Carl Sagan was best known, and appropriately so, as a planetary scientist with a gift for explaining the workings of the universe to those of us who are nonscientists. In his book, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," he proved he knows us very well:
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: 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. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."
This is certainly in evidence across the landscape today. Masters of spin and subterfuge inside and outside government and inside and outside the media seem to practice their skills unchallenged. Continue>>>
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