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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

> I have no idea why you'd be surprised the skeptical community adores this book,

The details are in the blog post. Basically, every skeptic community I've looked at has espoused the very behavior that Carl Sagan criticizes in the book. Very dismissive and arrogant folks. There's a reason he explicitly calls out the skeptic community.

I did put this disclaimer though - I don't want this discussion to degrade into a no true Scotsman fallacy:

> Or at least, visible and vocal skeptics I run across on the Internet. An argument could be made that these are the minority and not really representative of the majority of people who ascribe to skepticism.

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I read those Sagan quotes as a criticism of capital "S" Skeptics, those for whom skepticism is an identity perhaps more than it is a means to an end. I feel that Sagan's ultimate goal is to foster skepticism (or at least a refined version thereof), and that he is merely offering a warning about tribalism and ego.

> I feel that Sagan's ultimate goal is to foster skepticism (or at least a refined version thereof),

I agree, yet I will note that he goes out of his way in the book to label skepticism and then criticize it. He did not wish to be thought of as a skeptic. The Descartes quote is in the book as well.

Put another way: He was a skeptical person, but he did not ascribe to "skepticism".

One thing I was pleasantly surprised to find in the book was an inclination to believe certain things to be true that many skeptics will refuse to entertain due to the lack of evidence. The only example I can recall was that back (and other) pain is often entirely psychosomatic. He didn't invoke John Sarno, but he showed clear openness to believing it. It wasn't a simple "I must have an open mind, so I must consider this as a possibility", but an actual assertion of his belief in it given recent findings. He gives a rationale on why it is a reasonable thing to believe.

(Sidenote: I have a lot of pain, and Sarno's approach did nothing for me)

You originally expressed surprise that skeptics hold this book in high regard. I just find your surprise a bit difficult to understand. If, on the whole, the work advocates for skepticism (among other things), wouldn't endorsing it be the consistent choice for skeptics? I would never throw out a programming textbook if it criticized and emphasized the too-common tendency of programmers to over-engineer solutions.

> He goes out of his way in the book to label skepticism and criticize it.

Respectfully, I disagree, his criticism reads to me primarily as a criticism of dogmatism. First and foremost he seemed to identify as a "scientist", but he also maintained that you can't have effective science without skepticism.

> He did not wish to be thought of as a skeptic.

I would just differ by saying "He did not wish to be thought of only as a skeptic," I am not sure if that is a complete departure from your intent.

> If, on the whole, the work advocates for skepticism (among other things)

Been a while since I read it, so I have to ask: Does it? What stood out to me was criticism of skepticism.

Yes, in my interpretation, though not in isolation.

> It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas.

Can you enumerate these communities?

Can I suggest metabunk, which seems to me to be pretty neutral in this regard?

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