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A Lawyer Responds
to Prof. Carl Sagan – a Scientist/Astronomer
- about the Afterlife and the Paranormal
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Contents
1. Opening statement
2. Rebutting Prof. Carl Sagan’s arguments:
i) Why don’t channellers give verifiable information?
ii) Channellers are making up the voices and the contents
of channelling are all trivial and puerile
iii) It’s all wish-fulfillment
iv) The Fox sisters were faking it
3. Some Conclusions
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1. OPENING STATEMENT
A number of debunkers and closed minded skeptics mistakenly
call upon Dr Carl Sagan’s skeptical writings to justify
their own closed minded debunking, anti-afterlife, anti-psi
(all paranormal) beliefs.
One of my colleagues even suggested that whilst the debunkers’
group on the East Coast regard Dr Carl Sagan as one of the
giants of science - of astronomy, they also see Dr Carl
Sagan, the way Christian Fundamentalists see Jesus.
Dr Carl Sagan was never a debunker. Nor was he closed minded.
He himself said in chapter 12 of his book The Demon
Haunted World, “If some good evidence for life
after death were announced, I’d be eager to examine
it …”. So he said.
Sagan would call himself an open minded skeptic, a critical
thinker, a paranormal analyst. But after reading his writings
on the paranormal I state that in his perception of the
paranormal, he is fundamentally wrong.
Dr Carl Sagan was a theoretical scientist. He was not a
‘hands on’ practical laboratory scientist. He
was not an empiricist – using scientific method to
measure psi. He was not someone who was regularly empirically
testing the paranormal in the field or in the lab.
He was NOT expressing an empirical, scientific view, but
a personal, subjective, non-empirical view about the paranormal.
This means Sagan’s conclusions inevitably are subjective,
unsupported by hard core empirical evidence. And as it is
universally accepted, anything subjective can be subject
to complete invalidation.
Sagan’s book is not about the afterlife. As a matter
of fact, the afterlife is ancillary, not fundamental to
his argument. Clearly then, he has not shown that he systematically
analyzed the plethora of objective psi evidence. Sagan states
that “If some good evidence for life after death were
announced, I’d be eager to examine it …”
but he has not even canvassed, studied and empirically analyzed
any objective evidence for the validity of the paranormal
and the afterlife – the different areas of objective
evidence presented by some of the most intelligent scientists,
empiricists on this planet earth of the past and of the
present. That is an egregious failure on Dr Sagan’s
part.
Sagan, inevitably, had a restricted perception about the
evidence for the paranormal and the afterlife – (about
psi - as a whole). The fact is that Dr Carl Sagan is not
to be regarded as having objective authority on the paranormal
or the afterlife. His above mentioned book is full of descriptive
observations and reflections as perceived by a skeptic.
From his writings it is clear that Carl Sagan has not,
as some other physicists have done, identified that afterlife
activity is totally compatible with quantum physics’
or the sub atomic physics argument about the afterlife -
higher level of vibrations than anything on physical earth.
If he did not agree with that, he should have given a rebuttal
of the quantum physics explanation of psi. But he didn’t.
He failed to do that. He avoided that. He by-passed the
sub atomic physics argument of physicists such as Sir Oliver
Lodge and quantum physics argument of Dr Fred Alan Wolf
which would have knocked out or at least would have raised
reasonable doubts about Sagan’s negative, anti-afterlife,
anti-paranormal partiality.
Sagan raised a number of issues about mediumship, channeling,
spiritualism generally. But then in his examples he deals
with the mediums themselves, not with psi. In his examples
he imputes that all mediums and all psychics are not genuine,
appear to mislead – and especially in the case of
channellers, come up with trivial information.
But that is ad hominem - he attacked the particular psychic
not rebutting mediumship – not rebutting the actual
psychic evidentiary process of channeling.
Further, Dr Sagan repeatedly tends to inductively interpret
a singular paranormal activity – such as mediumship
and then formulates a general principle – a conclusion
imputing the afterlife does not exist. That is not correct.
