Demon Haunted World Book Report

845 Words2 Pages

The Demon Haunted World is a collection of scientific explanations written by Carl Sagan. Sagan is a famous astronomer who has written many books. Sagan is known for having very strong and pointed opinions that come across as offensive to some people. These strong opinions are very evident in his books. In his book the Demon Haunted World, he used his strong opinions to invalidate the most popular pseudoscience. This is one of the reasons that I choose to read this book . I believe in some pseudoscience, so I was interested in hearing the counterargument to these heavily debated topics.
Sagan starts his story by talking about the troubling fact that so many people in this world are scientifically illiterate. It is estimated that 95% of people are scientifically …show more content…

There are many different topics that are related to aliens. For example; crop circles, abductions, strange lights, mysterious marks on the body, and forced sexual experiments are all attributed to aliens. Sagan spends the next half of the book explaining how these claims are irrational and giving are more logical reasoning other than aliens. Crop circles are just teens playing a prank on farmers. Abductions are mass hallucinations that are implanted in people's heads by social media. Strange lights are planes or natural astronomical events.Mysterious marks are people who unknowingly mutilate themselves. The forced sexual experiments are stories made up by rape victims who are in denial. After Sagan had fully disproved every potential alien theory, he went on to talk about a very old type of pseudoscience, witchcraft. Witchcraft is a classic example of a small group of people taking advantage of the easily moldable minds of the a group of people. The punishment for being a witch was being executed. So, if someone didn’t like someone or wanted them dead they would just say they were a witch. There was no

Show More
Related

  • The Devil in Massachusetts Book Review

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Salem witch craft trials are the most learned about and notable of Europe's and North America's witch hunts. Its notoriety and fame comes from the horrendous amount of people that were not only involved, but killed in the witch hunt and that it took place in the late 1700's being one of the last of all witch hunts. The witch craft crises blew out of control for several reasons. Firstly, Salem town was facing hard economic times along with disease and famine making it plausible that the only explanation of the town's despoilment was because of witches and the devil. As well, with the stimulation of the idea of witch's from specific constituents of the town and adolescent boredom the idea of causing entertainment among the town was an ever intriguing way of passing time.

    Read More

  • The Devil in the White City by Erick Larson

    980 Words  | 2 Pages

    The pair of twins sat down in their homeroom class. One was gentle and charming, and the other was intelligent and had a great future in store. Being twins one would think they were very alike but secretly they were different. Sitting in homeroom no classmate would think that they were sitting next to a new definition of evil. In The Devil in the White City by Erick Larson, he decides to include different styles of ambition and appearance vs. reality to illustrate, that ambition can break one or make one and everything is not what it seems. Larson’s style is to add to irreverent stories together so that the two major protagonists highlight each other’s traits, one trait is their ambition. Both Holmes and Burnham are ambitious but in two different ways, which shows that ambition can make one or break one. How do they have different ambitions? Take their jobs as an example Burnham is an architect and Holmes is a doctor. When one has different jobs one strives for different things. Burnham in the novel strived for the Chicago’s World’s Exposition be more striking that the Exposition in Paris, as expressed by him saying, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die” (Larson 1). By him saying “no little plans” he is trying to explain that the Exposition could have no limits. His vision is to create a “White City” and was going to accomplished that no matter what. His great ambition was to surpass Paris and at the end he did but Holmes had different plans. Burnham thought that if he made a grand and huge exposition Chicago would always be remembered as a White City...

    Read More

  • The Devil In The Form Of A Woman By Carol Karlsen

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Devil in the Form of a woman by Carol Karlsen details the particular treacheries towards several women of all ages inside colonial The us. This particular thought ended up being created by the male driven culture of the Puritans.. Other than as an evident disciple to the activist institution connected with traditional imagined, the girl delicate factors the particular criticalness connected with witchcraft allegations for ladies inside New England. She contends for that relevance and criticalness connected with women's areas in the devouring madness connected with witchcraft inside seventeenth century United States. She unobtrusively states that many diversions were being used to mince away witchcraft practices along with the publication of material describing the matter. This describes that a certain type of woman gambled denunciation away from scope to help the woman group gain correct portrayal in the public forum.

