Carl Sagan
[Jump to navigation](#mw-head) [Jump to search](#searchInput) Carl Edward Sagan ( [9 November](/wiki/9_November) [1934](/wiki/1934) – [20 December](/wiki/20_December) [1996](/wiki/1996)) was an American [astronomer](/wiki/Astronomer), planetary scientist, cosmologist, [astrophysicist](/wiki/Astrophysics), astrobiologist, author, and science communicator.His best known scientific contribution is research on [extraterrestrial life](/wiki/Extraterrestrial_life), including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation.Sagan assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them.Sagan argued the hypothesis, accepted since, that the high surface temperatures of [Venus](/wiki/Venus) can be attributed to, and calculated using, the greenhouse effect.He testified to the US Congress in 1985 that the greenhouse effect will change the earth’s climate system.
Quotes[
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=1)]
– There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that they touch, and star-stuff flows between them.I know of a world with a million moons.I know of a sun the size of the Earth — and made of diamond.There are atomic nuclei a few miles across which rotate thirty times a second.
There are tiny grains between the stars, with the size and atomic composition of bacteria.There are stars leaving the Milky Way, and immense gas clouds falling into it.There are turbulent plasmas writhing with X- and gamma-rays and mighty stellar explosions.There are, perhaps, places which are outside our universe.The universe is vast and awesome, and for the first time we are becoming a part of it.
– Planetary Exploration (University of Oregon Books, Eugene, Oregon, 1970), page 15
– It is easy to create an interstellar
[radio](/wiki/Radio)message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from [intelligent](/wiki/Intelligent)beings.A modulated [signal](/wiki/Signal)(‘beep,’ ‘beep-beep,’ .
.
.) comprising the [numbers](/wiki/Number)1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, for example, consists exclusively of the first 12 prime numbers—that is, numbers that can be divided only by 1, or by themselves.A signal of this kind, based on a simple mathematical concept, could only have a biological origin.
…But by far the most promising method is to send pictures.
– Smithsonian magazine, May 1978, pp.43, 44.Quoted in
Awake!magazine, 1978, 8/22.
– Smithsonian magazine, May 1978, pp.43, 44.
Quoted in
– Imagine, a room, awash in gasoline.And there are two implacable enemies in that room.One of them has 9,000 matches.The other has 7,000 matches.
Each of them is concerned about who’s ahead, who’s stronger.
Well, that’s the kind of situation we are actually in.The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what’s needed to dissuade the other that if it weren’t so tragic, it would be laughable.
– Remarks on the nuclear arms race, on
ABC News Viewpoint — “The Day After” (20 November 1983)
– Remarks on the nuclear arms race, on
– It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical
[scrutiny](/wiki/Scrutiny)of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new [ideas](/wiki/Ideas)…If you are only [skeptical](/wiki/Skepticism), then no new ideas make it through to you …On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical [sense](/wiki/Sense)in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.
– In
[science](/wiki/Science)it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really [good](/wiki/Good)argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again.They really do it.
It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are [human](/wiki/Human)and [change](/wiki/Change)is sometimes painful.But it happens every day.I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in [politics](/wiki/Politics)or [religion](/wiki/Religion).
– Keynote address at CSICOP conference (1987), as quoted in Do Science and the Bible Conflict? (2003) by Judson Poling, p.30
– We live in a
[society](/wiki/Society)absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology.That’s a clear prescription for disaster.
– Bringing Science Down to Earth (1994), co-authored with Anne Kalosh, in
Hemispheres (October 1994), p.
99; this is similar to statements either mentioned in earlier interviews or published later in the book The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark(1995)
– Variants:
– We live in a
[society](/wiki/Society)exquisitely dependent on [science](/wiki/Science)and [technology](/wiki/Technology), in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
– Not explaining science seems to me perverse.When you’re in love, you want to tell the world.
“With Science on Our Side”, Washington Post (9 January 1994)
– We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology.And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it?
Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan, May 27, 1996.
– I know that science and technology are not just cornucopias pouring good deeds out into the world.Scientists not only conceived nuclear weapons; they also took political leaders by the lapels, arguing that their nation — whichever it happened to be — had to have one first….There’s a reason people are nervous about science and technology.
And so the image of the mad scientist haunts our world—from Dr.
Faust to Dr.Frankenstein to Dr.Strangelove to the white-coated loonies of Saturday morning children’s television.(All this doesn’t inspire budding scientists.) But there’s no way back.We can’t just conclude that science puts too much power into the hands of morally feeble technologists or corrupt, power-crazed politicians and decide to get rid of it.Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.Advances in transportation, communication, and entertainment have transformed the world.
The
[sword](/wiki/Sword)of science is double-edged.
Rather, its awesome power forces on all of us, including politicians, a new responsibility — more attention to the long-term consequences of technology, a global and transgenerational perspective, an incentive to avoid easy appeals to nationalism and chauvinism.Mistakes are becoming too expensive.
– “Why We Need To Understand Science” in The Skeptical Inquirer Vol.14, Issue 3 (Spring 1990)
[Science](/wiki/Science)is much more than a body of [knowledge](/wiki/Knowledge).It is a way of [thinking](/wiki/Thought).This is central to its success.Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.
It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts.It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything — new ideas and established wisdom.We need wide appreciation of this kind of thinking.It works.It’s an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change.Our task is not just to train more scientists but also to deepen public understanding of science.
– “Why We Need To Understand Science” in The Skeptical Inquirer Vol.14, Issue 3 (Spring 1990)
[Science](/wiki/Science)is […] a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.
If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan(27 May 1996)
– Bringing Science Down to Earth (1994), co-authored with Anne Kalosh, in
– The idea that
[God](/wiki/God)is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous.
But if by God one means the set of physical [laws](/wiki/Laws)that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God.This God is emotionally unsatisfying…it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.
– As quoted in “Scientists & Their Gods” in U.S.News & World Report Vol.111 (1991)
[Humans](/wiki/Humans)— who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other [animals](/wiki/Animals)— have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel [pain](/wiki/Pain).
A sharp distinction between humans and ‘animals’ is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret.It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer.
The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious.They are just too much like us.
– “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” (1992) (co-written with Ann Druyan)
– In fact, the thickness of the Earth’s atmosphere, compared with the size of the Earth, is in about the same ratio as the thickness of a coat of shellac on a schoolroom globe is to the diameter of the globe.That’s the air that nurtures us and almost all other life on Earth, that protects us from deadly ultraviolet light from the sun, that through the greenhouse effect brings the surface temperature above the freezing point.(Without the greenhouse effect, the entire Earth would plunge below the freezing point of water and we’d all be dead.) Now that atmosphere, so thin and fragile, is under assault by our technology.We are pumping all kinds of stuff into it.You know about the concern that chlorofluorocarbons are depleting the ozone layer; and that carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases are producing global warming, a steady trend amidst fluctuations produced by volcanic eruptions and other sources.Who knows what other challenges we are posing to this vulnerable layer of air that we haven’t been wise enough to foresee?
– In Wonder and Skepticism, Skeptical Inquirer (Jan-Feb 1995), 19, No.1.
– The
[truth](/wiki/Truth)may be puzzling.
It may take some work to grapple with.It may be counterintuitive.It may contradict deeply held prejudices.It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true.
But our preferences do not determine what’s true.We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities.Cleverly designed experiments are the key.
– “
Wonder and Skepticism”, Skeptical Inquirer 19 (1), January-February 1995, ISSN 0194-6730
– “
– If you take a look at science in its everyday function, of course you find that
[scientists](/wiki/Scientists)run the gamut of human emotions and personalities and character and so on.But there’s one thing that is really striking to the outsider, and that is the gauntlet of criticism that is considered acceptable or even desirable.The poor graduate student at his or her Ph.D.oral exam is subjected to a withering crossfire of questions that sometimes seem hostile or contemptuous; this from the professors who have the candidate’s future in their grasp.The students naturally are nervous; who wouldn’t be? True, they’ve prepared for it for years.
