<story><title>Carl Sagan&apos;s Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking</title><url>https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Animats</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This. That&amp;#x27;s a good way to put it. I&amp;#x27;ve mentioned Fred Hoyle&amp;#x27;s line on that, &amp;quot;Science is prediction, not explanation&amp;quot; (which is from one of Hoyle&amp;#x27;s novels), but Sagan&amp;#x27;s line is better.&lt;p&gt;Key point: unfalsifiable theories do not lead to useful technology. Engineering requires predictability.</text></comment>
<story><title>Carl Sagan&apos;s Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking</title><url>https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>umvi</author><text>This article has good advice for logical thinking, but just one nit pick:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; having just lost both of his parents, he reflects on the all too human allure of promises of supernatural reunions in the afterlife, reminding us that falling for such fictions doesn’t make us stupid or bad people, but simply means that we need to equip ourselves with the right tools against them.&lt;p&gt;I feel like grouping all religion in with psychics and con artists is a bit extreme. Sure, it&amp;#x27;s impossible by contradiction for all tenets of all religions to be simultaneously true.&lt;p&gt;But... there were, are, and will yet be many intelligent people of different religions that, for various empirically-unprovable reasons, feel there is a God - even if they know at an intellectual level that their current church or belief system isn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;entirely&lt;/i&gt; consistent or correct.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s important to respect their religious liberty even if you disagree. Many people (including on this very forum) have had spiritual experiences that seem to confirm the existence of a God at a visceral level. It&amp;#x27;s hard to explain unless you&amp;#x27;ve had a spiritual experience, but they can include moments of emotional connection to deceased loved ones, &amp;quot;gut feelings&amp;quot; that helped you do something important or avoid something bad, or unexpected and unusual ideas or thoughts (in my case, sometimes even programming related) that aid in overcoming life&amp;#x27;s obstacles, just to name a few.</text></comment>