That is a fundamental flaw in logic. There is not just one
area of evidence for psi/afterlife. My research shows that
there are at least twenty three different areas of empirical
evidence for the afterlife hitherto unrebutted – see
www.victorzammit.com
Because his research was restricted, he inevitably came
to restricted conclusions and failed to discriminate between
the genuine, the legitimate and the specious. His conclusions,
as we shall see below, were based on critical omissions
and deletions, many assumptions and errors and many unfounded,
unsubstantiated generalizations.
2. Rebutting Dr Carl Sagan’s arguments:
i) Why don’t channellers give verifiable
information?
Sagan says: # “How is it, I ask myself, that
channellers never give us verifiable information otherwise
unavailable? Why does Alexander the Great never tell us
about the exact location of his tomb, Fermat about his last
Theorem, James Wilkes Booth about the Lincoln assassination
conspiracy, Herman Goering about the Reichstag fire? Don’t
Sophocles, Democritus and Aristarchus dictate their lost
books? Don’t they wish future generations to have
access to their masterpieces?”
This is an example of Sagan presenting an argument with
insufficient information about the afterlife. One essentially
has to perceive the afterlife holistically – must
have the full and extensive available knowledge about afterlife
matters.
First, as to verifiable information for years we have been
having highly gifted mediums, such as John Edward who was
giving verifiable information ‘live’ every time
he was performing mental mediumship for television. And
those few skeptics who vociferated opposition were not able
to rebut John Edward. At his best, John Edward obtains information
verified by the sitters which is so specific with some of
the sitters, the chance of the information being allegedly
“guessed” is more than one in a million and
at his very best, in one 2 billions – something NO
debunker was ever able to match.
I myself watched some fifty episodes of John Edward television
programs and I also attended one of those huge meetings
of John Edward – 20,000 in the meeting – and
confirm that unless one claims fraud – the results
were absolutely brilliant.
Probabilities were beyond reasonable doubt consistently
favoring John Edward. If some debunker raises the issue
of fraud or cold reading – forget it. Of the thousands
of meetings John Edward had, it would be naïve and
stupid in the extreme to even imagine John Edward doing
deals with different frauds each time to cheat and lie to
the public every time he had an afterlife meeting.
As to Fermat, Booth, Goering et al, Sagan makes a fundamentally
erroneous assumption that the human condition is constant
on physical earth and in the afterlife. He should not assume
that human variables such as thoughts, feelings, sentiments,
motivation, higher drives for status, priorities, accomplishments,
ambition, justice, rewards and punishment in the afterlife
are just like on earth.
Nor can Carl Sagan think that to contact someone from the
afterlife you can just go to any medium– giving the
impression that it is as easy as picking up the telephone
or sending a fax or emailing anyone you like. It is not
like that at all.
That is secular Sagan rationalizing from limited restricted
psi information.
Those who are fully informed could have told Sagan that
there could be insurmountable problems for an afterlife
entity trying to make contact with us on physical earth.
Highly credible sources transmitted highly credible information
about the conditions of the afterlife.
• It may have been that when you were on earth you
held extremely strong beliefs that the afterlife does not
exist. You believed that we are just like a candlelight
in the darkness of the universe – when the light goes
out, that’s it! Nothing else exists. And when you
died you saw your physical body dead and you found that
you have consciousness with all memories intact, a live
spirit, a duplicate solid body of your dead physical body.
You may have seen people around your dead physical body
– you tried to talk to them but they did not respond
– great confusion sets in. “I cannot be dead”
you say, “… look I still have a solid body!”
We are highly credibly informed from the other side that
there are many people like this stay in this horrible confusion
which sometimes turns into despair – for thousands
of years! Now, if Hermann Goering was one of these people,
certainly he would not be answering any of Carl Sagan’s
questions!
• The afterlife is constituted of different realms
at different levels of vibrations – the lowest and
darkest, the most horrible to the highest where the light
is, where vibrations are operating at a faster rate and
conditions are so great, they are beyond description. Now
a person with low vibrations, say Alexander the Great, will
end up in the lowest, darkest realm. If Alexander the Great
crossed over with extremely low vibrations because of systematic
extreme brutality, Alexander is not likely to make contact
with anyone. There will be problems of locating where he
is – and other huge problems for him of darkness and
aggression from other low entities. In such circumstances
Alexander is not likely to be in a position to answer questions
put by Carl Sagan through a medium about Sagan’s intellectual
curiosities.
• If a person like ‘Sophocles’ or ‘Dimocritus’
or ‘Aristarchus’ when on earth suffered too
much pain, depression or any sustained negativity, almost
certainly, that person would not want to return to the environment
where he/she had those negative experiences. Under those
conditions, the earth would be just like a ‘Skinner
Box’ - an environment where severe punishment is anticipated.
• It is also most relevant that afterlife entities
do not all have equal skills in transmitting information
to those still on earth. There are those who are most proficient
and those who have no skills at all in communicating with
us on earth. Just because some people were brilliant or
notorious or aggressive when on earth does not mean they
have any special skills in transmitting information to us
here.
• If these abovementioned known names are in the
realm of the light – there are no incentives for them
to come anywhere near physical earth. Of course, there are
exceptions, but the hugely better conditions for the normal,
decent folk in the realms of the light are immensely superior
to the much darker earth plane. Why would they bother to
pass on information which they may think is totally irrelevant
and immaterial to the real purpose of living on physical
earth?
• It would be different if there was a heart to heart
link – if there was love. We are informed from the
other side that love is the most powerful force in the universe
and physical death can never sever heart to heart love connection.
A loved one will make the effort to draw close and will
come into our aura – light vibrations being emitted
from the body. But again, there are rules about contacting
those still on earth. Sometimes the contact has to be sharp
and short for reasons of energy transmission. It just may
be that Alexander the Great, Sophocles and the others did
make contact with their own loved ones on earth and with
the knowledge they have from the other side, they may regard
giving out additional knowledge to strangers as vexatious,
trivial, totally unnecessary and irrelevant.
Dr Carl Sagan was thinking like Carl Sagan - a secular,
intelligent human being on earth, as a materialist layperson
in relation to the paranormal and the afterlife. He was
making assumptions and projecting his own view of physical
conditions on earth onto the afterlife spirit dimension
the laws of whose operation he had not studied, not professionally
investigated and is on record for not conducting one empirical
psi experiment to test psi for validation.
ii) Sagan: channellers are making up the voices
and the messages that come through channellers are trivial
and puerile “banal homilies”.
Sagan says: # CHANNELLING: “Since most people know
how to talk, and many – from children or professional
actors – have a repertoire of voices at their command
the simplest hypothesis is that Ms Knight makes ‘Ramtha’
speak all by herself, and that she has no contact with disembodied
entities from the Pleistocene Ice Age. If there’s
evidence to the contrary, I’d love to hear about it.”(p191-2
1st ed.).
There are many empirical ways that psychic investigators
have proved that mediums are not simply “making up
the voices” that come through them.
In order to understand them we need to distinguish the different
kinds of mediumship which Sagan lumps together under the
heading of “channelling”. In mental mediumship,
as it is usually understood, no spirit occupies the body
or the aura of the medium. In trance mediumship, the spirit
actually takes over the voice- box of the medium and because
of this the voice will sound different to the medium’s
own voice. And in direct voice mediumship the spirit speaks
through a voice box constructed of ectoplasm which is independent
of the medium’s voice- box although still having elements
of it.
Here Sagan claims that Ms Knight is not contacting any spirit.
No one is using her voice box to project a voice-sound different
from her natural voice. Implied in this of course, is that
Ms Knight is a making a fraudulent claim. Otherwise Sagan
asks, why could not the entity in Ms Knight give us information
as to how conditions were then – some 35,000 years
ago when the spirit was on earth? Carl asks some 22 questions
he would ask if only Ms Knight’s entity would answer
them. But his conclusion about what comes out of Ms Knight’s
is that the alleged spirit offers lots of ‘banal homilies.’