But they understand that at that critical moment they really have to be able to answer questions.So in preparing to defend their theses, they must anticipate questions; they have to think, “Where in my thesis is there a weakness that someone else might find — because I sure better find it before they do, because if they find it and I’m not prepared, I’m in deep trouble.”
– “
Wonder and Skepticism”, Skeptical Inquirer 19 (1), January-February 1995, ISSN 0194-6730
– “
– Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them.A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.
– PT Staff (01 January 1996), “
Carl Sagan, author interview”, Psychology Today
– PT Staff (01 January 1996), “
– Something dreadful happens to students between first and twelfth grades, and it’s not just puberty.
– I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue.But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence.Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
– “In the Valley of the Shadow”, Parade, 10 March 1996
– That kind of skeptical, questioning, “don’t accept what
[authority](/wiki/Authority)tells you” attitude of science — is also nearly identical to the attitude of [mind](/wiki/Mind)necessary for a functioning democracy.
Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don’t think you can have one without the other.
– Talk of the Nation (3 May 1996)
– Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever it has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?
Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan, May 27, 1996.
– Those who raise questions about the
[God](/wiki/God)hypothesis and the [soul](/wiki/Soul)hypothesis are by no means all atheists.An [atheist](/wiki/Atheist)is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling [evidence](/wiki/Evidence)against the existence of God.I [know](/wiki/Knowledge)of no such compelling evidence.Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the [universe](/wiki/Universe)than we do to be sure that no such God exists.To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with [doubt](/wiki/Doubt)and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.Conversations with Carl Sagan (2006), edited by Tom Head, p.
70
– All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year.Not all bits have equal value.
– Carl Sagan (July 2011),
Cosmos (2011 ebook edition), Random House ;
– Carl Sagan (July 2011),
– I think people in power have a vested interest to oppose critical thinking.
– Now, there has been the view that …
if there is nothing special about us in space then maybe there is something special about us in time.
…To me, the principal trouble with this idea is that 99.998% of the lifetime of the universe, from its beginning to now, was over before humans appeared on the scene.
– in (November 9, 2018)”
Carl Sagan’s 1994 “Lost” Lecture: The Age of Exploration”.Carl Sagan Institute, YouTube.
(quote at 39:44 of 1:36:00)
– in (November 9, 2018)”
Essay as “Mr.X” (1969)[
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=2)] Essay as Mr.X(and here), written in 1969 for Marihuana Reconsidered (1971) by Lester Grinspoon
– I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked
[cannabis](/wiki/Cannabis), irregularly, but with evident pleasure.Initially I was unwilling to partake, but the apparent euphoria that cannabis produced and the fact that there was no physiological addiction to the plant eventually persuaded me to try.
My initial experiences were entirely disappointing; there was no effect at all, and I began to entertain a variety of hypotheses about cannabis being a placebo which worked by expectation and hyperventilation rather than by chemistry.After about five or six unsuccessful attempts, however, it happened.
– There’s a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday
[life](/wiki/Life)would be bizarre; there’s another part of me which is a kind of observer.About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part.I [smile](/wiki/Smile), or sometimes even [laugh](/wiki/Laugh)out loud at the pictures on the insides of my eyelids.
In this sense, I suppose cannabis is psychotomimetic, but I find none of the panic or terror that accompanies some psychoses.Possibly this is because I know it’s my own trip, and that I can come down rapidly any time I want to.
– The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for
[art](/wiki/Art), a subject which I had never much appreciated before.The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I’m down.This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse.
There also have been some art-related insights — I don’t know whether they are true or false, but they were fun to formulate.
– Cannabis also enhances the enjoyment of
[sex](/wiki/Sex)— on the one hand it gives an exquisite sensitivity, but on the other hand it postpones orgasm: in part by distracting me with the profusion of image passing before my eyes.The actual duration of orgasm seems to lengthen greatly, but this may be the usual experience of time expansion which comes with cannabis smoking.
– I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs.The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate.Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the
[absurd](/wiki/Absurd)comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men.And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness.Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I’ve had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor.
Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds.A sense of what the [world](/wiki/World)is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feelings for what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word “crazy” to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us.In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums.The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: “did you hear what [Lenny Bruce](/wiki/Lenny_Bruce)said yesterday? He must be crazy.”
– When I’m high I can penetrate into the past, recall childhood memories, friends, relatives, playthings, streets, smells, sounds, and tastes from a vanished era.I can reconstruct the actual occurrences in childhood events only half understood at the time.Many but not all my cannabis trips have somewhere in them a
[symbolism](/wiki/Symbolism)significant to me which I won’t attempt to describe here, a kind of mandala embossed on the high.Free-associating to this mandala, both visually and as plays on words, has produced a very rich array of insights.
There is a
[myth](/wiki/Myth)about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning.
I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different [self](/wiki/Self)that we are when we’re down the next day.
– Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way.If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do.
I find that most of the insights I achieve when high are into social issues, an area of creative scholarship very different from the one I am generally known for.
– I can remember the night that I suddenly realized what it was like to be crazy, or nights when my feelings and perceptions were of a religious nature.I had a very accurate sense that these feelings and perceptions, written down casually, would not stand the usual critical scrutiny that is my stock in trade as a scientist.
If I find in the morning a message from myself the night before informing me that there is a world around us which we barely sense, or that we can become one with the universe, or even that certain politicians are desperately frightened men, I may tend to disbelieve; but when I’m high I know about this disbelief.And so I have a tape in which I exhort myself to take such remarks seriously.I say “Listen closely, you sonofabitch of the morning! This stuff is real!” I try to show that my
[mind](/wiki/Mind)is working clearly; I recall the name of a high school acquaintance I have not thought of in thirty years; I describe the color, typography, and format of a book in another room and these memories do pass critical scrutiny in the morning.I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other [drugs](/wiki/Drugs)) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs.Such a remark applies not only to self-awareness and to intellectual pursuits, but also to perceptions of real people, a vastly enhanced sensitivity to facial expression, intonations, and choice of words which sometimes yields a rapport so close it’s as if two people are reading each other’s minds.
– My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover.Through the years I find that slightly smaller amounts of cannabis suffice to produce the same degree of high, and in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater.
There is a very nice self-titering aspect to cannabis.Each puff is a very small dose; the time lag between inhaling a puff and sensing its effect is small; and there is no desire for more after the high is there.
– I think the ratio, R, of the time to sense the dose taken to the time required to take an excessive dose is an important quantity.R is very large for
[LSD](/wiki/LSD)(which I’ve never taken) and reasonably short for cannabis.
Small values of R should be one measure of the safety of psychedelic drugs.When cannabis is legalized, I hope to see this ratio as one of the parameters printed on the pack.I hope that time isn’t too distant; the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
The Dragons of Eden (1977)[ [edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=3)]
– All page numbers are from the mass market paperback edition published by Ballantine Books
[ISBN 0-345-29765-2](/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-345-29765-2)(12th U.S.printing, March 1983)
– I proffer the following ideas with a substantial degree of trepidation; I know very well that many of them are speculative and can be proved or disproved on the anvil of experiment.
– Introduction (p.
5)
– My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings—what we sometimes call “mind”—are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more.
– Introduction (p.7)
– Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
– Introduction (p.7)
– The entire recent history of biology shows that we are, to a remarkable degree, the results of the interactions of an extremely complex array of molecules; and the aspect of biology that was once considered its holy of holies, the nature of the genetic material, has now been fundamentally understood in terms of the chemistry of its constituent nucleic acids,
DNAand RNA, and their operational agents, the proteins.
– Introduction (p.7)
– Those at too great a distance may, I am well aware, mistake ignorance for perspective.
– Introduction (p.
7)
– At any rate, both because of the clear trend in the recent history of biology and because there is not a shred of evidence to support it, I will not in these pages entertain any hypotheses on what used to be called the
mind-body dualism, the idea that inhabiting the matter of the body is something made of quite different stuff, called mind.
– Introduction (p.7)
– It is important to distinguish between the amount of information and the quality of that information.
– Chapter 2, “Genes and Brains” (p.21)
– A mutation in a
DNAmolecule within a chromosomeof a skin cell in my index finger has no influence on heredity.Fingers are not involved, at least directly, in the propagation of the species.
– Chapter 2, “Genes and Brains” (p.
27)
– Note that in all this interaction between
mutationand natural selection, no mothis making a conscious effort to adapt to a changed environment.The process is random and statistical.
– Chapter 2, “Genes and Brains” (p.28)
– There is a popular contention that half or more of the brain is unused.From an evolutionary point of view this would be quite extraordinary: why should it have evolved if it had no function? But actually the statement is made on very little evidence.
– Chapter 2, “Genes and Brains” (p.
31)
– The price we pay for the anticipation of our future is anxiety about it.Foretelling disaster is probably not much fun;
Pollyannawas much happier than Cassandra.But the Cassandric components of our nature are necessary for survival.
– Chapter 3, “The Brain and the Chariot” (p.74)
– While ritual, emotion and reasoning are all significant aspects of human nature, the most nearly unique human characteristic is the ability to associate abstractly and to reason.Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are the emotional hallmarks of our species; and the most characteristically human activities are mathematics, science, technology, music and the arts–a somewhat broader range of subjects than is usually included under the “humanities.” Indeed, in its common usage this very word seems to reflect a peculiar narrowness of vision about what is human.
[Mathematics](/wiki/Mathematics)is as much a “humanity” as [poetry](/wiki/Poetry).
– Chapter 3, “The Brain and the Chariot” (pp.81-82)
– Evolution often uses this strategy.Indeed, the standard evolutionary practice of increasing the amount of genetic information as organisms increase in complexity is accomplished by doubling part of the genetic material and then allowing the slow specialization of function of the redundant set.
– Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p.183)
– There is no doubt that right-hemisphere intuitive thinking may perceive patterns and connections too difficult for the left hemisphere; but it may also detect patterns where none exist.
Skeptical and critical thinking is not a hallmark of the right hemisphere.And unalloyed right-hemisphere doctrines, particularly when they are invented during new and trying circumstances, may be erroneous or paranoid.
– Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p.189)
– There is no way to tell whether the patterns extracted by the right hemisphere are real or imagined without subjecting them to left-hemisphere scrutiny.On the other hand, mere critical thinking, without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed.To solve complex problems in changing circumstances requires the activity of both cerebral hemispheres: the path to the future lies through the
corpus callosum.
– Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (pp.190-191)
– The search for patterns without critical analysis, and rigid skepticism without a search for patterns, are the antipodes of incomplete science.The effective pursuit of knowledge requires both functions.
– Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p.192)
– Without these experimental tests, very few physicists would have accepted general relativity.
There are many hypotheses in physics of almost comparable brilliance and elegance that have been rejected because they did not survive such a confrontation with experiment.In my view, the human condition would be greatly improved if such confrontations and willingness to reject hypotheses were a regular part of our social, political, economic, religious and cultural lives.
– Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p.193)
– Anatomy is not destiny, but it is not irrelevant either.
– Chapter 8, “The Future Evolution of the Brain” (p.199)
– In general, human societies are not innovative.
They are hierarchical and ritualistic.Suggestions for change are greeted with suspicion: they imply an unpleasant future variation in ritual and hierarchy: an exchange of one set of rituals for another, or perhaps for a less structured society with fewer rituals.And yet there are times when societies must change.“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present” was
Abraham Lincoln’s description of this truth.
Much of the difficulty in attempting to restructure American and other societies arises from this resistance by groups with vested interests in the status quo.Significant change might require those who are now high in the hierarchy to move downward many steps.This seems to them undesirable and is resisted.
– Chapter 8, “The Future Evolution of the Brain” (p.199)
– The integrity of the experimenters in the face of this unexpected finding is breathtaking.
(It is difficult to imagine any experiment that would convince leading practitioners of many political or religious philosophies of the superiority of a competing doctrine.)
– Chapter 8, “The Future Evolution of the Brain” (p.210)
– To me it is not in the least demeaning that
consciousnessand intelligenceare the result of “mere” matter sufficiently complexly arranged; on the contrary, it is an exalting tribute to the subtlety of matter and the laws of Nature.
– Chapter 8, “The Future Evolution of the Brain” (p.221)
– That in nonarithmetic operations the small and slow human brain can still do so much better than the large and fast electronic computer is an impressive tribute to how cleverly the brain is packaged and programmed—features brought about, of course, by natural selection.Those who possessed poorly programmed brains eventually did not live long enough to reproduce.
– Chapter 8, “The Future Evolution of the Brain” (p.
224)
– The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil
endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence.There is nothing mysterious about this: smart organisms by and large survive better and leave more offspring than stupid ones.
– Chapter 9, “Knowledge is Our Destiny: Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (p.240)
– Once intelligent beings achieve technology and the capacity for self-destruction of their species, the selective advantage of intelligence becomes more uncertain.
– Chapter 9, “Knowledge is Our Destiny: Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (p.240)
– Natural selection has served as a kind of intellectual sieve, producing brains and intelligences increasingly competent to deal with the laws of nature.
This resonance, extracted by natural selection, between our brains and the universe may help explain a quandary set by Einstein: The most incomprehensible property of the universe, he said, is that it is so comprehensible.
– Chapter 9, “Knowledge is Our Destiny: Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (pp.242-243)
Broca’s Brain (1979)[ [edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=4)]
– All page numbers are from the October 1980 mass market paperback edition published by Ballantine Books
[ISBN 0-345-33689-5](/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-345-33689-5)(28th printing)
– Both borderline science and many religions are motivated in part by a serious concern about the nature of the universe and our role in it, and for this reason merit our consideration and regard.
In addition, I think it possible that many religions involve at their cores an attempt to come to grips with profound mysteries of our individual life histories, as described in the last chapter.But both in borderline science and in organized religion there is much that is specious or dangerous.While the practitioners of such doctrines often wish there were no criticisms to which they are expected to reply, skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
– Introduction (p.xii)
– The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.
– Introduction (p.xii)
– Broca was quoted as saying, “I would rather be a transformed ape than a degenerate son of Adam.”
– Chapter 1, “Broca’s Brain” (p.7)
– Society corrupts the best of us.
It is a little unfair, I think, to criticize a person for not sharing the enlightenment of a later epoch, but it is also profoundly saddening that such prejudices were so extremely pervasive.The question raises nagging uncertainties about which of the conventional truths of our own age will be considered unforgivable bigotry by the next.
– Chapter 1, “Broca’s Brain” (p.11)
– All inquiries carry with them some element of risk.There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions.But I do not see how we can deal with the universe—both the outside and the inside universe—without studying it.The best way to avoid abuses is for the populace in general to be scientifically literate, to understand the implications of such investigations.
In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work.If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater.But if science is a topic of general interest and concern—if both its delights and its social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press, and at the dinner table—we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us.
– Chapter 1, “Broca’s Brain” (pp.13-14)
– Our perceptions may be distorted by training and prejudice or merely because of the limitations of our sense organs, which, of course, perceive directly but a small fraction of the phenomena of the world.Even so straightforward a question as whether in the absence of friction a pound of lead falls faster than a gram of fluff was answered incorrectly by Aristotle and almost everyone else before the time of Galileo.Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is.Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage—at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom.
– Chapter 2, “Can We Know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Salt” (pp.
15-16)
– Whether in some sense the universe is ultimately knowable depends not only on how many natural laws there are that encompass widely divergent phenomena, but also on whether we have the openness and the intellectual capacity to understand such laws.Our formulations of the regularities of nature are surely dependent on how the brain is built, but also, and to a significant degree, on how the universe is built.
For myself, I like a universe that includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable.A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians.A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being.The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit.
And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence.
– Chapter 2, “Can We Know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Salt” (p.21)
– People are rarely grateful for a demonstration of their credulity.
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p.58)
– Both Barnum and H.L.Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.The remark has worldwide application.
But the lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking.
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (pp.58-59)
– For many people, the shoddily thought out doctrines of borderline science are the closest approximation to comprehensible science readily available.
The popularity of borderline science is a rebuke to the schools, the press and commercial television for their sparse, unimaginative and ineffective efforts at science education; and to us scientists, for doing so little to popularize our subject.
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p.63)
– But our openness to the dazzling possibilities presented by modern science must be tempered by some hard-nosed skepticism.
Many interesting possibilities simply turn out to be wrong.An openness to new possibilities and a willingness to ask hard questions are both required to advance our knowledge.
And the asking of tough questions has an ancillary benefit: political and religious life in America, especially in the last decade and a half, has been marked by an excessive public credulity, an unwillingness to ask difficult questions, which has produced a demonstrable impairment in our national health.
Consumer skepticism makes quality products.This may be why governments and churches and school systems do not exhibit unseemly zeal in encouraging critical thought.They know they themselves are vulnerable.
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (pp.68-69)
– Very few scientists actually plunge into the murky waters of testing or challenging borderline or pseudo-scientific beliefs.The chance of finding out something really interesting—except about human nature—seems small, and the amount of time required seems large.
I believe that scientists should spend more time in discussing these issues, but the fact that a given contention lacks vigorous scientific opposition in no way implies that scientists think it is reasonable.
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p.69)
– I believe that the extraordinary should certainly be pursued.But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p.73)
– Where skeptical observation and discussion are suppressed, the truth is hidden.The proponents of such borderline beliefs, when criticized, often point to
[geniuses](/wiki/Genius)of the past who were ridiculed.
But the fact that some geniuses were [laughed](/wiki/Laughter)at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses.They laughed at [Columbus](/wiki/Christopher_Columbus), they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers.But they also laughed at Bozothe [Clown](/wiki/Clown)..
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p.
75)
– The best antidote for pseudoscience, I firmly believe, is science.
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p.75)
– I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C.by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nightwalkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer universe, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder.And it has the additional and important virtue—to whatever extent the word has any meaning—of being true.
– Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p.
76)
– Scientists, like other human beings, have their hopes and fears, their passions and despondencies—and their strong emotions may sometimes interrupt the course of clear thinking and sound practice.But science is also self-correcting.The most fundamental axioms and conclusions may be challenged.The prevailing hypotheses must survive confrontation with observation.Appeals to authority are impermissible.The steps in a reasoned argument must be set out for all to see.
Experiments must be reproducible.
The history of science is full of cases where previously accepted theories and hypotheses have been entirely overthrown, to be replaced by new ideas that more adequately explain the data.While there is an understandable psychological inertia—usually lasting about one generation—such revolutions in scientific thought are widely accepted as a necessary and desirable element of scientific progress.
Indeed, the reasoned criticism of a prevailing belief is a service to the proponents of that belief; if they are incapable of defending it, they are well advised to abandon it.This self-questioning and error-correcting aspect of the scientific method is its most striking property, and sets it off from many other areas of human endeavor where credulity is the rule.
– Chapter 7, “Venus and Dr.Velikovsky” (p.96)
– The idea of science as a method rather than as a body of knowledge is not widely appreciated outside of science, or indeed in some corridors inside of science.
– Chapter 7, “Venus and Dr.Velikovsky” (p.
96)
– Vigorous criticism is more constructive in science than in some other areas of human endeavor because in science there are adequate standards of validity that can be agreed upon by competent practitioners the world over.The objective of such criticism is not to suppress but rather to encourage the advance of new ideas: those that survive a firm skeptical scrutiny have a fighting chance of being right, or at least useful.
– Chapter 7, “Venus and Dr.Velikovsky” (p.
98)
– It is merely a coincidence.When enough fiction is written and enough scientific hypotheses are proposed, sooner or later there will be accidental concordances.
– Chapter 7, “Venus and Dr.Velikovsky” (p.148)
– St.Anselm argued that since we can imagine a perfect being, he must exist—because he would not be perfect without the added perfection of existence.
This so-called ontological argument was more or less promptly attacked on two grounds: (1) Can we imagine a completely perfect being? (2) Is it obvious that perfection is augmented by existence? To the modern ear such pious arguments seem to be about words and definitions rather than about external reality.
– Chapter 8, “Norman Bloom, Messenger of God” (p.152)
– In the face of all this, many of the standard ideas of science fiction seem to me to pale by comparison.I see the relative absence of these things and the distortions of scientific thinking often encountered in science fiction as terrible wasted opportunities.
Real science is as amenable to exciting and engrossing fiction as fake science, and I think it is important to exploit every opportunity to convey scientific ideas in a civilization which is both based upon science and does almost nothing to ensure that science is understood.
– Chapter 9, “Science Fiction—A Personal View” (p.166)
– Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction.And the fact that some of that science fiction was not of the highest quality is irrelevant.Ten-year-olds do not read the scientific literature.
– Chapter 9, “Science Fiction—A Personal View” (p.
172)
– Every new set of discoveries raises a host of questions which we were never before wise enough even to ask.
– Chapter 10, “The Sun’s Family” (p.183)
– Much of human history can, I think, be described as a gradual and sometimes painful liberation from provincialism, the emerging awareness that there is more to the world than was generally believed by our ancestors.
– Chapter 16, “The Golden Age of Planetary Exploration” (p.240)
– The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the search for a generally acceptable cosmic context for the human species.In the deepest sense, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.
– Chapter 22, “The Quest for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (pp.314-315)
– Whether we believe in God depends very much on what we mean by God.
– Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p.330)
– A clear prediction in an area undergoing vigorous study permits doctrines to be subject to disproof.The last posture a bureaucratic religion wishes to find itself in is vulnerability to disproof, where an experiment can be performed on which the religion stands or falls.
– Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p.332)
– It is astonishing in the face of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all.
But religions are tough.Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof.The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers.But it does indicate, if a demonstration were needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
– Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (pp.332-333)
– The idea that a God or gods is necessary to effect one or more of these origins has been under repeated attack over the last few thousand years.Because we know something about phototropism and plant hormones, we can understand the opening of the morning glory independent of divine microintervention.
It is the same for the entire skein of causality back to the origin of the universe.As we learn more and more about the universe, there seems less and less for God to do.
– Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p.335)
– But there is a chance that the answers will discomfit a great many bureaucratic and doctrinal religions.The idea of religion as a body of belief, immune to criticism, fixed forever by some founder is, I think, a prescription for the long-term decay of the religion, especially lately.
– Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p.338)
– The First Amendment to the United States Constitution encourages a diversity of religions but does not prohibit criticism of religion.In fact it protects and encourages criticism of religion.Religions ought to be subject to at least the same degree of skepticism as, for example, contentions about UFO visitations or Velikovskian catastrophism.
I think it is healthy for the religions themselves to foster skepticism about the fundamental underpinnings of their evidential bases.There is no question that religion provides a solace and support, a bulwark in time of emotional need, and can serve extremely useful social roles.But it by no means follows that religion should be immune from testing, from critical scrutiny, from skepticism.
It is striking how little skeptical discussion of religion there is in the nation that Tom Paine, the author of The Age of Reason, helped to found.
I hold that belief systems that cannot survive scrutiny are probably not worth having.
– Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p.338)
– The way to find out about our place in the universe is by examining the universe and by examining ourselves—without preconceptions, with as unbiased a mind as we can muster.We cannot begin with an entirely clean slate, since we arrive at this problem with predispositions of hereditary and environmental origin; but, after understanding such built-in biases, is it not possible to pry insights from nature?
– Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p.
339)
– Proponents of doctrinal religions—ones in which a particular body of belief is prized and infidels scorned—will be threatened by the courageous pursuit of knowledge.We hear from such people that it may be dangerous to probe too deeply.Many people have inherited their religion like their eye color: they consider it not a thing to think very deeply about, and in any case beyond our control.But those with a set of beliefs they profess to feel deeply about, which they have selected without an unbiased sifting through the facts and the alternatives, will feel uncomfortably challenged by searching questions.
Anger at queries about our beliefs is the body’s warning signal: here lies unexamined and probably dangerous doctrinal baggage.
– Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (pp.339-340)
– Some ancient Asian cosmological views are close to the idea of an infinite regression of causes, as exemplified in the following apocryphal story: A Western traveler encountering an Oriental philosopher asks him to describe the nature of the world:
“It is a great ball resting on the flat back of the world turtle.”
“Ah yes, but what does the world turtle stand on?”
“On the back of a still larger turtle.”
“Yes, but what does he stand on?”
“A very perceptive question.But it’s no use, mister; it’s
[turtles all the way down](/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down).”
– Chapter 24, “Gott and the Turtles” , p.343
– It is a good idea not to make up our minds prematurely on this issue.It is probably best not to let our personal preferences influence the decision.Rather, in the long tradition of successful science, we should permit nature to reveal the truth to us.
– Chapter 24, “Gott and the Turtles” (p.
351)
– In any case, we do not advance the human cause by refusing to consider ideas that make us frightened.
– Chapter 25, “The Amniotic Universe” (p.364)
– We are set irrevocably, I believe, on a path that will take us to the stars—unless in some monstrous capitulation to stupidity and greed, we destroy ourselves first.
– Chapter 25, “The Amniotic Universe” (p.
368)
Cosmos) (1980)[ [edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=5)]
– Cosmos.New York: Random House.1980.
LCC QB44.2.S235.[ISBN 0394502949](/wiki/Special:BookSources/0394502949).
– In the vastness of
[space](/wiki/Space)and the immensity of [time](/wiki/Time), it is my [joy](/wiki/Joy)to share a planet and an epoch with Annie.
– Dedication
– The
(/wiki/Cosmos)is [all](/wiki/All)that is or ever was or ever will be.Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation as if a distant memory, of falling from a height.
We know we are approaching the [greatest](/wiki/Greatness)of [mysteries](/wiki/Mystery).
– p.4
– The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human
[understanding](/wiki/Understanding).Lost somewhere between immensity and [eternity](/wiki/Eternity)is our tiny planetary [home](/wiki/Home).In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty.
And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise.
In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider.They remind us that humans have evolved to [wonder](/wiki/Wonder), that [understanding](/wiki/Understanding)is a [joy](/wiki/Joy), that [knowledge](/wiki/Knowledge)is prerequisite to survival.I believe our [future](/wiki/Future)depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning [sky](/wiki/Sky).
– p.4
[Imagination](/wiki/Imagination)will often carry us to worlds that never were.But without it we go nowhere.
– p.4
– We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it’s forever.
– p.
30
– p.30
– The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer.
– p.29
– If a marker were to be erected today, it might read, in homage to his scientific courage: “He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions.”
– On the character of
[Johannes Kepler](/wiki/Johannes_Kepler), p.67
– On the character of
– It is all a matter of
[time](/wiki/Time)scale.An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million.
– p.73
– The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.
– p.91
– With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.
– p.94
– Our
(/wiki/Intelligence)and our [technology](/wiki/Technology)have given us the [power](/wiki/Power)to affect the climate.
How will we use this power? Are we willing to tolerate [ignorance](/wiki/Ignorance)and complacency in matters that affect the entire human family? Do we value short-term advantages above the welfare of the [Earth](/wiki/Earth)? Or will we think on longer time scales, with concern for our children and our grandchildren, to understand and protect the complex life-support systems of our planet? The Earth is a tiny and fragile world.It needs to be cherished.
– p.103
– Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their
[emotions](/wiki/Emotions)are stirred.
– p.135
– For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.
– p.173
– They (i.e., the
(/wiki/Pythagoras)) did not advocate the free confrontation of conflicting points of view.Instead, like all orthodox religions, they practised a rigidity that prevented them from correcting their errors.
– p.184
– The Platonists and their Christian successors held the peculiar notion that the
[Earth](/wiki/Earth)was tainted and somehow nasty, while the [heavens](/wiki/Heavens)were perfect and divine.
The fundamental idea that the Earth is a planet, that we are citizens of the [Universe](/wiki/Universe), was rejected and forgotten.
– p.188
– For as long as there been humans we have searched for our place in the cosmos.
Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.This perspective is a courageous continuation of our penchant for constructing and testing mental models of the skies; the Sun as a red-hot stone, the stars as a celestial flame, the Galaxy as the backbone of night.
– p.
193
– If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it.We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
– p.193
– We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature.We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still.
We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean.We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.
– p.193
– Astronomically, the U.S.S.
R.and the United States are the same place.
– p.196
– Relativity does set limits on what humans can ultimately do.
But the universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human aspirations.
– p.201
– I have…a terrible need…shall I say the word?…of
[religion](/wiki/Religion).Then I go out at night and paint the stars.
– Quoting
[Vincent van Gogh](/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh), p.217
– Quoting
– If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the
[universe](/wiki/Universe).
– p.
218
– Matter is composed chiefly of
[nothing](/wiki/Nothing).
– p.218
– A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1…no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.
– p.220
– The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are.
– p.250
– Nobody listens to mathematicians.
– p.262
– The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans.
But there is no evidence that its functioning is due to anything more than the 1014 neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.
– p.278
[Books](/wiki/Books)permit us to voyage through time, to tap the [wisdom](/wiki/Wisdom)of our ancestors.
The library connects us with the insights and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.Public libraries depend on voluntary contributions.I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.
– p.282
– Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.
– p.284
– The choice is with us still, but the civilization now in jeopardy is all
[humanity](/wiki/Humanity).
As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the [earth](/wiki/Earth)and the [sky](/wiki/Sky).In our tenure on this planet we’ve accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage — propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders — all of which puts our survival in some doubt.But we’ve also acquired compassion for others, love for our children and desire to learn from history and experience, and a great soaring passionate intelligence — the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth.But up there in the immensity of the Cosmos, an inescapable perspective awaits us.
There are not yet any obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and this makes us wonder whether civilizations like ours always rush implacably, headlong, toward self-destruction.National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space.
Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.Travel is broadening.
– p.318
– We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers.
We know who speaks for the nations.But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?
– p.329
– Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition.They avoid rather than confront the world.But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.
– p.
332
– There is no other species on the Earth that does science.It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works.It is not perfect.It can be misused.It is only a tool.But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.
It has two rules.First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined;
arguments from authorityare worthless.
Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised.We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.
– p.
333
[Human](/wiki/Human) [history](/wiki/History)can be viewed as a slowly dawning [awareness](/wiki/Awareness)that we are members of a larger group.Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations.We have broadened the circle of those we love.We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience.If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant.
They will fear the loss of power.We will hear much about treason and disloyalty.Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones.But the choice, as [H.G.Wells](/wiki/H._G._Wells)once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.
– p.339
– Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious.If a
[human](/wiki/Human)disagrees with you, let him live.
In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
– p.339
– We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to selfawareness.
We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose.Our loyalties are to the species and the planet.We speak for Earth.Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.
Contact) (1985)[ [edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=6)]
– Contact : a novel.
New York: Simon and Schuster.1985.
LCC PS3569.A287 C6 1985.
[ISBN 0671434004](/wiki/Special:BookSources/0671434004).
– For quotes from the motion picture based on this novel, see:
[Contact (film)](/wiki/Contact_(film))
– All page numbers from the mass market paperback edition published by Pocket Books
– I wish to propose a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive.The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.I must, of course, admit that if such an
[opinion](/wiki/Opinion)became common it would completely transform our social life and our political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it.
– Chapter 2 (p.15, quoting
[Bertrand Russell](/wiki/Bertrand_Russell))
– Chapter 2 (p.15, quoting
– Humans are
[good](/wiki/Good), she knew, at discerning subtle patterns that are really there, but equally so at imagining them when they are altogether absent.
– Chapter 3 (p.44)
– We could not guess how different from us they (extraterrestrials) might be.It was hard enough to guess the intentions of our elected representatives in Washington.
– Chapter 3 (p.48)
– If we like them, they’re
[freedom](/wiki/Freedom)fighters, she thought.
If we don’t like them, they’re [terrorists](/wiki/Terrorism).In the unlikely case we can’t make up our minds, they’re temporarily only guerrillas.
– Chapter 3 (p.55)
– If the press descended, the
[science](/wiki/Science)would surely suffer.
– Chapter 5 (p.75)
– It’s hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.
– Chapter 9 (p.147)
– “Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,” he returned.
It was a phrase of hers that he had adopted “It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, and there’s this couple lying naked in bed reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica to each other, and arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more ‘numinous’ than the Resurrection.Do they know how to have a good time or don’t they?”
– Chapter 9 (p.154)
– Do we, holding that the
[gods](/wiki/Gods)exist,
deceive ourselves with insubstantial
[dreams](/wiki/Dreams)
and
[lies](/wiki/Lies), while random careless [chance](/wiki/Chance)and [change](/wiki/Change)alone control the world?
– Chapter 10 (p.157, quoting
[Euripides](/wiki/Euripides))
– Chapter 10 (p.157, quoting
– The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right.
You can’t all be correct.And what if all of you are wrong? It’s a possibility, you know.You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical.I’m not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about.But in my line of work, they’re called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.
– Chapter 10 (p.
162)
– What I’m saying is, if
[God](/wiki/God)wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job.
– Chapter 10 (p.164)
– Anything you don’t understand, Mr.Rankin, you attribute to God.God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence.You simply turn your mind off and say God did it.
– Chapter 10 (p.166)
– Jingoistic rhetoric and puerile self-congratulatory nationalism.
– Chapter 11 (p.181)
– Many harebrained interpretations were also widely available, especially in weekly newspapers.
– Chapter 13 (p.
216)
[Skepticism](/wiki/Skepticism)is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer; there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.
– Chapter 14 (p.231, quoting George Santayana)
– A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward
[fanaticism](/wiki/Fanaticism).
– Chapter 14 (p.244)
– The chiliasts made an atheist out of me.
– Chapter 15 (p.258)
– You see, the religious people — most of them — really think this planet is an experiment.That’s what their beliefs come down to.Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen’s wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can’t say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that.
Why can’t the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence.If God didn’t want Lot’s wife to look back, why didn’t he make her obedient, so she’d do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn’t made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would’ve listened to him more.If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why’s he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there’s one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer.He’s not good at design, he’s not good at execution.He’d be out of business if there was any competition.
– Chapter 16 (p.285)
– In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.
– Chapter 18 (p.
313)
– “Do you understand what’s going on?”
“Not at all,” he shouted back.
“I can almost prove this can’t be happening.”
– Chapter 19 (p.330)
– Humans are very good at dreaming, although you’d never know it from your
[television](/wiki/Television).
– Chapter 20 (p.359)
– In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always.It’s their
[nature](/wiki/Nature).They can’t help it.
– Chapter 20 (p.
359)
– That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
– Chapter 22 (p.393)
– Quoting
[Emily Dickinson](/wiki/Emily_Dickinson); The Poems of Emily Dickinson, 3:1171, no.1741
– This planet is run by crazy people.Remember what they have to do to get where they are.
Their perspective is so narrow, so…brief.A few years.In the best of them a few decades.They care only about the time they are in power.
– Chapter 23 (p.
403)
– She too had found the experience transforming.How could she not? A demon had been exorcised.
Several.And just when she felt more capable of love than she had ever been, she found herself alone.
– Chapter 23 (p.407)
– For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through
[love](/wiki/Love).
– Chapter 24 (p.430)
– The
[universe](/wiki/Universe)was made on [purpose](/wiki/Purpose), the [circle](/wiki/Circle)said.In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover a [miracle](/wiki/Miracle)— another circle, drawn kilometers downstream of the decimal point.
There would be richer messages farther in.
It doesn’t matter what you look like, or what you’re made of, or where you come from.As long as you live in this universe, and have a modest talent for mathematics, sooner or later you’ll find it.It’s already here.It’s inside everything.You don’t have to leave your planet to find it.In the fabric of [space](/wiki/Space)and in the [nature](/wiki/Nature)of matter, as in a [great](/wiki/Great) [work](/wiki/Work)of [art](/wiki/Art), there is, written small, the artist’s signature.Standing over [humans](/wiki/Humans), [gods](/wiki/Gods), and demons, subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders, there is an (/wiki/Intelligence)that antedates the universe.
– Chapter 24 (p.431)
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update)[ [edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=7)]
The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean [Episode 1][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=8)]
– For the first time, we have the power to decide the
[fate](/wiki/Fate)of our planet and ourselves.
This is a time of great [danger](/wiki/Danger), but our species is young, and curious, and brave.It shows much promise.
– We wish to pursue the
[truth](/wiki/Truth)no matter where it leads — but to find the truth, we need [imagination](/wiki/Imagination)and [skepticism](/wiki/Skepticism)both.We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean.On this shore we’ve learned most of what we know.Recently we’ve waded a little way out, maybe ankle deep, and the water seems inviting.
Some part of our being knows this is where we came from.We long to return.And we can.Because the [cosmos](/wiki/Cosmos)is also within us.We’re made of star-stuff.We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
– 5 min 15 sec
– The cosmic calendar compresses the local
[history](/wiki/History)of the universe into a single year.If the universe began on January 1st it was not until May that the Milky Way formed.
Other planetary systems may have appeared in June, July and August, but our Sun and Earth not until mid-September.Life arose soon after.
– 56 min 20 sec
– We humans appear on the cosmic calendar so recently that our recorded history occupies only the last few seconds of the last minute of December 31st.
– 57 min 0 sec
– We on
[Earth](/wiki/Earth)have just awakened to the great oceans of [space](/wiki/Space)and [time](/wiki/Time)from which we have emerged.We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic [evolution](/wiki/Evolution).We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction.What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.
One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue [Episode 2][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=9)]
– All my
[life](/wiki/Life), I’ve wondered about life beyond the earth.On those countless other planets that we think circle other suns, is there also life? Might the beings of other worlds resemble us, or would they be astonishingly different? What would they be made of? In the vast Milky Way galaxy, how common is what we call life? The nature of life on earth and the quest for life elsewhere are the two sides of the same question: the search for who we are.
– 0 min 45 sec
The Harmony of the Worlds [Episode 3][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=10)]
– As a boy
[Kepler](/wiki/Johannes_Kepler)had been captured by a vision of cosmic splendour, a [harmony](/wiki/Harmony)of the worlds which he sought so tirelessly all his life.Harmony in this world eluded him.
His three laws of planetary motion represent, we now know, a real harmony of the worlds, but to Kepler they were only incidental to his quest for a cosmic system based on the Perfect Solids, a system which, it turns out, existed only in his mind.Yet from his work, we have found that scientific laws pervade all of nature, that the same rules apply on Earth as in the skies, that we can find a resonance, a [harmony](/wiki/Harmony), between the way we think and the way the world works.
When he found that his long cherished beliefs did not agree with the most precise observations, he accepted the uncomfortable facts, he preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions.That is the
[heart](/wiki/Heart)of [science](/wiki/Science).
– 55 min 0 sec
Heaven and Hell [Episode 4][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=11)]
– There are many hypotheses in
[science](/wiki/Science)that are wrong.That’s perfectly all right; it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right.Science is a self-correcting process.
To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.The worst aspect of the Velikovskyaffair is not that many of his ideas were wrong or silly or in gross contradiction to the facts; rather, the worst aspect is that some [scientists](/wiki/Scientists)attempted to suppress Velikovsky’s ideas.
The suppression of uncomfortable [ideas](/wiki/Ideas)may be common in [religion](/wiki/Religion)or in [politics](/wiki/Politics), but it is not the path to [knowledge](/wiki/Knowledge)and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science.We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system, and the history of our study of the solar system shows clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.
