"Perhaps one per cent of the time, someone who has an idea that smells, feels and looks indistinguishable from the usual run of pseudoscience will turn out to be right. Maybe some undiscovered reptile left over from the Cretaceous period will indeed be found in Loch Ness or the Congo Republic; or we will find artefacts of an advanced, non-human species elsewhere in the solar system. At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers; (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images 'projected' at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation. I pick these claims not because I think they're likely to be valid (I don't), but as examples of contentions that might be true. The last three have at least some, although still dubious, experimental support. Of course, I could be wrong."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Science fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesAgnostics from the United StatesScience authors from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. 17 : The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"We live in a complex age where many of the problems we face can, whatever their origins, only have solutions that inv…"
"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every s…"
"Imagine, a room, awash in gasoline. And there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has 9,000 matches.…"
"It is important to distinguish between the amount of information and the quality of that information."
"There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that the…"
"It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligen…"
"We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that alm…"
"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny …"
"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," a…"
"Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pre…"