If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle - Carl Sagan

Hello, I am Carl Sagan, a scientist, educator, and advocate for critical thinking and reason. Among the many truths I explored during my lifetime, one stands out as a cautionary tale for all of us: “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge—even to ourselves—that we’ve been fooled.” When I wrote these words in The Fine Art of Baloney Detection, I sought to warn against the dangerous power of deception and the human tendency to cling to falsehoods once they've taken root. In my time, this applied to pseudoscience, propaganda, and unsubstantiated beliefs. The challenge was not just that people were fooled, but that once fooled, they often became resistant to truth itself. The psychological discomfort of admitting one’s own mistake made it easier to double down on the falsehood than to embrace the facts.