In 2018, I was honored with the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.
Now, in honor of Carl Sagan Day (November 9th), here are some thoughts of his worth repeating:
1/n
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
2/n More Carl Sagan words of wisdom:
“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’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
3/n More Carl Sagan words of wisdom:
“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really 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 and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
― Carl Sagan
@petergleick @carlysagan
It's worse than that; now to even ask a question is an admission of weakness, and to invite a veritable Dunning-Kruger Effect festival of imaginary answers from self-nominated authorities. Social media is entirely about making statements... woe betide the person who asks a question.
@carlysagan @petergleick
Interesting question. I wonder if he participated in things like Compuserve, The Well, or Usenet prior to Eternal September (generally considered to have been in roughly the middle of the 1990s). I imagine he'd have thought well of its potential but in an awful way I'm sort of glad he missed its fruition. (If what we have now can be called that. And who knows... maybe this is just a dark patch and it's still early days.)
@pieist @petergleick that’s an interesting point. Sagan didn’t even have email. Imagine his horror at what is happening with social media misinformation. Social media definitely has an accept-the-content of x-influencer philosophy that is almost authoritarian and very anti-science. I ask myself often whether Sagan would participate in social media at all