To Open The Sky

A parable commonly used to describe ideas which are "incompletely perfect" is the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes. In the English-speaking world, it is well enough known that the title has become a metaphor1 denoting any case where someone in authority adopted such an imperfect but attractive idea and sought to impose it on others.

I want to turn that scenario around. Rather than the authority figure who is seduced by brand new hokum, I want to look at ordinary folks who cling to comfortable old hokum.

Carl Sagan told of catching a cab in New York City one rainy night. Recognizing him, the cab driver began to question Sagan about various kinds of pseudoscientific hokum: Bigfoot, the corpses of alien flying-saucer pilots in cold storage at Area 51, and so on. Debunking these claims, Sagan watched the cabbie grow glummer and glummer. "I was dismissing," said Sagan, "not just some errant doctrine, but a precious facet of his inner life."