Misplaced Pages

#104895

102-685: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a 1995 book by the astrophysicist Carl Sagan . (Four of the 25 chapters were written with Ann Druyan ). In it, Sagan aims to explain the scientific method to laypeople and to encourage people to learn critical and skeptical thinking. He explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science and those that can be considered pseudoscience . Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking and should stand up to rigorous questioning. Sagan explains that science

204-404: A Pulitzer Prize in 1977, he was asked to write and narrate the show. It was targeted to a general audience of viewers, who Sagan felt had lost interest in science, partly due to a stifled educational system. Each of the 13 episodes was created to focus on a particular subject or person, thereby demonstrating the synergy of the universe. They covered a wide range of scientific subjects including

306-584: A full professor at Cornell in 1970 and directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies there. From 1972 to 1981, he was associate director of the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research (CRSR) at Cornell. In 1976, he became the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences, a position he held for the remainder of his life. Sagan was associated with the U.S. space program from its inception. From

408-487: A 'b ' ", in order to distinguish the word from "millions") made him a favorite target of comic performers, including Johnny Carson , Gary Kroeger , Mike Myers , Bronson Pinchot , Penn Jillette , Harry Shearer , and others. Frank Zappa satirized the line in the song "Be in My Video", noting as well "atomic light." Sagan took this all in good humor, and his final book was titled Billions and Billions , which opened with

510-460: A 16-year-old. Its chancellor, Robert Maynard Hutchins , had recently retooled the undergraduate College of the University of Chicago into an "ideal meritocracy" built on Great Books , Socratic dialogue , comprehensive examinations , and early entrance to college with no age requirement. As an honors-program undergraduate , Sagan worked in the laboratory of geneticist H. J. Muller and wrote

612-493: A career goal: "That was a splendid day—when I began to suspect that if I tried hard I could do astronomy full-time, not just part-time." Sagan graduated from Rahway High School in 1951. Before the end of high school, Sagan entered an essay writing contest in which he explored the idea that human contact with advanced life forms from another planet might be as disastrous for people on Earth as Native Americans' first contact with Europeans had been for Native Americans. The subject

714-609: A description of his use of the scientific method on this topic. A review by Lee Dembart in the Los Angeles Times was positive. It described Sagan's book as "a manifesto for clear thought", with the main issue being the length of eight chapters. Gorman's review in The New York Times also criticised the length of the book. The book has received a number of retrospective reviews. An article in The Guardian , 2012, described

816-423: A flashlight shining on a photoelectric cell , which created a crackling sound, and another showed how the sound from a tuning fork became a wave on an oscilloscope . He also saw an exhibit of the then-nascent medium known as television. Remembering it, he later wrote: "Plainly, the world held wonders of a kind I had never guessed. How could a tone become a picture and light become a noise?" Sagan also saw one of

918-495: A friend of mine named Arthur Felberbaum who died about forty years ago. He and Carl and I once sat down for dinner together. His politics were very left wing, so Carl and Arthur and I were trying to find common ground so that we could have a really good dinner together. And at one point, Arthur said, "Carl, it's just that I dream that every one of us would have a baloney detection kit in our head." And that's where that idea came from. Sagan indicates that science can be misused. Thus, he

1020-664: A growing, man-made danger and likened it to the natural development of Venus into a hot, life-hostile planet through a kind of runaway greenhouse effect . He testified to the US Congress in 1985 that the greenhouse effect would change the Earth's climate system. Sagan and his Cornell colleague Edwin Ernest Salpeter speculated about life in Jupiter's clouds , given the planet's dense atmospheric composition rich in organic molecules. He studied

1122-663: A kind of "inner war" as a result of his close relationship with both his parents, who were in many ways "opposites." He traced his analytical inclinations to his mother, who had been extremely poor as a child in New York City during World War I and the 1920s, and whose later intellectual ambitions were sabotaged by her poverty, status as a woman and wife, and Jewish ethnicity . Davidson suggested she "worshipped her only son, Carl" because "he would fulfill her unfulfilled dreams." Sagan believed that he had inherited his sense of wonder from his father, who spent his free time giving apples to

SECTION 10

#1732863073105

1224-445: A library card. He wanted to learn what stars were, since none of his friends or their parents could give him a clear answer: "I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars [...] and the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star, but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light. The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It

1326-494: A look at believed hoaxes of the past and encourage viewers to engage in critical thinking to better represent science on popular television . Sagan indicates that therapists can contribute to the growth of pseudoscience or the infusion of "false stories". He is critical of John Mack and his support of abduction cases, which were represented in his patients. Sagan writes about the story of Paul Ingram . Ingram's daughter reported that her father had sexually abused her. He

1428-628: A modest apartment in Bensonhurst. He later described his family as Reform Jews , the most liberal of Judaism's four main branches. He and his sister agreed that their father was not especially religious, but that their mother "definitely believed in God, and was active in the temple [...] and served only kosher meat." During the worst years of the Depression , his father worked as a movie theater usher. According to biographer Keay Davidson, Sagan experienced

1530-403: A non-threatening object towards Earth, creating an immensely destructive weapon. In a 1994 paper he co-authored, he ridiculed a three-day-long " Near-Earth Object Interception Workshop " held by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in 1993 that did not, "even in passing" state that such interception and deflection technologies could have these "ancillary dangers." Sagan remained hopeful that

1632-424: A patient of John Mack who claimed to have scars on her body which were from encounters with aliens . Sagan writes that if the patient is asked what her scars look like, she is unable to show them because, unfortunately, they are located in the private areas of her body. Sagan presents a set of tools for skeptical thinking that he calls the "baloney detection kit". Skeptical thinking consists both of constructing

1734-427: A premise. In this case, "All birds have beaks" is converted to "All beaked animals are birds." The reversed premise is plausible because few people are aware of any instances of beaked creatures besides birds—but this premise is not the one that was given. In this way, the deductive fallacy is formed by points that may individually appear logical, but when placed together are shown to be incorrect. In everyday speech,

1836-542: A reasoned argument and recognizing a fallacious or fraudulent one. In order to identify a fallacious argument, Sagan suggests employing such tools as independent confirmation of facts, debate, development of different hypotheses , quantification, the use of Occam's razor , and the possibility of falsification . Sagan's "baloney detection kit" also provides tools for detecting "the most common fallacies of logic and rhetoric", such as argument from authority and statistics of small numbers . Through these tools, Sagan argues

1938-619: A school for gifted children, he has something really remarkable." However, his parents could not afford to do so. Sagan became president of the school's chemistry club, and set up his own laboratory at home. He taught himself about molecules by making cardboard cutouts to help him visualize how they were formed: "I found that about as interesting as doing [chemical] experiments." He was mostly interested in astronomy, learning about it in his spare time. In his junior year of high school, he discovered that professional astronomers were paid for doing something he always enjoyed, and decided on astronomy as

2040-462: A scientific viewpoint, nuclear winter was a low point for Sagan, although, politically speaking, it popularized his image among the public. The adult Sagan remained a fan of science fiction, although disliking stories that were not realistic (such as ignoring the inverse-square law ) or, he said, did not include "thoughtful pursuit of alternative futures." He wrote books to popularize science, such as Cosmos , which reflected and expanded upon some of

2142-422: A skeptical analysis of several examples of what he refers to as superstition , fraud , and pseudoscience such as witches , UFOs , ESP , and faith healing . He is critical of organized religion . In a 2020 interview for Skeptical Inquirer , when Sagan's wife Ann Druyan was asked about the origin of the phrase "baloney detection kit", she said that It didn't really come from Carl. It actually came from

SECTION 20

#1732863073105

2244-563: A thesis on the origins of life with physical chemist Harold Urey . He also joined the Ryerson Astronomical Society. In 1954, he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts with general and special honors in what he quipped was "nothing." In 1955, he earned a Bachelor of Science in physics. He went on to do graduate work at the University of Chicago, earning a Master of Science in physics in 1956 and a Doctor of Philosophy in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960. His doctoral thesis, submitted to

2346-412: A tongue-in-cheek discussion of this catchphrase, observing that Carson was an amateur astronomer and that Carson's comic caricature often included real science. As a humorous tribute to Sagan and his association with the catchphrase "billions and billions", a sagan has been defined as a unit of measurement equivalent to a very large number of anything. Sagan's number is the number of stars in

2448-486: A tremendous increase in the respectability of a then-controversial field. Sagan also helped Frank Drake write the Arecibo message , a radio message beamed into space from the Arecibo radio telescope on November 16, 1974, aimed at informing potential extraterrestrials about Earth. Sagan was chief technology officer of the professional planetary research journal Icarus for 12 years. He co-founded The Planetary Society and

2550-430: Is arguing against in that same text. The article mentions how Sagan discusses a natural predisposition people have towards science; but, the article says, "He does not tell us how he used the scientific method to discover the "embedded" human proclivity for science." Sagan heavily discusses the importance of using the scientific method in his book, and this article claims he strays away from his own message by not including

2652-475: Is contrasted with an informal fallacy which may have a valid logical form and yet be unsound because one or more premises are false. A formal fallacy, however, may have a true premise, but a false conclusion. "Some of your key evidence is missing, incomplete, or even faked! That proves I'm right!" "The vet can't find any reasonable explanation for why my dog died. See! See! That proves that you poisoned him! There’s no other logical explanation!" In

2754-481: Is highly critical of Edward Teller , the "father of the hydrogen bomb ", and Teller's influence on politics, and contrasts his stance to that of Linus Pauling and other scientists who took moral positions. Sagan also discusses the misuse of science in representation. He relates to the depiction of the mad scientist character in children's TV shows and is critical of this occurrence. Sagan suggests an addition of scientific television programs, many of which would take

2856-503: Is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. Carl Sagan , from Demon-Haunted World (1995) Long before the ill-fated tenure process, Cornell University astronomer Thomas Gold had courted Sagan to move to Ithaca, New York , and join

2958-644: Is not because of such beliefs that Congress now approaches the NIH budget with an ax. In fact, billions of dollars spent on years of research in the war on cancer have spawned growing professional bureaucracies and diminishing medical benefits." Trachtman argues that Sagan does not include problems like growing bureaucracies and diminishing medical benefits as reasons for a lack of scientific attention. In his review for The New York Times, James Gorman also argues for an unaddressed issue in Sagan's book, saying Sagan fails to emphasize

3060-405: Is not just a body of knowledge, but is a way of thinking. Sagan shows how scientific thinking is both imaginative and disciplined, bringing humans to an understanding of how the universe is, rather than how they wish to perceive it. He says that science works much better than any other system because it has a "built-in error-correcting machine". Superstition and pseudoscience get in the way of

3162-459: Is not validity preserving. People often have difficulty applying the rules of logic. For example, a person may say the following syllogism is valid, when in fact it is not: "That creature" may well be a bird, but the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Certain other animals also have beaks, for example: an octopus and a squid both have beaks, some turtles and cetaceans have beaks. Errors of this type occur because people reverse

The Demon-Haunted World - Misplaced Pages Continue

3264-698: Is the "Carlos hoax" by James Randi that revealed flaws in reporting by news media. Carlos was described as an ancient spirit that supposedly possessed José Alvarez and provided Alvarez with advanced knowledge about the universe. Many news outlets assumed this was true and reported it as such, which spread misinformation. Sagan also cites crop circles as hoaxes. The book was a New York Times bestseller. The contemporary skeptical movement considers it an important book. The Demon-Haunted World has been criticized (in Smithsonian magazine and The New York Times ) for not incorporating certain information relevant to

3366-672: The Voyager Golden Record précis. During World War II , Sagan's parents worried about the fate of their European relatives, but he was generally unaware of the details of the ongoing war. He wrote, "Sure, we had relatives who were caught up in the Holocaust . Hitler was not a popular fellow in our household... but on the other hand, I was fairly insulated from the horrors of the war." His sister, Carol, said that their mother "above all wanted to protect Carl... she had an extraordinarily difficult time dealing with World War II and

3468-529: The Betty and Barney Hill abduction . To mark the tenth anniversary of Sagan's death, David Morrison , a former student of Sagan, recalled "Sagan's immense contributions to planetary research, the public understanding of science, and the skeptical movement" in Skeptical Inquirer . Following Saddam Hussein 's threats to light Kuwait 's oil wells on fire in response to any physical challenge to Iraqi control of

3570-606: The International Astronomical Union 's commission on "Physical Studies of Planets and Satellites" throughout the 1950s. In 1958, Sagan and Kuiper worked on the classified military Project A119 , a secret United States Air Force plan to detonate a nuclear warhead on the Moon and document its effects. Sagan had a Top Secret clearance at the Air Force and a Secret clearance with NASA . In 1999, an article published in

3672-482: The International Space Station at the expense of further robotic missions. Former student David Morrison described Sagan as "an 'idea person' and a master of intuitive physical arguments and ' back of the envelope ' calculations", and Gerard Kuiper said that "Some persons work best in specializing on a major program in the laboratory; others are best in liaison between sciences. Dr. Sagan belongs in

3774-563: The Public Welfare Medal , the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences for "distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare." He was denied membership in the academy, reportedly because his media activities made him unpopular with many other scientists. As of 2017 , Sagan is the most cited SETI scientist and one of the most cited planetary scientists. In 1980 Sagan co-wrote and narrated

3876-518: The catchphrase "billions and billions", although he never actually used the phrase in the Cosmos series. He rather used the term "billions upon billions." Richard Feynman , a precursor to Sagan, used the phrase "billions and billions" many times in his " red books ." However, Sagan's frequent use of the word billions and distinctive delivery emphasizing the "b" (which he did intentionally, in place of more cumbersome alternatives such as "billions with

3978-477: The observable universe . This number is reasonably well defined, because it is known what stars are and what the observable universe is, but its value is highly uncertain. Sagan's ability to convey his ideas allowed many people to understand the cosmos better—simultaneously emphasizing the value and worthiness of the human race, and the relative insignificance of the Earth in comparison to the Universe . He delivered

4080-465: The origin of life and a perspective of humans' place on Earth. The show won an Emmy , along with a Peabody Award , and transformed Sagan from an obscure astronomer into a pop-culture icon. Time magazine ran a cover story about Sagan soon after the show broadcast, referring to him as "creator, chief writer and host-narrator of the show." In 2000, "Cosmos" was released on a remastered set of DVDs. After Cosmos aired, Sagan became associated with

4182-558: The 1950s onward, he worked as an advisor to NASA , where one of his duties included briefing the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon . Sagan contributed to many of the robotic spacecraft missions that explored the Solar System , arranging experiments on many of the expeditions. Sagan assembled the first physical message that was sent into space: a gold-plated plaque , attached to

The Demon-Haunted World - Misplaced Pages Continue

4284-518: The 1977 series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in London. Sagan was a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life. He urged the scientific community to listen with radio telescopes for signals from potential intelligent extraterrestrial life-forms . Sagan was so persuasive that by 1982 he was able to get a petition advocating SETI published in the journal Science , signed by 70 scientists, including seven Nobel Prize winners. This signaled

4386-474: The Burroughs novels. That same year, mass hysteria developed about the possibility that extraterrestrial visitors had arrived in flying saucers , and the young Sagan joined in the speculation that the flying "discs" people reported seeing in the sky might be alien spaceships. Sagan attended David A. Boody Junior High School in his native Bensonhurst and had his bar mitzvah when he turned 13. In 1948, when he

4488-569: The Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, was entitled Physical Studies of the Planets . During his graduate studies , he used the summer months to work with planetary scientist Gerard Kuiper , who was his dissertation director , as well as physicist George Gamow and chemist Melvin Calvin . The title of Sagan's dissertation reflected interests he had in common with Kuiper, who had been president of

4590-406: The Earth but to forestall or postpone developing the technological methods that would be needed to defend against them. He argued that all of the numerous methods proposed to alter the orbit of an asteroid , including the employment of nuclear detonations , created a deflection dilemma : if the ability to deflect an asteroid away from the Earth exists, then one would also have the ability to divert

4692-548: The Holocaust." Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World (1996) included his memories of this conflicted period, when his family dealt with the realities of the war in Europe, but tried to prevent it from undermining his optimistic spirit. Soon after entering elementary school, Sagan began to express his strong inquisitiveness about nature. He recalled taking his first trips to the public library alone, at age five, when his mother got him

4794-748: The Laboratory for Planetary Studies . Sagan and his works received numerous awards and honors, including the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal , the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal , the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (for his book The Dragons of Eden ), and (for Cosmos: A Personal Voyage ) two Emmy Awards , the Peabody Award , and the Hugo Award . He married three times and had five children. After developing myelodysplasia , Sagan died of pneumonia at

4896-637: The Supreme Extraterrestrial he is rather circumspect." The Smithsonian article suggests Sagan was very clear about his religious beliefs in the book, for he "splits his universe in two, into science and irrationality." The Smithsonian goes on to say that Sagan's defined religious views fall within the area of an untestable claim, a type of claim he argues against in The Demon-Haunted World . Lewontin's review also claims that Sagan includes something in The Demon-Haunted World which he also

4998-423: The ability of many laypersons to appreciate the beauty and benefits of science. Skeptical thinking allows people to construct , understand , reason , and recognize valid and invalid arguments . Wherever possible, there must be independent validation of the concepts whose truth should be proved. He states that reason and logic would succeed once the truth were known. Conclusions emerge from premises , and

5100-462: The acceptability of the premises should not be discounted or accepted because of bias . As an example of skeptical thinking, Sagan offers a story concerning a fire-breathing dragon who lives in his garage. When he persuades a rational, open-minded visitor to meet the dragon, the visitor remarks that they are unable to see the creature. Sagan replies that he "neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon". The visitor suggests spreading flour on

5202-508: The age of 62 on December 20, 1996. Carl Edward Sagan was born on November 9, 1934, in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of New York City's Brooklyn borough. His mother, Rachel Molly Gruber (1906–1982), was a housewife from New York City; his father, Samuel Sagan (1905–1979), was a Ukrainian-born garment worker who had emigrated from Kamianets-Podilskyi (then in the Russian Empire ). Sagan

SECTION 50

#1732863073105

5304-469: The award-winning 13-part PBS television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage , which became the most widely watched series in the history of American public television until 1990. The show has been seen by at least 500 million people across 60 countries. The book, Cosmos , written by Sagan, was published to accompany the series. Because of his earlier popularity as a science writer from his best-selling books, including The Dragons of Eden , which won him

5406-400: The award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage , which became the most widely watched series in the history of American public television : Cosmos has been seen by at least 500 million people in 60 countries. A book, also called Cosmos , was published to accompany the series. Sagan also wrote a science-fiction novel, published in 1985, called Contact , which became

5508-481: The basis for the 1997 film Contact . His papers, comprising 595,000 items, are archived in the Library of Congress . Sagan was a popular public advocate of skeptical scientific inquiry and the scientific method ; he pioneered the field of exobiology and promoted the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life ( SETI ). He spent most of his career as a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, where he directed

5610-421: The benefits of a critical mind and the self-correcting nature of science can take place. Sagan provides nine tools as the first part of this kit. Sagan suggests that with the use of this "baloney detection kit" it is easier to critically think and find the truth. There is a second part to the kit. This consists of twenty logical fallacies that one must not commit when offering up a new claim. Sagan provides

5712-677: The book The Cold and the Dark: The World after Nuclear War and in 1990 the book A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race , which explains the nuclear-winter hypothesis and advocates nuclear disarmament . Sagan received a great deal of skepticism and disdain for the use of media to disseminate a very uncertain hypothesis. A personal correspondence with nuclear physicist Edward Teller around 1983 began amicably, with Teller expressing support for continued research to ascertain

5814-435: The book as somewhat dated, though still insightful. Another article from The Verge in 2017 noted that a quote from the book regarding Sagan's pessimistic prediction for a future America had gone viral on Twitter, which the article described as "chillingly prescient". The article praised the book, stating that Sagan "practiced the scientific skepticism and thinking that he preached, and that's what helped him accurately analyze

5916-628: The book's 1997 motion-picture adaptation , which starred Jodie Foster and won the 1998 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. On it, everyone you ever heard of... 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

6018-418: The consequent ). In other words, in practice, "non sequitur" refers to an unnamed formal fallacy. A special case is a mathematical fallacy , an intentionally invalid mathematical proof , often with the error subtle and somehow concealed. Mathematical fallacies are typically crafted and exhibited for educational purposes, usually taking the form of spurious proofs of obvious contradictions . A formal fallacy

6120-457: The credibility of the winter hypothesis. However, Sagan and Teller's correspondence would ultimately result in Teller writing: "A propagandist is one who uses incomplete information to produce maximum persuasion. I can compliment you on being, indeed, an excellent propagandist, remembering that a propagandist is the better the less he appears to be one." Biographers of Sagan would also comment that from

6222-428: The crimes. A medical examination was done on his daughter, where none of the scars she described were actually found. Sagan writes that Ingram later tried to plead innocence once "away from his daughters, his police colleagues, and his pastor ." Hoaxes have played a valuable role in the history of science by revealing the flaws in our thinking and helping us advance our critical thinking skills. One of Sagan's examples

SECTION 60

#1732863073105

6324-443: The difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true." Continuing with concepts relevant to the 'dragon in my garage' story, Sagan writes about

