The Demon Haunted World Part 20

The system founded by Jefferson, Madison and their colleagues offers means of expression to those who do not understand its origins and wish to replace it by something very different. For example, Tom Clark, Attorney General and therefore chief law enforcement officer of the United States, in 1948 offered this suggestion: 'Those who do not believe in the ideology of the United States shall not be allowed to stay in the United States.' But if there is one key and characteristic US ideology, it is that there are no mandatory and no forbidden ideologies. Some more recent 1990s cases: John Brockhoeft, in jail for bombing an abortion clinic in Cincinnati, wrote, in a 'pro-life' newsletter:

I'm a very narrow-minded, intolerant, reactionary, Bible-thumping fundamentalist ... a zealot and fanatic... The reason the United States was once a great nation, besides being blessed by G.o.d, is because she was founded on truth, justice, and narrow-mindedness.

Randall Terry, founder of 'Operation Rescue', an organization that blockades abortion clinics, told a congregation in August 1993:

Let a wave of intolerance wash over you... Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation... We are called by G.o.d to conquer this country... We don't want pluralism.

The expression of such views is protected, and properly so, under the Bill of Rights, even if those protected would abolish the Bill of Rights if they got the chance. The protection for the rest of us is to use that same Bill of Rights to get across to every citizen the indispensability of the Bill of Rights.

What means to protect themselves against human fallibility, what error-protection machinery do these alternative doctrines and inst.i.tutions offer? An infallible leader? Race? Nationalism? Wholesale disengagement from civilization, except for explosives and automatic weapons? How can they be sure - sure - especially in the darkness of the twentieth century? Don't they need candles? especially in the darkness of the twentieth century? Don't they need candles?

In his celebrated little book, On Liberty, On Liberty, the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is 'a peculiar evil'. If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the 'opportunity of exchanging error for truth'; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in 'its collision with error'. If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that; it becomes stale, soon learned only by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth. the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is 'a peculiar evil'. If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the 'opportunity of exchanging error for truth'; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in 'its collision with error'. If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that; it becomes stale, soon learned only by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.

Mill also wrote, 'If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up as mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame.' Jefferson made the same point even more strongly: 'If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.' In a letter to Madison, he continued the thought: 'A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.'

When permitted to listen to alternative opinions and engage in substantive debate, people have been known to change their minds. It can happen. For example, Hugo Black, in his youth, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan; he later became a Supreme Court justice and was one of the leaders in the historic Supreme Court decisions, partly based on the 14th Amendment to the Const.i.tution, that affirmed the civil rights of all Americans: it was said that when he was a young man, he dressed up in white robes and scared black folks; when he got older, he dressed up in black robes and scared white folks.

In matters of criminal justice, the Bill of Rights recognizes the temptation that may be felt by pblice, prosecutors and the judiciary to intimidate witnesses and expedite punishment. The criminal-justice system is fallible: innocent people might be punished for crimes they did not commit; governments are perfectly capable of framing those who, for reasons unconnected with the purported crime, they do not like. So the Bill of Rights protects defendants. A kind of cost-benefit a.n.a.lysis is made. The guilty may on occasion be set free so that the innocent will not be punished. This is not only a moral virtue; it also inhibits the misuse of the criminal-justice system to suppress unpopular opinions or despised minorities. It is part of the error-correction machinery.

New ideas, invention and creativity in general, always spearhead a kind of freedom, a breaking out from hobbling constraints. Freedom is a prerequisite for continuing the delicate experiment of science which is one reason the Soviet Union could not remain a totalitarian state and be technologically compet.i.tive. At the same time, science - or rather its delicate mix of openness and scepticism, and its encouragement of diversity and debate - is a prerequisite for continuing the delicate experiment of freedom in an industrial and highly technological society.

Once you questioned the religious insistence on the prevailing view that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe, why should you accept the repeated and confident a.s.sertions by religious leaders that G.o.d sent kings to rule over us? In the seventeenth century, it was easy to whip English and Colonial juries into a frenzy over this impiety or that heresy. They were willing to torture people to death for their beliefs. By the late eighteenth century, they weren't so sure.

Rossiter again (from Seedtime of the Republic, Seedtime of the Republic, 1953): 1953): Under the pressure of the American environment, Christianity grew more humanistic and temperate - more tolerant with the struggle of the sects, more liberal with the growth of optimism and rationalism, more experimental with the rise of science, more individualistic with the advent of democracy. Equally important, increasing numbers of colonists, as a legion of preachers loudly lamented, were turning secular in curiosity and skeptical in att.i.tude.

