chapter I thought was pretty good. I recall the false memory accounts in therapy that he discussed.

Other than being a popularizer and promoter of skepticism, as a scientist, what exactly were Sagan's scientific achievements?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan


If you read through wiki (and other sites) his work seems to have a significant slant toward finding little green men.

In this chapter, Sagan writes:

Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same things as proving it true

Interesting.

How does one go about invalidating the hypothesis, "Alien intelligence exists in the universe"

I can't invalidate that hypothesis, Mr. Sagan. The entire universe needs to be searched.
Does that make your hypothesis true?

What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so

- Sagan

Yes. That's exactly what SETI is doing. Searching the cosmos for aliens that might be attempting to contact us, on the say-so of Sagan (and a few scientists), without evidence.

we "believe"

ant wrote:Yes. That's exactly what SETI is doing. Searching the cosmos for aliens that might be attempting to contact us, on the say-so of Sagan (and a few scientists), without evidence.

we "believe"

I believe SETI is searching the cosmos for aliens that might be attempting to contact us, and I don't need the say-so of Sagan to believe it. Because that's what they're doing. That doesn't mean aliens exist. It simply means SETI searching for evidence that they exist.

Although I may be misunderstanding you, I don't see an issue.

ant wrote:I can't invalidate that hypothesis, Mr. Sagan. The entire universe needs to be searched.
Does that make your hypothesis true?

No, that's not at all the same thing as proving it true.

To me, its the final sentence of this chapter that is the key point. Its all about the people right hear on Earth being the more interesting story than often fantastical stories proclaimed. What is it that motivates people to fantastical proclamations?

Assuming there is a well meaning nature and intent behind the fantastical claims of UFO's and the like, the stories are just stories, usually failing a test of logic, its all matter of fact, there is no hyperbole on the part of CS as skeptic.

Sagan slams home with repetition an insistence that we the people should not be gullible, that we should always seek to understand to the full extent of our abilities, that with which we are confronted, especially the fantastical, nothing wrong with that is there?, I don't see him as attempting to insult but to inform.

He doesn't insist that we not appreciate the ideas some people propose, rather he demonstrates that we should welcome all idea's no matter the strangeness possessed while at the same time scrutinizing with logic. Not a bad thing to browbeat into the minds of Earthlings.

Compare this:

ant wrote:

What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so

- Sagan

Yes. That's exactly what SETI is doing. Searching the cosmos for aliens that might be attempting to contact us, on the say-so of Sagan (and a few scientists), without evidence.
we "believe"

With this:

ant wrote:By they way.., I personally think there life "out there" and I do support SETI.

The most vociferous arguments frequently occur when participants actually agree with each another. (And, more frequently than you'd expect, when one person disagrees with him or herself.)