It seems Carl Sagan is on lots of people’s minds these days, thanks in part to the YouTube sensation “A Glorious Dawn,” in which clips of Sagan from Cosmos and a bit of Stephen Hawking from A Brief History of Time are AutoTuned and set to music. Here it is, in case you haven’t seen it:
Anyway, Sagan’s certainly on my mind, and I’ve always liked that line, also used in the video. This coming Monday, November 9th, would have been his 75th birthday. We could certainly use more ambassadors for science of Sagan’s caliber these days as various Fundie wack-jobs continue trying to get public schools to stop teaching science in science classes. I’m a big fan of Neil DeGrasse-Tyson, Phil Plait, Bill Nye and plenty of others, but nobody has ever quite matched the poetry and philosophical spirit that Sagan conveyed so easily.
A few other choice Sagan quotations to ponder:
“The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
“Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”
“I am a collection of organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You’re a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label. But is that all? Is there nothing in here but molecules? Some people find that idea somehow demeaning to human dignity. But for myself, I find it elevating and exhilarating to discover that we live in a universe which permits the evolution of molecular machines as intricate and subtle as we.”