agree 100%.

atheism in no way needs to be taught or advocated. nor does theism need to be torn down. all that i needed to shed my superstitions was a few years at university studying logic.

understanding the scientific method, and reason is enough for all but the most stubborn believers.

I am not exactly sure what you mean by an anti-realist about science, but I am not an anti-realist in general. What I am saying is that while I do believe an objective reality does exist, I do not believe we can currently (and likely never will be able to) know anything with absolute certainty (with the exception of 'I exist'). Science may very well have answers that will never change and that reflect that absolute reality. I do not believe that we will ever change our position on the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun, for instance. The point is that everything in science has the potential to change upon the arrival of new information; nothing in science is above scrutiny. Quite the contrary, actually. Truth thrives upon scrutiny. That which is true will be able to stand up to scrutiny and that which does not will crumble. The existence of an objective reality and our ability to understand it with 100% confidence are two different things, though. We can be pretty damn close to 100% confident, but can never actually attain it.

The first time I went to Cedar Point, I was reeeaaallly hoping those engineers and everyone else involved knew what they were doing when they designed and built those rides...

I liked this quote from page xii in the preface. (Sagan as a child in 1939):

Not only is this a salient clue on how our minds work, it's also a clue on how so many myths and religions can begin and flourish with the utmost sincerity.

I think instrumentalism is the only tenable position.

I wonder how the advent of things like google, youtube, wikipedia, etc, will impact the future population of this phenotype.

This. Juxtaposed with this: http://www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Genera.../dp/1585426393

Makes me lol.

Has anybody else done this before:

I remember when I was a kid, I spent what seemed like an eternity focusing on a door knob, trying to make it move with my mind. (It was probably only 5 minutes though but it made my brain hurt)

This is mostly my position, though I do not fully agree with the link that it necessarily contrasts with scientific realism (assuming I am reading it correctly). I think the reason many scientific concepts and theories are so effective is because they accurately reflect an objective morality. But the evaluation of their effectiveness ought to be on how well they explain and predict phenomena, due to my previously stated belief that absolute certainty of an objective reality is unattainable.

I've tried levitating, even felt it almost happen once or twice

Of course I was fascinated with claims of the supernatural when I was a kid: that and board/card game strategy were mostly my two biggest interests (well, conceptual interests that is - Final Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 were my two biggest hobbies I suppose). Not that I specifically tried using backwards language, but my friends and I would try all kinds of stuff like this, such as thinking of a number and having everyone else try to read our minds.

many times.

i remember actually praying when i was very young "god, if you are there, put a nickel in my hand. i wont tell anyone where it came from."

amongst other types of silly mental games like trying to make things move with my mind. i think almost everyone does this.

...some people just never grow out of that fanciful phase.

I did too. Also I used to have dreams when I was a kid that I could fly that were so realistic I sometimes got confused and thought I had really flown in real life.

I still have those dreams and they are very realistic and indeed confusing, especially right before you fully wake up.

I never once thought to attempt to move things with my mind. I wonder if this makes me more sane or less creative?

We'll probably think the same thing, ...hopefully not.

I recently had a dream that I could fly just by jumping up and willing myself to do so. Inside the dream, I was actually wondering whether I was dreaming or not. After careful thought and observation, I realized I wasn't dreaming and this was really happening. Then I woke up.

PS: Thanx for all the cool telekinesis stories guys.

I think this is where we have to be careful with language. For instance, let's take a quote from the philosophical realism wikipage:

"Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an approximation of reality and that every new observation brings us closer to understanding reality."

In the colloquial sense of "reality" I'm fine with this statement. But in the strict sense this statement becomes nonsense because we have no direct access to reality and thus we can't really speak of it in the Wittgensteinian sense. Speaking of reality for us is akin to colorblind people speaking of the color red. It's outside our realm. This is why any realist conception is ultimately naive and fruitless. The concept of objective reality also gets thrown in the trash bin of ambitious yet nonsensical ideas. At the end of the day, when you cut out all the language bull**** that clutters our thinking, all you have left is an instrumentalist framework to work with.

Thanks- i had put in a vote already.

I'm not that one sided, but I would have read more that do, than that don't. The same is probably true of just about everyone. I always take recommendations though and usually get around to reading them.

Sagan discusses "four main reasons for a concerted effort to convey science" (p. 45): Could anybody find the fourth reason? (There were only three bullets.)

Ch. 1, p. 30:
Do you guys try to popularize science among your closest friends and family? I wonder if a YouTube link every here and there would stir up interest. You guys wouldn't be here if the big questions didn't interest you, but some people (like my father) have...had....no interest in these things until I started talking to him about it. The free will topic is currently perplexing us...also, the a/biogenesis thing.

My copy has a fourth bullet between your first and second. It's short, so I've included all of it:

"Science alerts us to the perils introduced by our world-altering technologies, especially to the global environment on which our lives depend. Science provides an essential early warning system."

bah.

i was afraid this would happen. conversation would stagnate because we all basically agree with what Sagan has to say. lets hope the next 3 chapters are better at creating discussion.

I have in the past, but it's hard not to come off as annoying cause most people don't care about this stuff. The YouTube approach is my favorite way to try to popularize science since most people aren't willing to make the time to read a book.

My father is my favorite target, but I can tell I exhaust him a lot. When that happens I try to tone things down for awhile.