    Read More

  • Supernatural Traditions: The Demonological Method

    115 Words  | 1 Pages

    Supernatural traditions was basically people in the “sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” (Dr.Heffner) who believed that the reason somebody was acting different was the doing of the devil, the supernatural tradition is also known as the “demonological method” (Dr.Heffner) during the stone age they would perform some type of surgery, where they would cut open the victim’s skull and drain the evil spirits out of there brain, “Ancient Chinese, Ancient Egyptians, and Hebrews, believed that these were evil demons or spirits and advocated exorcism” (Dr.Heffner) if after the exorcism the victim still did not show and improvements, the victim was then torture to leave them with a body that was no use for the evil

    Read More

  • Devil's Den Research Paper

    1788 Words  | 4 Pages

    Catastrophe strikes in Gettysburg are both Union and Confederate soldiers alike are slaughtered by the thousands. Seven soldiers lie dead at the infamous Devil’s Den after the battle of Gettysburg, with their Springfield rifles and hats lying next to their contorted and lifeless bodies. These men came from all across the nation to fight in the Battle of Gettysburg; New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Georgia. Taking control of Devil’s Den during the second day of the battle, July 2nd became a priority for both sides, as its boulders give an excellent position to sharpshooters looking to take out officers over long distance. The cover provided by the large boulders also resulted in close quarter combat, brutal up close bayonet and hand to hand

    Read More

  • A Conspiracy Phenomenon: Alien Abductions in the U.S.

    3012 Words  | 7 Pages

    Conspiracy theories about alien abductions vary from the almost plausible-that the government allows aliens to research humankind in exchange for advanced technology, to the profoundly ridiculous-that Elvis was abducted by rock and roll loving aliens. UFO's and alien abduction are thoroughly imbedded in popular US culture that, as we shall see, they are really a part of how it developed and grew. By investigating the story narrative of alien abduction accounts we can trace their possible origins in ancient folklore and mythology, and recognise how they have influenced both conspiracy theorists and popular media to become one of the most familiar parts of conspiracy culture in America. Aliens and related conspiracy theories have a symbiotic relationship to American culture; the interest begins in natural human hopes and fears, which inspires a literature, which encourages alleged witnesses to validate the stories. Next there are calls for an explanation of these strange occurrences so conspiracy theorists drive the stories deeper into American culture, involving other aspects, such as major religi...

    Read More

  • The Ghost Of Bloody Mary

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    aranormal activity has been a cause of fear and excitement throughout history. The unknown attracts the curiosity from those who wonder whether the supernatural is real or a figment of the imagination. Ghosts are one of the supernatural beings whose existence is questioned every day. Many want to deny the existence of ghosts because they are terrified of other phantoms who may exist and ignore the evidence that has been brought forth throughout the years. However, ghosts are supernatural pheromones whose existence still impacts today’s society.

    Read More

  • Fighting That Old Devil Rumor by Sandra Salmans

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    An article from October 1982 “Fighting That Old Devil Rumor” by Sandra Salmans from the Saturday Evening Post talks about what Procter and gamble did to stop a rumor about them that would not go away back in 1982. What is the Purpose of this article though. The purpose is to show how fast rumors can spread, and what they can do to a company. It also shows that the company will fight back in order to keep a positive image, and to help dispense the rest of the rumor. If they are trying to dispense the rest of the rumor they are probably trying to reach adults who are 25 years and older , that are also married. In this respect of the attended audience this article succeeds. Salmans main points throughout this article get through to the intended audience, but more than that what Salmans says throughout the article helps as well. With those two points in mind that is what I use throughout this paper to analyze the article. One of the merits going for the article is when it provides an example of this rumor situation happening to another company. Then later on in the article when Procter and Gamble take charge and start suing people Salmans tells exactly who the people are. Back at the beginning of the article Salmans talks about all the different companies that Procter and Gamble own showing you how severe the situation was.

    Read More

  • An Acquaintance with Darkness by Ann Rinaldi

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ann Rinaldi has written many books for young teenagers, she is an Award winning author who writes stories of American history and makes them become real to the readers. She has written many other books such as… A Break with Charity, A Ride into Morning, and Cast two Shadows, etc. She was born in New York City on August 27, 1934. In 1979, at the age of 45, she finished her first book.

    Read More

  • Demonology Vs Demonology

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    Incidents of Humanity that cannot solve events using logic and scientific reasoning always turn towards the supernatural for an explanation. Yet when looking at the supernatural reasoning you dwell into reasons that always give an answer to the unknown. This is seen today when someone passes away or objects move from one point to another that defies the laws of science that humanity has grown a custom too. When looking at the supernatural you have a range of beliefs that vary from ghosts to demons. Every culture and religion has there own views on how to interact with the supernatural.

    Read More

  • The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

    1455 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most people are very convinced that they have memories of past experiences because of the event itself or the bigger picture of the experience. According to Ulric Neisser, memories focus on the fact that the events outlined at one level of analysis may be components of other, larger events (Rubin 1). For instance, one will only remember receiving the letter of admission as their memory of being accepted into the University of Virginia. However, people do not realize that it is actually the small details that make up their memories. What make up the memory of being accepted into the University of Virginia are the hours spent on writing essays, the anxiety faced due to fear of not making into the university and the happiness upon hearing your admission into the school; these small details are very important in creating memories of this experience. If people’s minds are preset on merely thinking that memories are the general idea of their experiences, memories become very superficial and people will miss out on what matters most in life. Therefore, in “The Amityville Horror”, Jay Anson deliberately includes small details that are unnecessary in the story to prove that only memory can give meaning to life.

    Read More

  • Cinema Fiction Vs Physics Reality

    1917 Words  | 4 Pages

    The article “Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality: Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies”, written by Costas J. Efthimiou and Sohang Gandhi. The authors try to explain or prove that ghosts, vampires and zombies do not exist through scientific methods and explanations. The authors main argument to show that these claim are false, they say” we point out inconsistencies associated with the ghost, vampire, and zombie mythologies as portrayed in popular films and folklore and give practical explanations to some of their features” (Efthimiou and Gandhi “Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality: Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies”) Their argument is obvious that they will point out the

    Read More

  • The Raven and The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe

    1479 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” (“The Raven” 1). “The Raven” arguably one of the most famous poems by Edgar Allan Poe, is a narrative about a depressed man longing for his lost love. Confronted by a talking raven, the man slowly loses his sanity. “The Haunted Palace” a ballad by Poe is a brilliant and skillfully crafted metaphor that compares a palace to a human skull and mind. A palace of opulence slowly turns into a dilapidated ruin. This deterioration is symbolic of insanity and death. In true Poe style, both “The Raven” and “The Haunted Palace” are of the gothic/dark romanticism genre. These poems highlight sadness, death, and loss. As to be expected, an analysis of the poems reveals differences and parallels. An example of this is Poe’s use of poetic devices within each poem. Although different in structure, setting, and symbolism these two poems show striking similarities in tone and theme.

    Read More

  • Carl Sagan

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sagan's first experiences with writing came at the University of Chicago, where he received both his master's and his doctorate's degrees. These first encounters came in the form of scientific writings for professional journals, such as Icarus. His first scientific paper (which would later be reproduced in a Time-Life book, Planets) dealt with the theory that the surface of the planet Venus was very hot and dry, something that was not known to scientists at that time. Sagan began to gain recognition in his field and eventually became a full professor at Cornell, where he continued to publish many more scientific papers.

    Read More

  • The Haunted House

    695 Words  | 2 Pages

    a dull grey colour as if it had lost the will to live and stopped

    Read More

More about Demon Haunted World Book Report

Open Document