Why did not Sagan select the classic work of, for example,
Arthur Findlay’s On the Edge of the Etheric for something
substantive about the afterlife transmissions to us humans
on planet earth. Or noted American attorney Edward C Randall’s
classic, The French Revelation – The Extraordinary
Eyewitness Account of the Gifted Medium Emily S French
– highly important transmissions? Or Silver Birch’s
classics, including, Light From Silver Birch about
the purpose of life on earth – some nine books - and
what we are to expect in the afterlife. Then for other profound
transmissions Sagan should have read carefully the Here
and Hereafter series by Anthony Borgia – how
a relatively high ranking Catholic priest on crossing over
insisted on channelling information back to us because what
he preached on earth was wrong. We have NEVER ever come
across rebuttals of these particularly excellent transmissions
from the afterlife. All we get is they can’t be true
because there is no afterlife. That is inevitably unacceptable.
Rebutting means you take every piece of afterlife evidence
and empirically explain why the evidence ought not to be
admissible as valid evidence.
Why has Sagan not rebutted these classic works? Why pick
on comic books for literature and not on a Shakespeare?
Why does Sagan deliberately ignore the established international
classics and deal with trivia? Why did Sagan pick on JZ
Knight whom the paranormalists themselves do not even suggest
as an example of high quality spirit transmission –
and not deal with brilliant trance mediums such as John
Sloan, Maurice Barbanell and the ‘automatic writer’
mediumship of Anthony Borgia ?
A professional psi empiricist would tackle the issue of
mediumship empirically - not as Sagan did, wanting us to
take him seriously on the paranormal by just expressing
a descriptive, armchair philosophical, personal, non-empirical,
non scientific, non-objective view about trance mediumship.
How would Ms Knight’s trance-mediumship be tested
empirically? In at least five ways:
a) I would expect Sagan to do a voice test on the medium
using a voice-machine analysis unit (see Voice Machine Analysis)
before the channelling and after channelling – and
to the graph voices. There are other electronic ways to
measure the vibrations of voices – and do at least
four to six extended trials. No actor would be able to beat
electronic voice box analysis under sustained conditions.
Definitive variance between Ms Knight’s own particular
vibrations and the external entity vibrations would be easily
detected electronically – see below.
b) do an EEG brain scan to test if there would be a repeatable
significant difference in Ms Knight before and during the
trance. Harvard trained Professor Charles H Hapgood has
reported work in this area with gifted medium Elwood Babbitt–
see Voices of Spirit. He found that whenever a
spirit entered a medium, the EEG and other variables became
significantly different to the medium’s own physical
and verbal variables.
c) do before/after testing on all other biological variables,
e.g. blood pressure. (see b above),
d) whenever possible, do a comparison analysis of expression.
Different styles of language use can be empirically measured
by experts,
e) investigate and test the content for correlation with
transmissions made through other highly credible trance
mediums such as John Sloan, Maurice Barbanell and Edgar
Cayce who transmitted messages, among other things, dealing
with the urgent problems of today’s world –
not just banal platitudes .
More baloney detection applied to Sagan himself:
In his channelling section, Carl Sagan again falls into
the trap listed in his own baloney detection kit as observational
selection when he picks on the less convincing and ignores
the spectacular results.
Further baloney detected is Sagan’s 'argument from
authority.' It seems we are to accept Sagan’s conclusions
based on his credentials as a scientist. However, psychic
matters fall entirely outside his purview as a scientist.
He has no objective authority.
Begging the question. He says on what is being stated in
channeling: “People pay attention to these puerile
marvels mainly because they promise something like old-time
religion, but especially life after death, even life eternal”.
Here Sagan makes a denigrating statement and tries to give
the answer for it. That is technically an inadmissible statement.
iii) It’s all wish-fulfillment.
Sagan states, #“ … how readily we are
led, how easy it is to fool the public when people are lonely
and starved for something to believe in.”
