“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 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 superstitions and darkness.”
Carl Sagan died 10 years ago today. Blogathon or not, it is as good a time as any to remember the scientist that hrough his TV show, though his essays, through his novels (Contact is my favorite novel), and even through his bare scientific accomplishments has reinforced in me the desire to know and that childlike capacity for wonder and amazement that we humans lose so easily when we grow up.
To Carl’s life. Cheers!
[tags]CarlSagan, science[/tags]