Carl Sagan Remembered

Last updated on: September 5, 2018 at 9:52 am by Dan Peterson

Carl Sagan Remembered 2018-09-05T09:52:58-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A NASA/JPL-Caltech image of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)

There’s much in the work of the late astronomer, astrophysicist, and science writer Carl Sagan (1934-1996) with which I disagree. Not so much with regard to the science but with regard to his overall worldview.

Here, though, are some quotations from him that I like very much:

“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?’ Instead they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.’ A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”

“What a marvelous cooperative arrangement – plants and animals each inhaling each other’s exhalations, a kind of planet-wide mutual mouth-to-stoma resuscitation, the entire elegant cycle powered by a star 150 million kilometers away.”

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies was made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.”

“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years.

“Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”

“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.”

“Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.”

(I hope and trust that he’s enjoying himself very, very much.)

Posted from Victoria, British Columbia

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