The Bill of Rights uncoupled religion from the state, in part because so many religions were steeped in an absolutist frame of mind, each convinced that it alone had a monopoly on the truth and therefore eager for the state to impose this truth on others. Often, the leaders and pract.i.tioners of absolutist religions were unable to perceive any middle ground or recognize that the truth might draw upon and embrace apparently contradictory doctrines. The framers of the Bill of Rights had before them the example of England, where the ecclesiastical crime of heresy and the secular crime of treason had become nearly indistinguishable. Many of the early colonists had come to America fleeing religious persecution, although some of them were perfectly happy to persecute other people for their their beliefs. The founders of our nation recognized that a close relation between the government and any of the quarrelsome religions would be fatal to freedom - beliefs. The founders of our nation recognized that a close relation between the government and any of the quarrelsome religions would be fatal to freedom -and injurious to religion. Justice Black (in the Supreme Court decision injurious to religion. Justice Black (in the Supreme Court decision Engel v. Vitale, Engel v. Vitale, 1962) described the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment this way: 1962) described the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment this way: Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion.

Moreover, here too the separation of powers works. Each sect and cult, as Walter Savage Landor once noted, is a moral check on the others: 'Compet.i.tion is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.' But the price is high: This compet.i.tion is an impediment to religious bodies acting in concert to address the common good. Rossiter concludes:

the twin doctrines of separation of church and state and liberty of individual conscience are the marrow of our democracy, if not indeed America's most magnificent contribution to the freeing of Western man.

Now it's no good to have such rights if they're not used - a right of free speech when no one contradicts the government, freedom of the press when no one is willing to ask the tough questions, a right of a.s.sembly when there are no protests, universal suffrage when less than half the electorate votes, separation of church arfd state when the wall of separation is not regularly repaired. Through disuse they can become no more than votive objects, patriotic lip-service. Rights and freedoms: use 'em or lose 'em.

Due to the foresight of the framers of the Bill of Rights - and even more so to all those who, at considerable personal risk, insisted on exercising those rights - it's hard now to bottle up free speech. School library committees, the immigration service, the police, the FBI or the ambitious politician looking to score cheap votes, may attempt it from time to time, but sooner or later the cork pops. The Const.i.tution is, after all, the law of the land, public officials are sworn to uphold it, and activists and the courts episodically hold their feet to the fire.

However, through lowered educational standards, declining intellectual competence, diminished zest for substantive debate, and social sanctions against scepticism, our liberties can be slowly eroded and our rights subverted. The founders understood this well: 'The time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united,' said Thomas Jefferson.

From the conclusion of this [Revolutionary] war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, 'til our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.

Education on the value of free speech and the other freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights, about what happens when you don't have them, and about how to exercise and protect them, should be an essential prerequisite for being an American citizen -or the citizen of any nation, the more so to the degree that such rights remain unprotected. If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.

Acknowledgements

It has been my great pleasure over many years to teach a Senior Seminar on Critical Thinking at Cornell University. I've been able to select students from all over the University on the basis both of ability, and of cultural and disciplinary diversity. We stress written a.s.signments and oral argumentation. Towards the end of the course, students select a range of wildly controversial social issues in which they have major emotional investments. Paired two-by-two they prepare for a succession of end-of-semester oral debates. A few weeks before the debates, however, they are informed that it is the task of each to present the point of view of the opponent in a way that's satisfactory to the opponent - so the opponent will say, 'Yes, that's a fair presentation of my views.' In the joint written debate they explore their differences, but also how the debate process has helped them better to understand the opposing point of view. Some of the topics in this book were first presented to these students; I have learned much from their reception and criticism of my ideas, and want to thank them here. I'm also grateful to Cornell's Department of Astronomy, and its Chair, Yervant Terzian, for permitting me to teach the course, which, although labelled Astronomy 490, presents only a little astronomy.

Some of this book has also been presented in Parade Parade magazine, a supplement to Sunday newspapers all over North America, with some 83 million readers each week. The vigorous feedback I've received from magazine, a supplement to Sunday newspapers all over North America, with some 83 million readers each week. The vigorous feedback I've received from Parade Parade readers has greatly enhanced my understanding of the issues described in this book and the variety of public att.i.tudes. I have in several places excerpted some of my mail from readers has greatly enhanced my understanding of the issues described in this book and the variety of public att.i.tudes. I have in several places excerpted some of my mail from Parade Parade readers which, it seems to me, has provided a kind of finger on the pulse of the citizenry of the United States. The Editor-in-Chief of readers which, it seems to me, has provided a kind of finger on the pulse of the citizenry of the United States. The Editor-in-Chief of Parade, Parade, Walter Anderson, and the Senior Editor, David Currier, as well as the editorial and research staff of this remarkable magazine have in many cases greatly improved my presentation. They also have permitted opinions to be expressed that might not have made it into print in ma.s.s-market publications less dedicated to the First Amendment of the US Const.i.tution. Some portions of the text first appeared in Walter Anderson, and the Senior Editor, David Currier, as well as the editorial and research staff of this remarkable magazine have in many cases greatly improved my presentation. They also have permitted opinions to be expressed that might not have made it into print in ma.s.s-market publications less dedicated to the First Amendment of the US Const.i.tution. Some portions of the text first appeared in The Was.h.i.+ngton Post The Was.h.i.+ngton Post and and The New York Times. The New York Times. The last chapter is based in part on an address I had the pleasure of delivering on 4 July 1992 from the East Portico at Monticello - the 'back of the nickel' - on the occasion of the induction to US citizens.h.i.+p of people from thirty-one other nations. The last chapter is based in part on an address I had the pleasure of delivering on 4 July 1992 from the East Portico at Monticello - the 'back of the nickel' - on the occasion of the induction to US citizens.h.i.+p of people from thirty-one other nations.

