I.    "Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience." (p. 6)

"95% of Americans are scientifically illiterate." (p. 6)
"The consequences of scientific illiteracy are far more dangerous in our time than in any that has come before." (p. 7)
"The method of science…is far more important than the findings of science." (p. 22)

II.    "Science if more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking." (p. 25)

"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 key 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." (p. 25)

1. Science can be the golden road out of poverty and backwardness for emerging nations.
2. Science alerts us to the perils introduced by our world-altering technologies.
3. Science teaches us about the deepest issues of origins, natures, and fates—of our species, of life, or our planet, of the Universe.
4. The values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. (pp. 37, 38)

III.    "Skepticism must be a component of the explorer's toolkit, or we will lose our way. There are wonders enough out there without inventing any." (p. 59)

IV.    "As revealed by repeated polls over the years, most Americans believe that we're being visited by extraterrestrial beings in UFO's." (p. 64) [CAN THAT BE TRUE?]

"The whole idea of a democratic application of skepticism is that everyone should have the essential tools to effectively and constructively evaluate claims to knowledge." (p. 76)

VI.    "Why do so many people today report this particular set of hallucinations? Why somber little beings, and flying saucers, and sexual experimentation?" (p. 111)

XII.    The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
          What to do – pp. 210 – 212
          What not to do – pp. 212 – 216
          "Gullibility kills." (p. 218)

XIII.    "Baloney, bamboozles, careless thinking, flimflam, and wishes disguised as facts are not restricted to parlor magic and ambiguous advice on matters of the heart. Unfortunately, they ripple through mainstream political, social, religious, and economic issues in every nation." (p. 244)

XV.    "Without physical evidence, science does not admit spirits, souls, angels, devils, or dharma bodies of Buddha. Or Alien visitors." (p. 267)

 "I suggest that in every one of these cases, religious or secular, we are much better off if we know the best available approximation of the truth…" (p. 279)

XVII.    "At least a quarter of all Americans believe in astrology. A third think 'Sun-sign astrology' is 'scientific.' The fraction of schoolchildren believing in astrology rose from 40 to 59 percent between 1978 and 1984. There are perhaps ten times more astrologers then astronomers in the United States. In France are more astronomers than Roman Catholic clergy." (pp. 303, 304)

 "Both skepticism and wonder are skills that need honing and practice. Their harmonious marriage within the mind of every schoolchild ought to be a principal goal of public education." (p. 306)

XIX.    "Science, I maintain, is an absolutely essential tool for any society with a hope of surviving well into the next century with its fundamental values intact…" (p. 336)

XXII.    "How could we put more science on TV?" (Suggestions – p. 377)

XXIV.   "The business of skepticism is to be dangerous. Skepticism challenges established institutions. If we teach everybody, including high school students, habits of skeptical thought, they will probably not restrict their skepticism to UFOs, aspirin commercials, and 35,000 year-old channelees. Maybe they'll start asking awkward questions about economic, or social, or political, or religious institutions." (p. 416)

XXV.  "Part of the duty of citizenship is not to be intimidated into conformity" (p. 427)

"Science—or rather its delicate mix of openness and skepticism, and it encouragement of diversity and debate—is a pre-requisite for continuing the delicate experiment of freedom in an industrial and highly technological society." (p. 431) ***[THESIS OF THIS BOOK]

"In every country we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness." ( p. 434)