Carl Sagan’s continued relevance - “The Demon Haunted World”, an impassioned argument for the necessity of science in the modern world

In Carl Sagan’s 1995 book “The Demon Haunted World,” he makes an impassioned argument for the necessity of science in the modern world—acknowledging where science had faltered, but also framing science in relation to pseudo- and even anti-scientific strains of thought. Could the modes of thinking adopted by anti-vaccine crusaders and climate change denialists make him any more relevant? Sagan’s own words show his incredible foresight: "I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness".

Source: Scienceline, 14 November 2013
http://scienceline.org/2013/11/surely-there-must-be-others-carl-sagans-…