Episode 588: Grief Zombie

6 comments on Episode 588: Grief Zombie

  1. Joe says:

    I read Demon-Haunted World once before many years ago but I thought it would be fun to read-along again with the podcasts.

    This time though I noticed that in Chapter 1 there’s a weird footnote that makes no sense. It reads:

    “At a large dinner party recently, I asked the assembled guests – ranging in age, I guess, from thirties to sixties – how many of them would be alive today if not for antibiotics, cardiac pacemakers, and the rest of the panoply of modern medicine. Only one hand went up. It was not mine.”

    Huh?

    “…how many of them would be alive today if not for…”

    So some guests at this dinner party were dead?

    And what message was the dinner guest raising their arm communicating?

    And what was the significance of Sagan himself not raising his arm?

    Does anyone know what Sagan was trying to say here?

    1. diss0713 says:

      I suspect it’s a typo – I think it should say wouldn’t instead of would.

      1. Joe says:

        If it’s a typo it’s a persistent one and no-one’s ever thought to correct it. I’ve found a number of PDF and epub versions of the book on the internet, and they all have the same footnote.
        But even allowing it’s a typo, it’s strange that Sagan would illustrate a point about the effectiveness of modern medicine with an example where only a single member of a large group claimed to have benefitted from it. It’s still difficult to see what point Sagan was trying to make.

  2. Erik_B says:

    I just wanna point out that Dave Daubenmire said “Beezlebub” instead of “Beelzebub.” The L is BEFORE the Z, Dave.

  3. Linda says:

    @Joe It works if you read it as “Who would be alive today if we didn’t have antibiotics etc. “

  4. Bill Haigh says:

    The way Dave “Duuuh Coach” talks is very similar to another Dave (Campo) who did used car commercials. I used to work at one dealership that employed his advertising tactics along with an (un)healthy dose of negative advertising. One time I got in an argument with the head of sales and I told him “Anyone with even 1/2 a brain would be insulted by the way we treat them”, and he replied “Bill, we sell a lot of cars”. Thankfully they closed up a few years ago.
    https://youtu.be/uv9ghqB6Zi0

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