Chapter 3 Summary and Analysis

The face of the Virgin Mary on a tortilla, the silhouette of Richard Nixon on an eggplant, a giant stone face from an ancient civilization that peers into space from the surface of Mars. What do these apparitions have in common? All are products of the human central nervous system that is primed from infancy to recognize patterns, particularly those that identify faces, especially the mother's face.

Carl Sagan explores two contemporary pseudoscientific myths to further delineate science from its counterfeit version. He notes that every modern science is shadowed by a counterfeit version: astronomy and astrology, chemistry and alchemy, physics and perpetual motion machines, psychiatry and parapsychology. Long before powerful telescopes and space travel, humans looked with awe and wonder at the Moon, "That orbéd maiden with bright fire laden," as the poet Shelley wrote.

The surface of the...