My opinions on democracy, the method of science and public education have been influenced by enormous numbers of people over the years, many of whom I mention in the body of the text. But I would like to single out here the inspiration I have received from Martin Gardner, Isaac Asimov, Philip Morrison and Henry Steele Commager. There is not room to thank the many others who have helped provide understanding and lucid examples, or who have corrected errors of omission or commission, but I want them all to know how deeply grateful I am to them. I must however explicitly thank the following friends and colleagues for critically reviewing earlier drafts of this book: Bill Aldridge; Susan Blackmore; William Cromer; Fred Frankel; Kendrick Frazier; Martin Gardner; Ira Gla.s.ser; Fred Golden; Kurt Gottfried; Lester Grinspoon; Philip Kla.s.s; Paul Kurtz; Elizabeth Loftus; David Morrison; Richard Ofshe; Jay Orear; Albert Pennybacker; Frank Press; Theodore Roszak; Dorion Sagan; David Saperstein; Robert Seiple; Steven Soter; Jeremy Stone; Peter Sturrock and Yervant Terzian.

I also am very grateful to my literary agent, Morton Janklow, and members of his staff for wise counsel; Roger Houghton, my editor at Headline Book Publis.h.i.+ng; William Barnett for ushering the ma.n.u.script through its final phases; Andrea Barnett, Laurel Parker, Karenn Gobrecht, Cindi Vita Vogel, Ginny Ryan and Christopher Ruser for their a.s.sistance; and the Cornell Library system, including the rare books collection on mysticism and superst.i.tion originally compiled by the University's first president, Andrew d.i.c.kson White.

Parts of four of the chapters in this book were written with my wife and long-time collaborator, Ann Druyan, who is also the elected Secretary of the Federation of American Scientists - an organization founded in 1945 by the original Manhattan Project scientists to monitor the ethical use of science and high technology. She has also provided enormously helpful guidance, suggestions and criticism on content and style throughout the book and at every stage of writing it over the course of nearly a decade. I have learned from her more than I can say. I know how lucky I am to find in the same person someone whose advice and judgement, sense of humour and courageous vision I so much admire, who is also the love of my life.

About the Author.

Dr Carl Sagan is a recent recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences (for 'distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare ... No one has ever succeeded in conveying the wonder, excitement and joy of science as widely as Carl Sagan and few as well. His ability to capture the imagination of millions and to explain difficult concepts in understandable terms is a magnificent achievement').

A Pulitzer Prize winner, Dr Sagan is the author of many bestsellers, including Cosmos, Cosmos, which became the most widely read science book ever published in the English language. The accompanying Emmy and Peabody award-winning television series became the most widely watched series in the history of American television until then, and has now been seen by 500 million people in 60 countries. He is currently the David Ducan Professor of Astronomy and s.p.a.ce Sciences at Cornell University; Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Inst.i.tute of Technology; and co-founder and president of The Planetary Society, the largest s.p.a.ce-interest group in the world. which became the most widely read science book ever published in the English language. The accompanying Emmy and Peabody award-winning television series became the most widely watched series in the history of American television until then, and has now been seen by 500 million people in 60 countries. He is currently the David Ducan Professor of Astronomy and s.p.a.ce Sciences at Cornell University; Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Inst.i.tute of Technology; and co-founder and president of The Planetary Society, the largest s.p.a.ce-interest group in the world.

Dr Sagan has played a leading role in the American s.p.a.ce programme since its inception, and in solving many enigmas about the planets.

The American a.s.sociation of Physics Teachers, in giving him its Oersted Medal, included the following citation: 'Carl Sagan has... acknowledged the responsibility of the scientist to call to the public's attention important and difficult national policy issues related to science such as the arms race, nuclear proliferation, and environmental concerns like the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer. As a debater who acted always in a thoughtful manner towards those with contrary views, he has sought to raise the intellectual and moral level of the discussion and greatly increased the public's awareness of these vital issues... The Oersted Medal, given for notable contributions to the teaching of physics, is the highest honor the A APT can bestow on an individual. Carl Sagan, master communicator and teacher in the broadest and deepest sense of the word, brings honor to the award.'

Canada's Queens University, in presenting Dr Sagan with one of his twenty-two honorary degrees, commented: '[Carl Sagan is an] awesomely gifted astrophysicist and arguably science's best living literary stylist ... As readers, we appreciate his implicit confidence in our intelligence and interest, his illuminating insights and his playful wit. As a community of scholars, we acknowledge with admiration his relentless pursuit of the really big questions... and the twin philosophies by which he lives and teaches: that "Science is never finished" and that "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers."