The Fine Art of Baloney Detection—Sagan’s Essay Three Decades Later | Skeptical Inquirer

“Believe it or not (I certainly have a hard time believing it!), it has been three decades since the publication of Carl Sagan’s famous essay “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” incorporated as chapter 12 in his The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995). I therefore thought it would be a good idea for skeptics to reconsider Sagan’s essay and see how it has stood up to the passage of time and how it might be improved as we move toward the middle section of the twenty-first century. Let’s begin with a bird’s eye view of the original. It starts out, very symbolically I think, with a long quote from Francis Bacon’s Novum Organon, published in 1620; it marked the beginning of modern philosophy of science. While Bacon’s main concern was to reject the Aristotelian approach that had been dominant during the Middle Ages (the Organon was a collection of six books by Aristotle on the topic of logic and its use in scientific inquiry), he was also preoccupied with several common errors in judgment that human beings are prone to make. The quote chosen by Sagan reads, in part: “For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience, from arrogance and pride.” You can see why Sagan thought it appropriate. His essay is roughly divided into four parts: an introduction that sets the stage, positive tools, negative tools, and a conclusion. I will focus mostly on the second and third parts, but allow me a few comments on the introduction. Sagan reminds us that belief in nonsense is widespread…” Massimo Pigliucci https://skepticalinquirer.org/2026/06/the-fine-art-of-baloney-detection-sagans-essay-three-decades-later/