“Jamie, when we’re all done makin’ Mythbusters, how would you like to be remembered.” And in the third panel, Jamie replies, “How ‘bout for our promotion of critical thought?” The text in all three panels is typed using all capital letters; ID end]

[Image Description; A 3 panel image from the Mythbusters tv series, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage are in the first two panels, and just Jamie in the third panel, both men are caucasian with beards and glasses, Jamie is wearing a beret; in the first and second panel, Adam asks Jamie . . .

lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), . . .

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...

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; . . .

“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; . . .

The history of our study of our solar system shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong, and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.”

- Carl Sagan

“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system. . .