The Demon-Haunted World_ Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan [31]
In the 1990s the tabloid universe is expanding, voraciously gobbling up other media. Newspapers, magazines or television programmes that labour under prissy restraints imposed by what is actually known are outsold by media outlets with less scrupulous standards. We can see this in the new generation of acknowledged tabloid television, and increasingly in what passes for news and information programmes.
Such reports persist and proliferate because they sell. And they sell, I think, because there are so many of us who want so badly to be jolted out of our humdrum lives, to rekindle that sense of wonder we remember from childhood, and also, for a few of the stories, to be able, really and truly, to believe in Someone older, smarter and wiser who is looking out for us. Faith is clearly not enough for many people. They crave hard evidence, scientific proof. They long for the scientific seal of approval, but are unwilling to put up with the rigorous standards of evidence that impart credibility to that seal. What a relief it would be: doubt reliably abolished! Then, the irksome burden of looking after ourselves would be lifted. We’re worried - and for good reason -about what it means for the human future if we have only ourselves to rely upon.
These are the modern miracles, shamelessly vouched for by those who make them up from scratch, bypassing any formal sceptical scrutiny, and available at low cost in every supermarket, grocery store and convenience outlet in the land. One of the pretences of the tabloids is to make science, the very instrument of our disbelief, confirm our ancient faiths and effect a convergence of pseudoscience and pseudoreligion.
By and large, scientists’ minds are open when exploring new worlds. If we knew beforehand what we’d find, it would be unnecessary to go. In future missions to Mars or to the other fascinating worlds in our neck of the cosmic woods, surprises -even some of mythic proportions - are possible, maybe even likely. But we humans have a talent for deceiving ourselves. Scepticism must be a component of the explorer’s toolkit, or we will lose our way. There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.
4
Aliens
Truly, that which makes me believe there is no inhabitant on this sphere, is that it seems to me that no sensible being would be willing to live here.’
‘Well, then!’ said Micromegas, ‘perhaps the beings that inhabit it do not possess good sense.’
One alien to another,
on approaching the Earth,
in Voltaire’s Micromegas:
A Philosophical History (1752)
It’s still dark out. You’re lying in bed, fully awake. You discover you’re utterly paralysed. You sense someone in the room. You try to cry out. You cannot. Several small grey beings, less than four feet tall, are standing at the foot of the bed. Their heads are pear-shaped, bald, and large for their bodies. Their eyes are enormous, their faces expressionless and identical. They wear tunics and boots. You hope this is only a dream. But as nearly as you can tell it’s really happening. They lift you up and, eerily, they and you slip through the wall of your bedroom. You float out into the air. You rise high toward a metallic saucer-shaped spacecraft. Once inside, you are escorted into a medical examining room. A larger but similar being, evidently some kind of physician, takes over. What follows is even more terrifying. Your body is probed with instruments and machines, especially your sexual parts. If you’re a man, they may take sperm samples; if you’re a woman, they may remove ova or foetuses, or implant semen. They may force you to have sex. Afterwards