Here is another example of Sagan’s specious reasoning
applied to Sagan himself: submitting an answer to his created
negative predicament. Here Sagan is referring to the time
when Zwinge Hamilton Randi, professionally trained trickster,
organized the greatest hoax in Australia in 1986.
Unlike Sagan who treats the general public as gullible,
I state that that there is a significant percentage of the
public which is astute and not gullible or easily fooled
or easily mislead. But there is a very tiny minority which
tries to fleece the public, those who are NOT psychic, not
gifted mediums, have no psychic skills but claim they are
and who are vultures, illegally exploiting some of the gullible
members of the public.
About Sagan citing the Randi affair: many people know Randi
as one of the greatest conmen in history where he conceded
that he cheated, lied, distorted, misled, misguided, used
fraudulent conduct and according to Sagan used heinous trickery
- - in Sydney Australia to fool the innocent public. He
accepted that. There is no record that Sagan misquoted him
about the Sydney incident. There is no record that Randi
ever objected to Sagan’s work. What is on record is
that Randi supported Carl Sagan until his death.
Other objective observers saw the Randi hoax in Sydney
differently from Sagan’s interpretation of the event:
Randi’s hoax was uncovered and the event became his
greatest humiliation and embarrassment of his life. He went
home licking his wounds.
The Hoax: the Carlos affair – or how Randi’s
fraud on the public began.
Carl Sagan reports in his book, among other things, that
Randi suggested to the executives of Australian Sixty Minutes
that they generate a hoax from scratch, using someone with
no training in magic or public speaking, and no experience
in the pulpit. Randi picks on his young tenant …Jose
Luis Alvarez …who went through intensive training,
including mock TV appearances and press conferences. He
didn’t have to think up the answers, though, because,
to fool the public, he had a nearly invisible radio receiver
in his ear, through which Randi prompted. Emissaries from
Sixty Minutes checked Alvarez’ performance.
Further, a press kit – full of lies, deliberately
concocted to mislead, misinform and to fool the public,
allegedly drafted by Randi, (fraudulently) stated that this
Alvarez was some kind of a New Age guru who is taken over
by some ancient soul when he channels.
One show according to Sagan was in Sydney at the Opera
House, on Sunday 21st February 1988. The Hall would have
been half full. Most of those who would have attended would
have been from the skeptics’ group. Only a small number
of innocently curious would want to see for themselves if
this guru Alvarez was genuine. Why? Because Australians,
unlike Americans, are very skeptical.
Perhaps it’s their convict ancestors, perhaps it
is the land itself that makes them that way or perhaps because
Australia is a very young country with no conditioned entrenched
culture, history or tradition. Relative to and compared
with other people in the world, Australians are usually
very skeptical.
Those in the New Age movement who heard this alleged guru
immediately dismissed him as fake, a fraud and a bull-artist.
Why? Because the voice did NOT change, as happens to genuine
trance mediums. In his delivery when under the fake trance,
he sloppily shouted and at times screamed – but in
his own natural voice. It was very embarrassing. The professional
mediums thought something was terribly wrong promoting this
imposter.
In another interview with some of Australia’s toughest
journalists, most of whom were convinced they were dealing
with a fake, – this Alvarez could not stand the tough,
aggressive questions put to him. When at one stage, it was
put to him that anyone can reduce his heart beat by putting
a rubber ball under his armpit and squeezing, Alvarez’
response was to run away from the interview in great embarrassment.
His coaching by Zwinge Randi to fool tough journalists miserably
failed.
Comment: professionals are puzzled by this episode because:
• No commercial mainstream television station, especially
Sixty Minutes will participate in fraudulent conduct. It
is against all strict ethics and expressly stated regulations
of television, press and radio media in Australia. Knowing
and understanding the tough journalists in Sixty Minutes,
these journalists inevitably would say, “ …
it’s absolute rubbish that this station will be involved
in fraud against the public.” Yet we have Carl Sagan
claiming that Zwinge Randi and a major mainstream television
station co-operated to fool the public, to knowingly fraudulently
reporting to the public that a fake guru was genuine.