6426-490: The effects of nuclear war , when Paul Crutzen 's "Twilight at Noon" concept suggested that a substantial nuclear exchange could trigger a nuclear twilight and upset the delicate balance of life on Earth by cooling the surface. In 1983 he was one of five authors—the "S"—in the follow-up "TTAPS" model (as the research article came to be known), which contained the first use of the term " nuclear winter ", which his colleague Richard P. Turco had coined. In 1984 he co-authored

6528-506: The fair's most publicized events: the burial at Flushing Meadows of a time capsule , which contained mementos from the 1930s to be recovered by Earth's descendants in a future millennium. Davidson wrote that this "thrilled Carl." As an adult, inspired by his memories of the World's Fair, Sagan and his colleagues would create similar time capsules to be sent out into the galaxy: the Pioneer plaque and

6630-401: The floor so that the creature's footprints might be seen, which Sagan says is a good idea, "but this dragon floats in the air". When the visitor considers using an infrared camera to view the creature's invisible fire , Sagan explains that her fire is heatless. He continues to counter every proposed physical test with a reason why the test will not work. Sagan concludes by asking: "Now what's

6732-410: The hands of the merchants and the artisans. This tendency found its most effective advocate in a follower of Pythagoras named Plato" and Logical fallacies While a logical argument is a non sequitur if, and only if, it is invalid, the term "non sequitur" typically refers to those types of invalid arguments which do not constitute formal fallacies covered by particular terms (e.g., affirming

6834-504: The history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. ... Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Carl Sagan, Cornell lecture in 1994 Sagan wrote a sequel to Cosmos , Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space , which

6936-584: The idea that scientists should take a more active role in reaching science to the public, while he does mention the failures of the education system to do so. The review in the Smithsonian magazine and a review by academic biologist Richard Lewontin in the New York Review of Books provide a range of opinions on Sagan's attitude towards religious ideas. Per the New York Review article, "when it comes to

7038-499: The ideas of others for little more than self-promotion. An advisor from his years as an undergraduate student, Harold Urey , wrote a letter to the tenure committee recommending strongly against tenure for Sagan. Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all

7140-563: The institution. Sagan instead asked to be made an assistant professor, and eventually Whipple and Menzel were able to convince Harvard to offer Sagan the assistant professor position he requested. Sagan lectured, performed research, and advised graduate students at the institution from 1963 until 1968, as well as working at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory , also located in Cambridge, Massachusetts . In 1968, Sagan

7242-455: The items he discusses in his book. The Smithsonian article by Paul Trachtman argues that Sagan relates issues of government choices and declining scientific thinking skills to pseudoscience topics like astrology and faith healing but ignores other issues that may be causing governmental bodies and other individuals to turn away from science. One such issue is consequences of pouring governmental money into cancer research. Trachtman writes, "it

7344-481: The journal Nature revealed that Sagan had included the classified titles of two Project A119 papers in his 1959 application for a scholarship to University of California, Berkeley . A follow-up letter to the journal by project leader Leonard Reiffel confirmed Sagan's security leak. From 1960 to 1962 Sagan was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley . Meanwhile, he published an article in 1961 in

7446-480: The journal Science on the atmosphere of Venus, while also working with NASA 's Mariner 2 team, and served as a "Planetary Sciences Consultant" to the RAND Corporation . After the publication of Sagan's Science article, in 1961 Harvard University astronomers Fred Whipple and Donald Menzel offered Sagan the opportunity to give a colloquium at Harvard and subsequently offered him a lecturer position at

7548-586: The key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of America

7650-501: The latter group." Sagan's contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of the planet Venus . In the early 1960s no one knew for certain the basic conditions of Venus' surface, and Sagan listed the possibilities in a report later depicted for popularization in a Time Life book Planets . His own view was that Venus was dry and very hot as opposed to the balmy paradise others had imagined. He had investigated radio waves from Venus and concluded that there

7752-407: The natural NEO impact threat and the intrinsically double-edged essence of the methods to prevent these threats would serve as a "new and potent motivation to maturing international relations." Later acknowledging that, with sufficient international oversight, in the future a "work our way up" approach to implementing nuclear explosive deflection methods could be fielded, and when sufficient knowledge