– 33 min 20 sec
Blues For a Red Planet [Episode 5][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=12)]
– The
[beauty](/wiki/Beauty)of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.[Information](/wiki/Information)distilled over 4 billion years of biological [evolution](/wiki/Evolution).Incidentally, all the organisms on the [Earth](/wiki/Earth)are made essentially of that stuff.An eyedropper full of that liquid could be used to make a caterpillar or a petunia if only we knew how to put the components together.
– 44 min 50 sec
Traveller’s Tales [Episode 6][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=13)]
– A tiny blue dot set in a sunbeam.Here it is.That’s where we live.
That’s
[home](/wiki/Home).
We humans are one species and this is our world.It is our responsibility to cherish it.Of all the worlds in our solar system, the only one so far as we know, graced by [life](/wiki/Life).
– 58 min 56 sec
The Backbone of Night [Episode 7][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=14)]
– The
[sky](/wiki/Sky)calls to us.If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the [stars](/wiki/Stars).
– 0 min 40 sec
– There can be an infinite number of polygons, but only five regular solids.Four of the solids were associated with earth, fire, air and water.The cube for example represented earth.
These four elements, they thought, make up terrestrial matter.So the fifth solid they mystically associated with the
(/wiki/Cosmos).Perhaps it was the substance of the heavens.This fifth solid was called the dodecahedron.Its faces are pentagons, twelve of them.Knowledge of the dodecahedron was considered too dangerous for the public.
Ordinary people were to be kept ignorant of the dodecahedron.In love with whole numbers, the Pythagoreans believed that all things could be derived from them.Certainly all other numbers.
So a crisis in doctrine occurred when they discovered that the
square root of twowas irrational.That is: the square root of two could not be represented as the ratio of two whole numbers, no matter how big they were.”Irrational” originally meant only that.That you can’t express a number as a ratio.
But for the Pythagoreansit came to mean something else, something threatening, a hint that their [world view](/wiki/World_view)might not make sense, the other meaning of “irrational”.
– 37 min 45 sec
– Instead of wanting everyone to share and know of their discoveries the Pythagoreans suppressed the square root of two and the dodecahedron.The outside world was not to know.The Pythagoreans had discovered, in the mathematical underpinnings of nature, one of the two most powerful scientific tools, the other of course is experiment, but instead of using their insight to advance the collective voyage of human discovery they made of it little more than the hocus-pocus of a mystery cult.Science and mathematics were to be removed from the hands of the merchants and the artisans.
– 38 min 10 sec
– But why had science lost its way in the first place? What appeal could these teachings of
[Pythagoras](/wiki/Pythagoras)and [Plato](/wiki/Plato)have had for their contemporaries? They provided, I believe, an intellectually respectable justification for a corrupt social order.The mercantile tradition that had led to Ionian science also led to a slave economy.You could get richer if you owned a lot of slaves.
Athens in the time of Plato and [Aristotle](/wiki/Aristotle)had a vast slave population.All that brave Athenian talk about democracy applied only to a privileged few.
– 40 min 35 sec
Journeys in Space and Time [Episode 8][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=15)]
– We are
[star](/wiki/Star)stuff, which has taken its [destiny](/wiki/Destiny)into its own [hands](/wiki/Hands).The loom of [time](/wiki/Time)and [space](/wiki/Space)works the most astonishing [transformations](/wiki/Transformations)of [matter](/wiki/Matter).
Our own [planet](/wiki/Planet)is only a tiny part of the vast [cosmic](/wiki/Cosmic)tapestry, a starry fabric of [worlds](/wiki/Worlds)yet untold.
Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth.Each of those worlds is as [real](/wiki/Real)as ours.
In every one of them there’s a succession of incidents, [events](/wiki/Events), occurrences, which influence its [future](/wiki/Future).Countless worlds, numberless [moments](/wiki/Moments), an immensity of space and time, and our small planet at this moment — here we face a critical branch point in [history](/wiki/History).What we do with our world, right [now](/wiki/Now)will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants.It is well within our [power](/wiki/Power)to destroy our [civilization](/wiki/Civilization)and perhaps our species as well.If we capitulate a [superstition](/wiki/Superstition)or [greed](/wiki/Greed)or [stupidity](/wiki/Stupidity), we can plunge our world into a [darkness](/wiki/Darkness)deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the [Italian](/wiki/Italian) [Renaissance](/wiki/Renaissance).
But we are also [capable](/wiki/Capable)of using our [compassion](/wiki/Compassion)and our (/wiki/Intelligence), our [technology](/wiki/Technology)and our [wealth](/wiki/Wealth), to make an [abundant](/wiki/Abundant)and [meaningful](/wiki/Meaningful) [life](/wiki/Life)for every inhabitant of this planet, to enhance enormously our [understanding](/wiki/Understanding)of the [universe](/wiki/Universe)and to carry us to the stars.
– 54 min 55 sec
“The Edge of Forever” [Episode 10][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=16)]
– But we don’t yet know whether the
[Universe](/wiki/Universe)is open or closed.
More than that, there are a few astronomers who doubt that the redshift of distant galaxies is due to the doppler effect, who are skeptical of the expanding Universe and the Big Bang.Perhaps our descendants will regard our present ignorance with as much sympathy as we feel to the ancients for not knowing the Earth went around the Sun.If the general picture, however, of a Big Bang followed by an expanding Universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the Universe devoid of all matter and then the matter suddenly somehow created, how did that happen? In many cultures, the customary answer is that a God or Gods created the Universe out of nothing.But if we wish to pursue this question courageously, we must of course ask the next question: where did God come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the Universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step, and conclude that the Universe always existed? That there’s no need for a creation, it was always here.
These are not easy questions.
Cosmology brings us face to face with the deepest mysteries, questions that were once treated only in religion and myth.
The Persistence of Memory [Episode 11][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=17)]
– What distinguishes our species is thought.The cerebral cortex is in a way a liberation.We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior patterns of lizards and baboons: territoriality and aggression and dominance hierarchies.We are each of us largely responsible for what gets put in to our brains.For what as adults we wind up caring for and knowing about.No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain we can change ourselves.Think of the possibilities.
– 34 min 00 sec
– What an astonishing thing a
[book](/wiki/Book)is.
It’s a flat object made from a [tree](/wiki/Tree)with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years.Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.[Writing](/wiki/Writing)is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.Books break the shackles of [time](/wiki/Time).A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
– 42 min 33 sec
Encyclopedia Galactica [Episode 12][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=18)]
– In the vastness of the
(/wiki/Cosmos)there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours.
– 0 min 45 sec
– What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined.Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
– 1 min 10 sec
– For all I know we may be visited by a different extraterrestrial civilization every second Tuesday, but there’s no support for this appealing idea.
The extraordinary claims are not supported by extraordinary evidence.
– 7 min 25 sec
– Back reference to UFO abduction claims
Who Speaks for Earth? [Episode 13][
[edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=19)]
– The old man made himself look hard at the Raven and saw that it was not a great bird from the sky but the work of men like himself.This first encounter turned out to be peaceful.The men of the
La Pérouseexpedition were under strict orders to treat with respect any people they might discover, an exceptional policy for its time and after.
– 4 min 40 sec
– Unlike the La Pérouse expedition
the Conquistadorssought not knowledge but Gold.They used their superior weapons to loot and murder, in their madness they obliterated a civilisation.In the name of piety, in a mockery of their religion, the Spaniards utterly destroyed a society with an Art, Astronomy and Architecture the equal of anything in Europe.We revile the Conquistadors for their cruelty and shortsightedness, for choosing death.We admire La Pérouse and the Tlingitfor their courage and wisdom, for choosing life.
The choice is with us still, but the civilisation now in jeopardy is all humanity.As the ancient myth makers knew we’re children equally of the earth and the sky.In our tenure on this planet we’ve accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage, propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt.
But we’ve also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience and a great soaring passionate intelligence, the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth.But up there in the Cosmos an inescapable perspective awaits.National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space.
Fanatical ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our Earth as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and the citadel of the stars.
There are not yet obvious signs of extraterrestrial intelligence and this makes us wonder whether civilisations like ours rush inevitably headlong into self-destruction.