• Ought not this alone raise reasonable grounds that
Carl Sagan was fooled about this one – not having
basic discerning powers and reasonable discrimination to
identify that which is real from that which is pure anti-paranormal
propaganda dished to him by someone who conceded he is a
professional trickster and a fraud? Many people would expect
more from Carl Sagan. Pity, a theoretical scientist being
fooled because what was related to him was consistent with
his own negative anti-paranormal prejudice. He swallowed
it hook, line and sinker!
• Further, it will be a criminal offence to knowingly
pursue fraudulent conduct. On a civil level Sixty Minutes
would be liable for unspecified damages – for causing
stress, injury, anxiety, severe embarrassment, humiliation
and even nervous shock - with some people.
So much for Carl Sagan telling everyone not to accept anecdotal
evidence - and deluding himself he is being astute, non-prejudicial,
implying he is objective and empirical. It is very sad really.
It just shows how easy it was to fool materialistic easily
led scientist Carl Sagan who deep down wanted to accept
information consistent with his own untested subjective
partiality – notwithstanding his misconstrued adage,
'I’ll investigate all evidence.'
Conclusion on this item: Sagan was not
acting as an informed scientist - he was not empirical,
not objective and certainly not scientific - not astute,
not able to detect baloney.
iv) The Fox Sisters Were Faking It.
Sagan# and the Fox sisters. The third issue I want
to deal with is when this Carl Sagan makes an untrue statement
about that ‘… little girl who had been a conspirator
in a nineteenth century flim-flam – spirit –rapping,
in which ghosts answered questions by loud thumping –
grew up and confessed it was an imposture.” (p 230)
Carl Sagan is referring to the incident of how modern spirit
contact started in 1848. He deletes and omits anything not
consistent with his skeptical partiality – that is
unfair, unreasonable and unbecoming of someone with a science
background. Using the fine art of baloney detection kit
I find that he:
a) ignores critical information which contradicts his negative
beliefs,
b) misreports the facts,
c) makes too many self-serving assumptions,
The facts, very briefly, of this significant incident which
are accepted are: it was not just ‘one little girl.’
These were the major players, two sisters in Hydesville,
New York in 1848, Margaret and Kate, then aged 14 and 11
years – known as the Fox Sisters. In March that year
rapping noises began in the house into which they had just
moved. Everything was done to identify the disturbing noise
but no one had any idea where the rapping was coming from.
The contemporaneous reports show that the noises terrified
the children and destabilized the family. Then Kate challenged
the unseen power to rap the number of times she clapped
hands. Every time she clapped, the correct number of raps
followed, and the correct raps were given corresponding
to the number of fingers or hands held up. So the unseen
force could both hear and see. Questions were asked of the
unseen entity and the correct answers were given. From then
onwards a system of communicating followed and intelligent
answers were given. The critical message from the unseen
entity was that he was a tenant there and another person
by the name of Bell murdered him. That was in 1848. And
although the police tried to find the body immediately after
the report, the body was not found until 1902 - 54 years
later when a skeleton in the same residence was found buried
deep in the basement, thus corroborating what Margaret and
Kate Fox told the police.
Evidence not in dispute is that both Margaret and Kate
became very poor, destitute and suffered severe depressive
alcoholism- in fact both drank themselves to death in 1892
and Kate a year later. Reports state between 1848 until
they died they continued as mediums. This provoked the rationalists
who opposed them bitterly – naturally enough.
In 1888 Margaret, to the surprise of many, claimed that
the strange rappings had come about by ‘cracking her
toes.’ One very well known report states that a journalist
offered Margaret $1,500 for an exclusive if she recanted.
One might suspect that under those irresistibly alluring
conditions, Margaret, Kate or anyone else in the world who,
suffered from extreme alcoholism and poverty, would say
anything for money!
Just two and a half years later, Margaret recanted her
confession. Not only was Margaret’s alcoholism out
of control, she had a grudge, perhaps legitimately, against
her other elder sister Leah who married into money. It is
reported that Leah also was able to have their children
taken away from Margaret and Kate – and took much
of the money they made from their work.
