Saganism

In the words of Carl Sagan

“Arguments from authority carry little weight — authorities have made mistakes in the past.” ― Carl Sagan

Katie Bouman was 29 when the world saw its first image of a black hole. At MIT she built CHIRP, an algorithm for imaging from sparse telescope data, and helped turn 5 petabytes into one picture. When her ecstatic reaction went viral, trolls swarmed to give a male peer credit for her work.

“Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.” ― Carl Sagan

“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.” ― Carl Sagan

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” ― Carl Sagan

“Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth.” ― Carl Sagan

“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy.” ― Carl Sagan

“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge.” ― Carl Sagan

“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?” ― Carl Sagan

“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.” ― Carl Sagan

“There is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” ― Carl Sagan

“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.” ― Carl Sagan

“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time.” ― Carl Sagan

“A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” ― Carl Sagan

“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.” ― Carl Sagan

“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth?” ― Carl Sagan

“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 [...] I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.” ― Carl Sagan

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time [...] when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority.” ― Carl Sagan

“One of the great commandments of science is, ’Mistrust arguments from authority.’” ― Carl Sagan

“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.” ― Carl Sagan

“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.” ― Carl Sagan

“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.” ― Carl Sagan

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.” ― Carl Sagan

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.” ― Carl Sagan

“The cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” ― Carl Sagan

“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

Margaret Hamilton, who led the team that wrote the code that put humans on the moon, has died at 90 🕊️

Carl Sagan summarizes the 2,000+ year history of books in 2 minutes: Video Credit: Cosmos Studios

A humbling reminder from Carl Sagan: Even if you read 1 book a week for your entire life, you'd only scratch the surface of human knowledge.

Even in darkness, we glow. In this image of Earth taken by the Artemis II crew, we can see the electric lights of human activity. In the lower right, sunlight illuminates the limb of the planet.

The Moon is around 250,000 miles from Earth. It's so far that you could fit the other seven planets into the space between Earth and the Moon.

“Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgement, the manner in which information is coordinated and used.” — Carl Sagan

‘Earthrise’ was captured by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, while orbiting the Moon with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. Anders later reflected, “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth.”

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' — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time.” — Carl Sagan

“Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970, with Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise bound for the Moon. An oxygen tank explosion crippled the spacecraft on April 13, and the mission was forced into an emergency return trajectory.

“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” ― Ray Bradbury

I've already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it—those are the real things; the honors are unreal to me. I don't believe in honors. — Richard Feynman

In April 1946, Albert Einstein visited Lincoln University, a historically Black university, received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and spoke against racial segregation in the United States. A refugee from Nazi Germany, he supported civil rights causes and corresponded with W.E.B. Du Bois.

John Stuart Mill wrote, "If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up as mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame." — Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

During Bill Nye's 10-year college reunion in 1987, he went to great lengths to meet Carl Sagan at Cornell. Sagan's assistant told Nye, "Okay, you can talk to him for five minutes." Nye explained that he wanted to develop a science television program, and Sagan told him to focus on pure science.

“Give us the right kind of leader and, like the most suggestible subjects of the hypnotherapists, we will gladly do just about anything he wants—even things we know to be wrong.” — Carl Sagan