Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

Obsessed with Reality
newspaper chain even printed verbatim handouts from the 'Carlos
Foundation'.
After Sixty Minutes aired, the rest of the Australian media was
furious. They had been used, they complained, lied to. 'Just as
there are legal guidelines concerning the police use of provocateurs,'
thundered Peter Robinson in the Australian Financial
Review,
there must be limits to how far the media can go in setting up
a misleading situation ... I, for one, can simply not accept
that telling a lie is an acceptable way of reporting the
truth . . . Every poll of public opinion shows that there is a
suspicion among the general public that the media do not tell
the whole truth, or that they distort things, or that they
exaggerate, or that they are biased.
Mr Robinson feared that Carlos might have lent credence to
this widespread misperception. Headlines ranged from 'How
Carlos Made Fools of Them AH' to 'Hoax Was Just Dumb'.
Newspapers that had not trumpeted Carlos patted themselves
on the back for their restraint. Negus said of Sixty Minutes,
'Even people of integrity can make mistakes,' and denied being
duped. Anyone calling himself a channeller, he said, is 'a fraud
by definition'.
Sixty Minutes and Randi stressed that the Australian media had
made no serious effort to check any of 'Carlos's' bona fides. He
had never appeared in any of the cities listed. The videotape of
Carlos on the stage of a New York theatre had been a favour
granted by the magicians Penn and Teller, who were appearing
there. They asked the audience just to give a big hand of applause;
Alvarez, in smock and medallion, walked on; the audience
dutifully applauded, Randi got his videotape, Alvarez waved
goodbye, the show went on. And there is no New York City radio
station with call letters WOOP.
Other reasons for suspicion could readily be mined in Carlos's
writings. But because the intellectual currency has been so
debased, because credulity, New Age and Old, is so rampant,
because sceptical thinking is so rarely practised, no parody is too
225