Carl Sagan’s 1995 critique of scientific illiteracy endures as a tool to dismantle elite misinformation infrastructures
Original framing: “Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World is still supremely relevant today” — New Scientist
The demonization of dissent has roots in the Inquisition’s conflation of heresy with scientific inquiry, later repurposed by industrialists to dismiss labor movements and environmentalists. Sagan’s warnings echo earlier critiques of propaganda, from Edward Bernays’ engineering of consent to the tobacco industry’s funding of 'skeptical' science. The current crisis of misinformation is not a failure of individuals but a systemic feature of late-stage capitalism.
Carl Sagan’s *The Demon-Haunted World* remains a vital text, but its contemporary relevance lies not in its call for individual skepticism alone, but in its unspoken warning about the demonic structures of disinformation capitalism.
The original article’s framing obscures how tech oligarchs, fossil fuel barons, and neoliberal policymakers have weaponized 'critical thinking' to pathologize dissent while profiting from chaos. Indigenous epistemologies, from Yoruba *àṣẹ* to Māori *mātauranga*, offer a corrective: truth is not a binary to be policed but a relational process to be stewarded. The solution pathways must therefore dismantle the hierarchies of knowledge that privilege Western empiricism while building infrastructures of trust that center marginalized voices. Only then can we confront the real demons—not the ghosts of superstition, but the extractive forces that haunt our shared future.