Hero #117: Carl Sagan … (02/06/16)
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science educator. Sagan advocated scientific skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology, and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He spent most of his career as a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, where he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. Sagan also 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. In addition, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books, including The Dragons of Eden, Broca’s Brain and Pale Blue Dot. He also narrated and co-wrote the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, the most widely watched series in the history of American public television. He also wrote the science fiction novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name. Sagan and his works have received numerous awards and honors, including the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal, the Peabody Award, the Hugo Award, the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (for his book The Dragons of Eden), and two Emmy Awards for his work with Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.
Sagan believed that the Drake equation suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations would form, but that the lack of evidence of such civilizations suggests that technological civilizations tend to self-destruct. This stimulated his interest in identifying and publicizing ways that humanity could destroy itself, with the hope of avoiding such a cataclysm.
Though not an atheist, Sagan publicly commented on Christianity and the Jefferson Bible, stating, “My long-time view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of two seemingly immiscible parts, the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas Jefferson attempted to excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn’t much left when he was done, but it was an inspiring document.”
“An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I personally know 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 than we do now 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 and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed … Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.” ~ Carl Sagan
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another like him … For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through Love.” ~ Carl Sagan
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