{"quotes":[{"text":"Billions of years from now our sun, then a distended red giant star, will have reduced Earth to a charred cinder. But the Voyager record will still be largely intact, in some other remote region of the Milky Way galaxy, preserving a murmur of an ancient civilization that once flourished — perhaps before moving on to greater deeds and other worlds — on the distant planet Earth.","author":"Carl Sagan","tags":["carl-sagan","golden-records","satellite","space","voyager"],"id":1029,"author_id":"Carl+Sagan"},{"text":"I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, un-available to us without such drugs.","author":"Lester Grinspoon","tags":["carl-sagan","education","marijuana"],"id":53219,"author_id":"Lester+Grinspoon"},{"text":"My main reason for scepticism about the Huxley/Sagan theory is that the human brain is demonstrably eager to see faces in random patterns, as we know from scientific evidence, on top of the numerous legends about faces of Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or Mother Teresa, being seen on slices of toast, or pizzas, or patches of damp on a wall. This eagerness is enhanced if the pattern departs from randomness in the specific direction of being symmetrical.","author":"Richard Dawkins","tags":["carl-sagan","evidence","evolution","religion","science","sir-julian-huxley","theory"],"id":136554,"author_id":"Richard+Dawkins"},{"text":"Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side, and light on skepticism. They're curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I'm asked follow-up questions. They've never heard of the notion of a 'dumb question'. But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize 'facts'. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts has gone out of them. They've lost much of the wonder and gained very little skepticism. They're worried about asking 'dumb' questions; they are willing to accept inadequate answers, they don't pose follow-up questions, the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in. Something has happened between first and twelfth grade. And it's not just puberty. I'd guess that it's partly peer pressure not to excel - except in sports, partly that the society teaches short-term gratification, partly the impression that science or mathematics won't buy you a sports car, partly that so little is expected of students, and partly that there are few rewards or role-models for intelligent discussion of science and technology - or even for learning for it's own sake. Those few who remain interested are vilified as nerds or geeks or grinds. But there's something else. I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. 'Why is the Moon round?', the children ask. 'Why is grass green?', 'What is a dream?', 'How deep can you dig a hole?', 'When is the world's birthday?', 'Why do we have toes?'. Too many teachers and parents answer with irritation, or ridicule, or quickly move on to something else. 'What did you expect the Moon to be? Square?' Children soon recognize that somehow this kind of question annoys the grown-ups. A few more experiences like it, and another child has been lost to science.","author":"Carl Sagan","tags":["carl-sagan","education","science"],"id":143770,"author_id":"Carl+Sagan"},{"text":"We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.","author":"Carl Sagan","tags":["carl-sagan","humans","life","science","solar-power","star-stuff"],"id":184134,"author_id":"Carl+Sagan"},{"text":"Can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native myth? Can you be sure that the natives are not humoring you or pulling your leg? Bronislaw Malinowski thought he had discovered a people in the Trobriant Islands who had not worked out the connection between sexual intercourse and childbirth. When asked how children were conceived, they supplied him with an elaborate mythic structure prominently featuring celestial intervention. Amazed, Malinowski objected that was not how it was done at all, and supplied them instead with the version so popular in the West today – including a nine-month gestation period. “Impossible,” replied the Melanesians. “Do you not see that woman over there with her six-month-old child? Her husband has been on an extended voyage to another island for two years.” Is it more likely that the Melanesians were ignorant of the begetting of children or that they were gently chiding Malinowski? If some peculiar-looking stranger came into my town and asked ME where babies came from, I’d certainly be tempted to tell him about storks and cabbages. Prescientific people are people. Individually they are as clever as we are.","author":"Carl Sagan","tags":["carl-sagan","cleverness","myths","people","primitive"],"id":209998,"author_id":"Carl+Sagan"},{"text":"If it takes a little myth and ritual to get us through a night that seems endless, who among us cannot sympathize and understand?","author":"Carl Sagan","tags":["carl-sagan","human-condition","science"],"id":237300,"author_id":"Carl+Sagan"},{"text":"It takes a fearless, unflinching love and deep humility to accept the universe as it is. The most effective way he knew to accomplish that, the most powerful tool at his disposal, was the scientific method, which over time winnows out deception. It can't give you absolute truth because science is a permanent revolution, always subject to revision, but it can give you successive approximations of reality.","author":"Ann Druyan","tags":["ann-druyan","carl-sagan","cosmos","fearless","humanity","humility","realitu","science","truth"],"id":254925,"author_id":"Ann+Druyan"},{"text":"And what greater might do we possess as human beings than our capacity to question and to learn?","author":"Ann Druyan","tags":["ann-druyan","carl-sagan","inspirational","science","theology","thought-provoking"],"id":297890,"author_id":"Ann+Druyan"},{"text":"The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.","author":"Carl Sagan","tags":["carl-sagan","cosmos","life","mystery","universe"],"id":320800,"author_id":"Carl+Sagan"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":18,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}