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

Obsessed with Reality
argued, but there are too many of them, and some of the
pictograms are too complex. Only extraterrestrials could do it.
Then others in Britain confessed. But crop circles abroad, it was
objected, in Hungary for example, how can you explain that?
Then copycat Hungarian teenagers confessed. But what
about . . .?
To test the credulity of an alien abduction psychiatrist, a woman
poses as an abductee. The therapist is enthusiastic about the
fantasies she spins. But when she announces it was all a fake, what
is his response? To re-examine his protocols or his understanding
of what these cases mean? No. On various days he suggests (1)
even if she isn't herself aware of it, she was in fact abducted; or (2)
she's crazy - after all, she went to a psychiatrist, didn't she?; or (3)
he was on top of the hoax from the beginning and just gave her
enough rope to hang herself.
If it's sometimes easier to reject strong evidence than to admit
that we've been wrong, this is also information about ourselves
worth having.
A scientist places an ad in a Paris newspaper offering a free
horoscope. He receives about 150 replies, each, as requested,
detailing a place and time of birth. Every respondent is then sent
the identical horoscope, along with a questionnaire asking how
accurate the horoscope had been. Ninety-four per cent of the
respondents (and 90 per cent of their families and friends) reply
that they were at least recognizable in the horoscope. However,
the horoscope was drawn up for a French serial killer. If an
astrologer can get this far without even meeting his subjects, think
how well someone sensitive to human nuances and not overly
scrupulous might do.
Why are we so easily taken in by fortune-tellers, psychic seers,
palmists, tea-leaf, tarot and yarrow readers, and their ilk? Of
course, they note our posture, facial expressions, clothing and
answers to seemingly innocuous questions. Some of them are
brilliant at it, and these are areas about which many scientists
seem almost unconscious. There is also a computer network to
which 'professional' psychics subscribe, the details of their customers'
lives available to their colleagues in an instant. A key tool
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