Review written for ClubReading.com by Barbara
With the speed at which science advances these days, one might think a book about recent astronomical discoveries written over 20 years ago would be utterly outdated, and I suppose it would be if you’re a scientist, but for the rest of us, it’s just fine because we’re probably far behind in our knowledge of the universe. We’re also constantly bombarded with half truths from the media and utter trash from the tabloids. Sagan was an educator who considered himself an emissary, bringing the world of science to us common folk. In this book he sneaks us into scientific thinking, doing so by entertaining us with legends, pseudoscience, philosophy, and religion. Take your beliefs with you into this book, but hang onto them with all your might. Otherwise, you’re going to lose some of them.
EXCERPT FROM Broca’s Brain, Reflections on the Romance of Science:
In Greece of the second century A.D., during the reign of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, there lived a master con man named Alexander of Abonutichus. Handsome, clever and totally unscrupulous, in the words of one of his contemporaries, he “went about living on occult pretensions.” In his most famous imposture, “he rushed into the marketplace, naked except for a gold-spangled loincloth; with nothing but this and his scimitar, and shaking his long, loose hair, like fanatics who collect money in the name of Cybele, he climbed onto a lofty altar and delivered a harangue” predicting the advent of a new and oracular god. Alexander then raced to the construction site of a temple, the crowd streaming after him, and discovered-where he had previously buried it-a goose egg in which he had sealed up a baby snake. Opening the egg, he announced the snakelet as the prophesied god. Alexander returned to his house for a few days, and then admitted the breathless crowds, who observed his body now entwined with a large serpent: the snake had grown impressively in the interim.
The serpent was, in fact, of a large and conveniently docile variety, procured for this purpose earlier in Macedonia, and outfitted with a linen head of somewhat human countenance. The room was dimly lit. Because of the press of the crowd, no visitor could stay for very long or inspect the serpent very carefully. The opinion of the multitude was that the seer had indeed delivered a god.
Alexander then pronounced the god ready to answer written questions delivered in sealed envelopes. When alone, he would lift off or duplicate the seal, read the message, remake the envelope and attach a response. People flocked from all over the Empire to witness this marvel, an oracular serpent with the head of a man. In those cases where the oracle later proved not just ambiguous but grossly wrong, Alexander had a simple solution: he altered his record of the response he had given. And if the question of a rich man or woman revealed some weakness of guilty secret, Alexander did not scruple at extortion. The result of all this imposture was an income equivalent today to several hundred thousand dollars per year and fame rivaled by few men of his time.