Ann Druyan's 'Turning Away'

In "The Great Turning Away" (July/August 2005), Ann Druyan ponders how we in the contemporary United States have turned our backs on her iconic husband's vision of the "wonders (italics hers) of the universe revealed by vigorous skeptical science...." And, to be sure, Carl Sagan was--and remains--an icon who did, with little fear of contradiction, more than any other contributor to make available to the general public both the subject matter and method of the discipline he served. All the sadder, then, the disservice that Druyan does to the causes of science and skepticism by the inappropriate extensions and imprecise definitions contained in her remarks.

As a form of truth in advertising, I should confess that, while I sample pieces from several periodicals, I read two scrupulously cover to cover. Those two are the National Review and the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER. So it will come as no surprise that I find myself relatively at home among two very different and sometimes very competitive perspectives on whichever topics happen to come under discussion. I am, for example, frequently uncomfortable with the confining positions taken by my friends at the NR on human stem-cell research in a situation where, even with respect to the often perplexing moral difficulties involving the use of fetal tissue, I see an overwhelming potential good for the prevention and cure of a whole category of human afflictions. But likewise, I am today equally uncomfortable with my friends at SI, if indeed Druyan's opinions are broadly held, and with the critical and unbalanced opposition to the foreign-policy approaches taken by the current administration and president who, in Druyan's words, "with impunity makes illegal and baseless unprovoked war." Holy mackerel! There's a phrase that leaves statement behind, passes right through opinion, and moves straight on into diatribe. Then, two articles later, we return tranquilly and happily to SI's traditional standards of rational evaluation in James Randi's piece demanding clear rules and precise definitions of terminology in the application of skeptical judgments.

Cheers for Sagan and cheers for Randi. And, please, let's leave political hyperbole where it belongs--well outside the pages of the SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.

John Walter Putre

jputre@visi.net

With brain-numbing incredulity I have just read Ann Druyan's statement in "The Great Turning Away": "Our president declares himself an instrument of God and with impunity makes illegal and baseless unprovoked war."

I am inclined to forgive Ann Druyan for this belch of rage. Her scientific greatness surpasses all of us and our penchant for Bush bashing! Alas, she has caught the human virus of hate and must be granted allowance in the same manner she forgives all of us in our collective celestial ignorance.

But it hurts. When our heroines suffer maladies, we suffer too.

Give her time to recognize her indoctrination. She will emerge. And mankind will, as it always has, continue to benefit from her inherent wisdom.

Harold V. Blackman

Montrose, Colorado

Over the last few years, I have been reading with greater dismay the more than occasional rant of liberal political views going on in my favorite magazine. When did SI go from busting charlatans and psychics and sticking up for proper science to seemingly constant bashing of religious and political conservatives? Some of these attacks have been passive-aggressive, and some have been outright dismissals.

I am referring to Ann Druyan's op-ed piece. While she logically argues for the good-ole days of science writers like Carl Sagan, she rejects his appreciation that he felt for the better parts of religion. Then she makes baseless claims that we are fighting an "illegal and baseless unprovoked war," led by a president who "declares himself an instrument of God."

I do not feel that Druyan does justice to her side of the argument or justice to her late husband's legacy by making such claims in a science magazine, claims that belong in political discourse instead. She may be damaging the whole humanist movement by helping to create an image of religious-intolerance-like thinking on the part of humanists!

Sam Brown

San Jose, California

Ann Druyan comments that: "Consider all the futures depicted in science fiction.... How many of them imagine a future in which the dominant religious traditions and beliefs of the present survive?" Well, one that certainly does is the Childe Cycle series of Gordon R. Dickson, in which Christian religious extremists dominate/ rule two whole worlds. This is not just a sideline, because the idea of faith is central to Cycle. Certain concepts Dickson lays out, including the idea of humanity splitting into subcultures that divide, leave Earth, and evolve to their limits make the Childe Cycle one of the most realistic future societies conceived. To many fans of SF, Dickson's vision is only equaled by Heinlein's Future History, Asimov's Foundation series, and Herbert's Dune novels. Some even think that it surpasses them. The point is: there are compelling SF futures where present religions exist and play a major role in those futures.