Now for Sagan to state that the ‘little girl’
who was the ‘conspirator’ ‘confessed’
would be most fundamentally misrepresenting what actually
took place.
Sagan ignored other most relevant information which would
have raised more than just reasonable doubt of his interpretation
of the Fox sisters incident. By leaving out important contradictory
information Sagan in fact is trying to mislead, misguide
and misinform the reader. Sagan tries very hard to make
the reader accept his argument that there was absolutely
nothing significant to follow in this incident. That is
most unfair – certainly not an empirical argument
at all.
Moreover, Sagan refers to just ‘one little girl’
in relation to the incident - not even mentioning her name
and her sister’s name - known in American and world
history as the famous Fox Sisters. I submit that this was
because the reasonable level headed intelligent reader would
go to the Net to get the full story of the Fox Sisters and
how spirit contact became popular in the United States and
would get the full story of what really happened in Hydesville
and what happened to Margaret Fox.
Further, by misreporting the facts, Sagan was trying to
denigrate and destroy any credibility the Fox Sisters’
had.
I challenge skeptics and others to duplicate the noise
just by cracking the joint of their big toes – I know
I'd find that no one on earth can do that! Nor did Sagan
question the toe cracking explanation – something
which for informed people is not a physical possibility-
especially when they wore socks and shoes in New York.
Instead Sagan blindly accepts the explanation because Sagan
was not empirical enough, not objective and scientific enough
to question everything until it can be independently substantiated.
He emotionally wanted to accept the misinformation because
that would be consistent with his own anti-paranormal negative
partiality.
3. Some Conclusions
Dr Carl Sagan, the astronomer, scientist, fails in his
‘critical thinking’, in rebutting the paranormal/afterlife
in many important respects – as shown above. He did
not show he had the means to construct a reasoned argument
against the validity of the empirical evidence for the paranormal.
He built the ‘straw-man’ argument – concocting
something fragile himself so that he could rebut it- to
delude himself, to delude the skeptics, to delude the debunkers.
He ignored high quality evidence and included the vexatious.
He illegitimately tried to use his status as a scientist
to rebut the empirical evidence of the paranormal which
he does not understand, he did not research or he had ignored.
He preached about critical thinking and violated every rule
in the book.
Balanced against Sagan’s denigration of the public,
describing them as being over-gullible, I submit that a
greater proportion of people are searching for some meaning
in life because of what they themselves have experienced
and science cannot explain. They have legitimately argued
that their history and tradition, their values and beliefs
have failed them.
That is not being gullible, that is not being dogmatically
indiscriminately superstitious - that is not being easily
led. That is being intelligent.
That is an attempt to reconcile their role in the universe
with the given life on earth in a particular environment.
To impute that only Carl Sagan has the answers about what
to accept or not to accept – or to state only scientists
or the skeptics or the debunkers know what is going on-
is to make a most erroneous statement fundamentally inconsistent
with what we know about materialistic scientists, what we
know about closed minded skeptics and debunkers. Many see
these as losers, defeatists and over-sycophantic to those
who hand out funding.
Accordingly, whereas Dr Carl Sagan might have been a good
astronomer, he fails miserably in empirically showing why
the objective, empirical evidence for paranormal and the
afterlife should not be accepted.
Notwithstanding anything herein before stated, here is my
justification for not labelling Dr Carl Sagan as a closed
minded skeptic (thanks to Nobel Laureate Prof. B Josephson
and Dr Dean Radin for their drawing my attention to this
quote:)
"At the time of writing there are three claims in the
ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1)
that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random
number generators in computers; (2) that people under mild
sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images “projected”
at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the
details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out
to be accurate and which they could not have known about
in any other way than reincarnation.
From: Sagan, C. (1995). The Demon Haunted World.
New York, Random House, page 205
A LAWYER PRESENTS THE CASE FOR THE AFTRLIFE www.victorzammit.com
November 05
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