– 6 min 10 sec
– Every thinking person fears nuclear war and every technological nation plans for it.Everyone knows it’s madness, and every country has an excuse.
– 17 min 40 sec
– Our global civilisation is clearly on the edge of failure and the most important task it faces, preserving the lives and well-being of its citizens and the future habitability of the planet.
But if we’re willing to live with the growing likelihood of nuclear war shouldn’t we also been willing to explore vigorously every possible means to prevent nuclear war.Shouldn’t we consider in every nation major changes in the traditional ways of doing things, a fundamental restructuring of economic political social and religious institutions.We’ve reached a point where there can be no more special interests or special cases, nuclear arms threaten every person on the Earth.
Fundamental changes in society are sometimes labelled impractical or contrary to human nature, as if nuclear war were practical or as if there’s only one human nature.But fundamental changes can clearly be made, we’re surrounded by them.In the last two centuries abject slavery which was with us for thousands of years has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring worldwide revolution.Women, systematically mistreated for millennia are gradually gaining the political and economic power traditionally denied them and some wars of aggression have recently been stopped or curtailed because of a revulsion felt by the people in the aggressor nations.The old appeals to racial, sexual, and religious chauvinism and to rabid nationalist fervor are beginning not to work.
A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed.We are one planet.One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time.
– 22 min 35 sec
Eratostheneswas the director of the great library of Alexandria, the Centre of science and learning in the ancient world.[Aristotle](/wiki/Aristotle)had argued that humanity was divided into Greeks and everybody else, whom he called barbarians and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure.He thought it was fitting for the Greeks to enslave other peoples.
But Eratosthenes criticized Aristotle for his blind chauvinism, he believed there was good and bad in every nation.
– 25 Min 10 Sec
– Imagine how different our world would be if those discoveries had been explained and used for the benefit of everyone, if the humane perspective of Eratosthenes had been widely adopted and applied.But this was not to be.Alexandria was the greatest city the Western world had ever seen.People from all nations came here to live to trade to learn, on a given day these harbours were thronged with merchants and scholars and tourists, it’s probably here that the word Cosmopolitan realised its true meaning of a citizen not just of a nation but of the Cosmos, to be a citizen of the Cosmos.Here were clearly the seeds of our modern world, but why didn’t they take root and flourish why instead did the Western world slumber through a 1000 years of darkness until
[Columbus](/wiki/Christopher_Columbus)and [Copernicus](/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus)and their contemporaries rediscovered the work done here? I cannot give you a simple answer but I do know this, there is no record in the entire history of the library that any of the illustrious scholars and [scientists](/wiki/Scientists)who worked here ever seriously challenged a single political or economic or religious assumption of the society in which they lived.
The permanence of the stars was questioned, the justice of slavery was not.
– 28 min 30 sec
[History](/wiki/History)is full of people who out of [fear](/wiki/Fear)or [ignorance](/wiki/Ignorance)or the lust for [power](/wiki/Power)have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us.We must not let it happen again.
– 36 min 20 sec
– And we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos we’ve begun, at last, to wonder about our origins.Star stuff, contemplating the stars organized collections of 10 billion-billion-billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps, throughout the cosmos.
– 53 min 54 sec
– Our loyalties are to the species and the planet.We speak for
[Earth](/wiki/Earth).Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves, but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.
– 54 min 25 sec
– Since this series’ maiden voyage, the impossible has come to pass: Mighty walls that maintained insuperable ideological differences have come tumbling down; deadly enemies have embraced and begun to work together.
The imperative to cherish the Earth and protect the global environment that sustains all of us has become widely accepted, and we’ve begun, finally, the process of reducing the obscene number of weapons of mass destruction.Perhaps we have, after all, decided to choose life.
But we still have light years to go to ensure that choice.Even after the summits and the ceremonies and the treaties, there are still some 50,000 nuclear weapons in the world — and it would require the detonation of only a tiny fraction of them to produce a nuclear winter, the predicted global climatic catastrophe that would result from the smoke and the dust lifted into the atmosphere by burning cities and petroleum facilities.
The world scientific community has begun to sound the alarm about the grave dangers posed by depleting the protective ozone shield and by greenhouse warming, and again we’re taking some mitigating steps, but again those steps are too small and too slow.The discovery that such a thing as nuclear winter was really possible evolved out of the studies of Martian dust storms.
The surface of Mars, fried by ultraviolet light, is also a reminder of why it’s important to keep our ozone layer intact.The runaway
greenhouse effecton Venus is a valuable reminder that we must take the [increasing greenhouse effect](/wiki/Global_warming)on Earth seriously.
Important lessons about our environment have come from spacecraft missions to the planets.By exploring other worlds we safeguard this one.By itself, I think this fact more than justifies the money our species has spent in sending ships to other worlds.
It is our fate to live during one of the most perilous and, at the same time, one of the most hopeful chapters in human history.
Our science and our technology have posed us a profound question.
Will we learn to use these tools with wisdom and foresight before it’s too late? Will we see our species safely through this difficult passage so that our children and grandchildren will continue the great journey of discovery still deeper into the mysteries of the Cosmos? That same rocket and nuclear and computer technology that sends our ships past the farthest known planet can also be used to destroy our global civilization.Exactly the same
[technology](/wiki/Technology)can be used for [good](/wiki/Good)and for [evil](/wiki/Evil).It is as if there were a [God](/wiki/God)who said to us, “I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the [stars](/wiki/Stars).
It’s up to you.”
– 55 min 20 sec
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space) (1994)[ [edit](/w/index.php?title=Carl_Sagan&action=edit§ion=20)]
– Pale blue dot : a vision of the human future in space.New York: Random House.1994.
LCC QB500.262.S24 1994.
[ISBN 0679438416](/wiki/Special:BookSources/0679438416).
– For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled.Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten.The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood.
We invest far-off places with a certain romance.This appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection as an essential element in our survival.
Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game—none of them lasts forever.It is beyond our powers to predict the future.Catastrophic events have a way of sneaking up on us, of catching us unaware.Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds.
Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.
I love to sail forbidden seas…”
– p.2
– Consider again
that dot.That’s here.That’s [home](/wiki/Home).
That’s us.
On it everyone you [love](/wiki/Love), everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.The aggregate of our [joy](/wiki/Joy)and suffering, thousands of confident [religions](/wiki/Religions), [ideologies](/wiki/Ideologies), and [economic](/wiki/Economic)doctrines, every hunter and forager, every [hero](/wiki/Hero)and [coward](/wiki/Coward), every creator and destroyer of [civilization](/wiki/Civilization), every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every [teacher](/wiki/Teacher)of [morals](/wiki/Morals), every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every [saint](/wiki/Saint)and [sinner](/wiki/Sinner)in the [history](/wiki/History)of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The
[Earth](/wiki/Earth)is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.Think of the rivers of [blood](/wiki/Blood)spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the [momentary](/wiki/Momentary)masters of a fraction of a dot.Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the
[delusion](/wiki/Delusion)that we have some privileged position in the [Universe](/wiki/Universe), are challenged by this point of pale [light](/wiki/Light).Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The
[Earth](/wiki/Earth)is the only world known so far to harbor life.There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.
Visit, yes.Settle, not yet.Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
Ann Druyansuggests an experiment: Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter.Take a good long look at it.Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust.Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision.
If this doesn’t strike you as unlikely, pick another dot.Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life.They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit.How seriously do you take their claim?
– p.11
– It took the Church until 1832 to remove
[Galileo](/wiki/Galileo_Galilei)’s work from its list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read at the risk of dire punishment of their immortal souls.
– p.
43
– We’ve tended in our cosmologies to make things familiar.Despite all our best efforts, we’ve not been very inventive.In the West, Heaven is placid and fluffy, and Hell is like the inside of a volcano.In many stories, both realms are governed by dominance hierarchies headed by gods or devils.Monotheists talked about the king of kings.
In every culture we imagined something like our own political system running the Universe.Few found the similarity suspicious.
– p.46
– In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe.How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant.God must be even greater than we dreamed”? Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.”
– p.
