Science is a beating heart of a modern world, but some people believe that it’s in decline now. That would be disastrous, if true. There is no shortage of conspiracy theories telling us stories of some shadowy groups which hide some essential knowledge from the public eye. It looks like the reality is even more cynical: all the necessary knowledge is public, but finding it is like finding a needle in a haystack. We’re constantly bombarded with all kinds of information and filtering all the noise, lies, errors, biases and speculations have never been as important as it is today.

Carl Sagan tried to popularize scientific thinking in an attempt to prevent the world from diving back into the dark ages it emerged from not so long ago. This book tells us a lot of stories about science and pseudo-science, and it expands on how hard it might be to separate one from another. Personally, I share many of the author’s concerns. It’s hard not to worry about the decline of science and rationality when people burn 5G towers, refuse life-saving vaccines and fall victims of populist politicians en masse. I’m not even talking about uneducated populations of some third-world countries. Those things seem to be on the rise everywhere.

To summarize, I think this book is still relevant despite its respectable age. I’m looking forward to reading more books by Carl Sagan.