The immortal words of Carl Sagan

[humanmachinery]

~We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy, which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe, which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and culture that is worth pondering.

~For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

~For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

~If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

~The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

~We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

~Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

~Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

~One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. it is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous.

~In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they 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 and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

~You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe

~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.

~We should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit.

~If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate....Try science.

~I worry that [...] pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us-then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls... The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.





[[not the same pic he's talking about, but taken in the same neighborhood)

~We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale 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. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, 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 and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.



and my personal favorite:



~Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.






The Cosmos series, and many of his other works and media appearances were key in developing my understanding and appreciation of the sciences. Carl and Jacques Cousteau have both been HUGE inspirations to me. Thank the stars for PBS. DONATE! And make sure those representing you on Capitol Hill realize how valuable public broadcasting is.

[ccbatson]

A entertaining and bright man...although, he did spend some time sensationalising and furthering the idea of man made climate change.

[humanmachinery]

Sagan's area of expertise was not climatology, but his interest in the subject was not centered on political grandstanding.


If global climate change is indeed occurring, the evidence for it will mount to the point that the reality of the phenomenon is indisputable. Understanding why it was being observed would be an important endeavour.

At present, we can be certain that human activity has a non-zero impact on the environment -- and this is not limited to climate. Pollution and human infrastructure do indeed have environmental impacts. In the case of climate, our task is to determine what effect we are having, and what aspects of observed phenomena may be part of underlying natural cycles.

Unlike mere political postures taken on matters such as gun control and similarly contentious debates, climate change and carbon emissions are something that can be measured, and their effects -- in principle -- quantified empirically.

Neither scare-mongering nor denial of aspects of a system of complex variables have any place in a scientific discussion. Data interpretation and hypothesis testing is what is called for.

This is what Sagan advocated. He was not an entertainer who used science to make money, but a scientist and educator who later learned how to talk to TV audiences.

[humanmachinery]

And if he was wrong about climate change, that does not invalidate the importance of his work. Science advances by the elimination of error, rather than the pursuit of certainty.

Karl Popper figured this out before you or I were ever born, and Sagan operated within its framework.


Consider his lecture on the subtleties of the tesseract.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9KT4M7kiSw


What we perceive may not be the whole and unabridged truth.

Sagan makes this abundantly clear. Even though I have been through that thought experiment several times - I'm blown away by his ability to explain it.

The one time I saw a "picture" of a tesseract, I was confused and didn't understand that this was supposed to be a representation of its projection, or shadow, into the third dimension. In 30 seconds, Sagan simplified everything.

[jiminnm]

Ah yes, billions and billions. We're all made of star stuff.

[Ray1936]

Taken away far too young. Gene Shoemaker, too.

[Jimaz]

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

Any observable universe must be benign toward, at the very least, its own observers by definition: The Anthropic Principle.

Thank you so much for these threads, humanmachinery.

[humanmachinery]

Oh, but you are operating under the assumption that the universe *wants* us to be here and observe it, because the chances of us being here to think about the chances of us being here are so minute.

Sagan once called the the "anthropocentric principle," mocking the absurdity of assuming there had to be a god, because all the chips fell into place for our existence to happen. He noted what Einstein figured out nearly a century ago: there is no point of privileged observation in the universe, and if we were wiped out tomorrow, it would continue on merrily without us. We orbit but one star among the innumerable, and a great many of them are like it, and also likely support life. Some of these lifeforms are also likely sentient, and vouch for the centrality of their own perspectives.

They too would likely have difficulty accepting the idea of a universe carrying on in their absence, but it would do so without a hiccup.

Douglas Adams reduced the anthropic principle to an even more basic level. He had a sentient puddle in a pothole, and that puddle wondered how remarkable it was that a pothole could exist in just the right shape and size to fit him.

The universe was not made for us. We have adapted to the conditions of the universe.

[humanmachinery]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBv7t4IxY9s

The cool thing is that it makes the facts abundantly clear on how persistent reality is. It is for this reason we cannot allow opponents of logic and reason, empiricism and dispassionate observation to define the terms of discussion about the natural world.

The purveyors of ignorance, fear and superstition all too often get a free pass on this matter, because they outnumber those who wish to understand the universe on its own terms rather than through ancient cultural filters that appeal to our lesser attributes. Sagan understood this, and we all owe a debt to him.

If something has changed in recent years, it is only that rationalists no longer feel it always necessary to extend olive branches to the irrational. In time, the self-correcting nature of the rationalist project should prevail, despite its fragility on a cultural level. We live in reality, and people must deal with it on a daily basis. The universe is external to our individual minds and senses, and that it operates according to rules whether or not we are observing it.

In addition to the assumption of an external reality, we are forced to accept [[if we're smart) that reality is objective. Objectivity means that observations, experiments, or measurements by one person can be made by another person who will obtain the same or similar results. I need not understand the laws of gravity and ballistic motion for them to act on me, and a second person will be able to confirm that the results of my falling off a cliff were bad for me. Because agreement is required, objective reality as employed by science is sometimes called consensus reality.

But it doesn't matter if you and I agree or not; the facts hold sway.

The universe isn't about us.

[ccbatson]

I think you misunderstand me, he was not talking about anthropogenic climate of the variety that Al Gore is foisting...actually, the opposite, nuclear winter theory was what he addressed.

[humanmachinery]

Nuclear war is not the scenario invoked by the phrase "climate change." We are altering the course of discussion here.

It is true that no sane person will ever stage a nuclear attack, because the prospect of mutually assured destruction would annihilate all parties involved –and likely all persons in existence. This has prevented several conflicts in recent decades. A nuclear war is un-winnable

Sagan did not worry about this. He concerned himself with the operation of nuclear weapons by irrational fanatics, who felt that spiritual or ideological victories were more important than tactical victories. Such a person might welcome oblivion, because they believed as David Merrick that "it is not enough for me to win. My enemies must lose."

The cold war is over, and so nuclear annihilation is largely a forgotten threat, but it remains highly probable that a "dirty bomb" will one day be smuggled into a major city by a rogue terrorist organization and detonated. This may happen in the middle east, Pakistan, or India, but the more likely targets are London, Paris, and New York City. These are the centers of the first world nations that have military and economic investments in the Middle East, and they have drawn the most ire of militant religious extremists.

[Meddle]

~We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy, which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe, which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and culture that is worth pondering.

A minor correction:


~We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 Billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy, which is one of Billions of other galaxies which make up a universe, which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and culture that is worth pondering.

[humanmachinery]

Here Sagan talks about how fragile civilization is. He delivers a horrifying tale of one of the earliest examples of science being censored. The Romans saw empirical knowledge only as a tool to reinforce the powers of the ruling class. When the "barbarians" arrived to topple their order, science became a suppressed symbol of the forsaken aristocracy.

The crimes described herein have hurt us all.







http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...=sagan+hypatia


With great power comes great responsibility. Let's not repeat the Romans' mistakes.

[ccbatson]

However, the topic Sagan was discussing was Nuclear Winter, which, would not even be a theoretic possibility in the dirty bomb scenario that you claim he was most concerned with.

[humanmachinery]

The "dirty bomb" scenario is a recent development, mostly an issue after Sagan's passing.

Sagan was talking about MAD during the Cold War period.

It was improbable, but still possible.

It behooves us to recognize how fragile civilization is.

[ccbatson]

MAD was not improbable IMO. However, the climate aspect was where Sagan went a bit soft.

[Jimaz]

Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' featuring Stephen Hawking [[Cosmos Remixed)

[ccbatson]

I never thought of Sagan as being a high powered astrophysicists in Hawkin's league.