The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Born in New York in 1929, Mack was a leading researcher in teenage suicide and drug addiction. After studying psychology at Harvard and serving the military until 1959, he practiced at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and, later, became head of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In 1977, Mack won the Pulitzer Prize for a biography of T. E. Lawrence. In 1990, he began a decade-long study of patients who reported alien abduction experiences, and his clinical experience, resume, and professional standing did much to promote the validity of these erroneous claims.

Mack wrote two very popular books detailing his conclusions that his patients had actually been abducted by aliens, which no doubt made him a prominent enough figure for Sagan’s use. Sagan’s choice of Mack, someone he had known “for years” (107), as a representative figure of a mislead scientist, is not meant to shame Mack. In fact, Sagan affirms Mack’s intellect and presents him as a highly-educated psychologist. This serves Sagan’s purpose: pointing out that any member of society, even those with advanced degrees and years of clinical practice, are vulnerable to the allures of pseudoscience when not practicing a skeptical mindset. Rather than use Sagan’s nine proactive thinking tips, Mack makes the mistake of favoring his own hypothesis while ignoring other, perhaps simpler, possibilities.

Born Frederick Bailey in 1818 to an enslaved woman in Maryland, Douglass was stripped from his mother in the first year of his life and enslaved on a nearby plantation. After escaping in 1838, Douglass used his extremely high intelligence and oratorical ability to become a national leader of the abolitionist movement, to publish three autobiographies, one of which became a bestseller, and to be appointed ambassador. Douglass is widely regarded as one of the most influential Americans of the 19th century.

Douglass's biography is ideal for Sagan’s argument. From the lowest position one could have in American society, Douglass transcended the profound injustice of being born enslaved and prevented from intellectual growth. Douglass’ insight that literacy could enable a person to rise in the world provides an essential point in Sagan’s argument. In Douglass’ case, knowledge quite literally led to freedom, enabling him to become a deeply influential figure who helped correct American attitudes towards slavery. For Sagan, Douglass is an example of a driven mind fostering a hungry self-made intellect, which, through hard work and disciplined thinking, creates a fully-formed individual. Douglass' story also carries a darker subtext; by promoting his sense of freedom and elevation in society, Sagan suggests that those who willingly look away from skeptical thinking and scientific reasoning are akin to those millions of individuals who were forced to toil and die at the hands of a culture built to oppress knowledge and occlude the natural rights owed to every human being.

Born in 1908 to an Austrian-Hungarian family, Teller earned a PhD in physics under Werner Heisenberg and was among the first enlisted in Robert Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project, playing a major part in the building of the atom bomb. In 1954, Teller generated controversy at Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing as the sole member of the scientific community who advocated for stripping Oppenheimer of his clearance. This position cost Teller his standing among scientists. Largely ostracized by intellectual and academic communities, Teller had few options but to ally with the developing military-industrial complex, which used his reputation and expertise to ramp-up production of the hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb.

Teller does not fare well in Sagan’s estimation. There is obviously personal dislike informing Sagan's opinion, yet the case Sagan makes is not against Teller himself, but against the ethical vacuity of his approach to scientific endeavor. Teller exemplifies the criticism that science is amoral and that its bounty can be used for great catastrophe; his moniker, "father of the hydrogen bomb" characterizes his disregard for ethical boundaries. But more than this, Teller's continual promotion of the use hydrogen bombs, and his amoral warmongering ignoring scientific conclusions about nuclear winter, really earn Sagan’s ire. Sagan uses Teller as an exemplar of the guilt of working in the wrong direction: Being responsible for such a horrendous weapon, Teller tried to justify its uses rather than admitting its creation was a mistake. In the book, Teller cuts a sad figure, one lost in guilt and delusion, having achieved nothing but horror and death for the human race.