7854-416: The observed color variations on Mars' surface and concluded that they were not seasonal or vegetational changes as most believed, but shifts in surface dust caused by windstorms . Sagan is also known for his research on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life , including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation . He is also the 1994 recipient of

7956-521: The oil assets, Sagan together with his "TTAPS" colleagues and Paul Crutzen , warned in January 1991 in The Baltimore Sun and Wilmington Morning Star newspapers that if the fires were left to burn over a period of several months, enough smoke from the 600 or so 1991 Kuwaiti oil fires "might get so high as to disrupt agriculture in much of South Asia ..." and that this possibility should "affect

8058-636: The poor or helping soothe tensions between workers and management within New York City's garment industry. Although awed by his son's intellectual abilities, Sagan's father also took his inquisitiveness in stride, viewing it as part of growing up. Later, during his career, Sagan would draw on his childhood memories to illustrate scientific points, as he did in his book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors . Describing his parents' influence on his later thinking, Sagan said: "My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me

8160-440: The possibility of life on Mars and other planets. According to biographer Ray Spangenburg, Sagan's efforts in his early years to understand the mysteries of the planets became a "driving force in his life, a continual spark to his intellect, and a quest that would never be forgotten." In 1947, Sagan discovered the magazine Astounding Science Fiction , which introduced him to more hard science fiction speculations than those in

8262-496: The production of amino acids from basic chemicals by exposure to light. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record , which were universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. He argued in favor of the hypothesis, which has since been accepted, that the high surface temperatures of Venus are

8364-415: The recently hired astronomer Frank Drake among the faculty at Cornell. Following the denial of tenure from Harvard, Sagan accepted Gold's offer and remained a faculty member at Cornell for nearly 30 years until his death in 1996. Unlike Harvard, the smaller and more laid-back astronomy department at Cornell welcomed Sagan's growing celebrity status. Following two years as an associate professor, Sagan became

8466-456: The result of the greenhouse effect . Initially an assistant professor at Harvard , Sagan later moved to Cornell University , where he spent most of his career. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. He wrote many popular science books, such as The Dragons of Eden , Broca's Brain , Pale Blue Dot and The Demon-Haunted World . He also co-wrote and narrated

8568-508: The smoke did not produce continental-sized cooling. Sagan later conceded in The Demon-Haunted World that the prediction did not turn out to be correct: "it was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4–6 °C over the Persian Gulf , but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared." In his later years, Sagan advocated the creation of an organized search for asteroids/ near-Earth objects (NEOs) that might impact

8670-513: The space probe Pioneer 10 , launched in 1972. Pioneer 11 , also carrying another copy of the plaque, was launched the following year. He continued to refine his designs; the most elaborate message he helped to develop and assemble was the Voyager Golden Record , which was sent out with the Voyager space probes in 1977. Sagan often challenged the decisions to fund the Space Shuttle and

8772-407: The strictest sense, a logical fallacy is the incorrect application of a valid logical principle or an application of a nonexistent principle: This is fallacious. Indeed, there is no logical principle that states: An easy way to show the above inference as invalid is by using Venn diagrams . In logical parlance, the inference is invalid, since under at least one interpretation of the predicates it

8874-601: The themes of A Personal Voyage and became the best-selling science book ever published in English; The Dragons of Eden : Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence , which won a Pulitzer Prize ; and Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science . Sagan also wrote the best-selling science fiction novel Contact in 1985, based on a film treatment he wrote with his wife, Ann Druyan, in 1979, but he did not live to see

8976-437: The trends of his time and forecast their eventual outcomes in ours.". Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan ( / ˈ s eɪ ɡ ən / ; SAY -gən ; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer , planetary scientist and science communicator . His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life , including experimental demonstration of

9078-576: The two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method." He recalled that a defining moment in his development came when his parents took him, at age four, to the 1939 New York World's Fair . He later described his vivid memories of several exhibits there. One, titled America of Tomorrow , included a moving map, which, as he recalled, "showed beautiful highways and cloverleaves and little General Motors cars all carrying people to skyscrapers, buildings with lovely spires, flying buttresses—and it looked great!" Another involved

9180-501: The war plans"; these claims were also the subject of a televised debate between Sagan and physicist Fred Singer on January 22, aired on the ABC News program Nightline . In the televised debate, Sagan argued that the effects of the smoke would be similar to the effects of a nuclear winter , with Singer arguing to the contrary. After the debate, the fires burnt for many months before extinguishing efforts were complete. The results of

9282-419: Was 14, his father's work took the family to the older semi-industrial town of Rahway, New Jersey , where he attended Rahway High School . He was a straight-A student but was bored because his classes did not challenge him and his teachers did not inspire him. His teachers realized this and tried to convince his parents to send him to a private school, with an administrator telling them, "This kid ought to go to

9384-651: Was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me." When he was about six or seven, he and a close friend took trips to the American Museum of Natural History , in Manhattan . While there, they visited the Hayden Planetarium and walked around exhibits of space objects, such as meteorites , as well as displays of dinosaur skeletons and naturalistic scenes with animals. As Sagan later wrote, "I

9486-1002: Was a member of the SETI Institute Board of Trustees. Sagan served as Chairman of the Division for Planetary Science of the American Astronomical Society , as President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union , and as Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). At the height of the Cold War , Sagan became involved in nuclear disarmament efforts by promoting hypotheses on

9588-598: Was a surface temperature of 500 °C (900 °F). As a visiting scientist to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory , he contributed to the first Mariner missions to Venus, working on the design and management of the project. Mariner 2 confirmed his conclusions on the surface conditions of Venus in 1962. Sagan was among the first to hypothesize that Saturn 's moon Titan might possess oceans of liquid compounds on its surface and that Jupiter 's moon Europa might possess subsurface oceans of water. This would make Europa potentially habitable. Europa's subsurface ocean of water

9690-426: Was considered controversial, but his rhetorical skill won over the judges and they awarded him first prize. When he was about to graduate from high school, his classmates voted him "most likely to succeed" and put him in line to be valedictorian . He attended the University of Chicago because, despite his excellent high school grades, it was one of the very few colleges he had applied to that would consider accepting

9792-415: Was denied academic tenure at Harvard. He later indicated that the decision was very unexpected. The denial has been blamed on several factors, including that he focused his interests too broadly across a number of areas (while the norm in academia is to become a renowned expert in a narrow specialty), and perhaps because of his well-publicized scientific advocacy, which some scientists perceived as borrowing

9894-471: Was gained, to use them to aid in mining asteroids . His interest in the use of nuclear detonations in space grew out of his work in 1958 for the Armour Research Foundation 's Project A119 , concerning the possibility of detonating a nuclear device on the lunar surface. Sagan was a critic of Plato , having said of the ancient Greek philosopher: "Science and mathematics were to be removed from

9996-414: Was later indirectly confirmed by the spacecraft Galileo . The mystery of Titan's reddish haze was also solved with Sagan's help. The reddish haze was revealed to be due to complex organic molecules constantly raining down onto Titan's surface. Sagan further contributed insights regarding the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter , as well as seasonal changes on Mars . He also perceived global warming as

10098-410: Was named in honor of his maternal grandmother, Chaiya Clara, who had died while giving birth to her second child; she was, in Sagan's words, "the mother she [Rachel] never knew." Sagan's maternal grandfather later married a woman named Rose, who Sagan's sister, Carol, would later say, was "never accepted" as Rachel's mother because Rachel "knew she [Rose] wasn't her birth mother." Sagan's family lived in

10200-468: Was selected as a notable book of 1995 by The New York Times . He appeared on PBS's Charlie Rose program in January 1995. Sagan also wrote the introduction for Stephen Hawking 's bestseller A Brief History of Time . Sagan was also known for his popularization of science, his efforts to increase scientific understanding among the general public, and his positions in favor of scientific skepticism and against pseudoscience , such as his debunking of

10302-405: Was told that "sex offenders often repressed memories of their crimes." Ingram was eventually able to have a foggy visualization of the claimed events, and he suggested that perhaps "a demon might be responsible." Sagan describes how once Ingram started remembering events, so did several other individuals and family members. A "memory recovery" technique was performed on Ingram, and he confessed to

10404-628: Was transfixed by the dioramas—lifelike representations of animals and their habitats all over the world. Penguins on the dimly lit Antarctic ice [...] a family of gorillas, the male beating his chest [...] an American grizzly bear standing on his hind legs, ten or twelve feet tall, and staring me right in the eye." Sagan's parents nurtured his growing interest in science, buying him chemistry sets and reading matter. But his fascination with outer space emerged as his primary focus, especially after he had read science fiction by such writers as H. G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs , stirring his curiosity about

#104895