Bamboozled

In the chapter “Obsessed with Reality” (Probably an obvious choice of a chapter to read, but I thought it looked appropriate for our class) I thought Sagan’s idea of being bamboozled was interesting. It kind of surprised me to read that pseudoscience and superstition are widely seen as entertainment and that people don’t have a big problem saying psychics are just tricking people, but to recognize “baloney” in “real” issues seems to be very difficult. “If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken.” (241) Saying that bamboozles exist not only in things like psychic readings but also in mainstream issues like politics is an interesting idea. Why are certain sciences accepted over others? I’ve never really considered psychics to have real abilities, or thought of it as a science, but I don’t know why. It seems weird to take certain parts of science as absolute and to reject others completely. Sagan raises a lot of questions about what we take as “fact” throughout the book, and while it would be nice to see at least some of them answered, it seems as though the stubbornness to acknowledge anyone has been duped, will mean change is a long way off.