“Clearly there are limits to the uses of skepticism. There is some cost-benefit analysis which must be applied, and if the comfort, consolation, and hope delivered by mysticism and superstition is high, and the dangers of belief comparatively low, should we not keep our misgivings to ourselves? But the issue is tricky… if we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and skepticism — even when it seems to be doing a little good — we abet a general climate in which skepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate.”

- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark