Carl Sagan predicted the future of America in 1995 — now decades later, it's all coming true

The legendary 'Cosmos' series, which Carl Sagan co-wrote and hosted, made the astronomer a household name. In 1995, the gifted author also published a book titled 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark', a thought-provoking investigation that covered everything from spirituality to disproving alien abductions. Sagan made a terrifying prediction in this book about America's future, and it appears to be coming true as years pass by. He voiced extreme pessimism about the nation's future in 1995.

As reported by Big Think, he wrote, “Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time." He continued, "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.”

Sagan further wrote, “The dumbing down of America 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), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” The author discussed several contemporary American cultural trends in the chapter where he presented this predictive quotation, such as the hit television program Beavis and Butthead and the comedy Dumb and Dumber.

Sagan pointed to shows like these as examples of America's cultural decline, fearing that the nation was heading toward intellectual stagnation. It's intriguing to think how he might revise his view on the future of America if he were alive today. Passages from his final book continue to resurface online, often leaving first-time readers stunned by how much of his critique is still true. For many who continue to follow his legacy, it seems that much of his fears have come true, almost exactly as he predicted.

Sagan also had a unique understanding of human experience, which made him popular. He wrote not only about science but also about peace, justice, and kindness. Unlike many other skeptics, he didn’t reject spirituality, believing instead that science itself could be a deep source of it. While he recognized how much we still don’t know, he strongly defended the knowledge we do have. With his intelligence and clarity, Sagan made science easy to understand for everyone, always encouraging healthy skepticism and the use of scientific methods to explore the world around us.