Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
23 quotes
"The Man in the Moon is in fact a record of ancient catastrophes--most of which took place before humans, before mammals, and probably even before life arose on Earth. It is a characteristic conceit of our species to put a human face on random cosmic violence."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"All science asks is to employ the same levels of skepticism we use in buying a used car or in judging the quality of analgesics or beer from their television commercials."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well based - or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug - it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"Liberation from superstition is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for science."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"Often, superstition and injustice are imposed by the same ecclesiastical and secular authorities, working hand in glove. It is no surprise that political revolutions, scepticism about religion, and the rise of science might go together,"
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. ... Choose science."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"[In] everyday life, it is very rare that we are confronted with new facts about events of long ago. Our memories are almost never challenged. They can, instead, be frozen in place, no matter how flawed they are, or become a work in continual artistic revision."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"Christianity may be good and Satanism evil. Under the Constitution, however, both are neutral. This is an important, but difficult, concept for many law enforcement officers to accept. They are paid to uphold the penal code, not the Ten Commandments … The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"Science gropes and staggers toward improved understanding."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?"
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"Except for hydrogen, all the atoms that make each of us up—the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our brains—were manufactured in red giant stars thousands of light-years away in space and billions of years ago in time. We are, as I like to say, starstuff."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"The astonishing fact is that similar mathematics applies so well to planets and to clocks. It needn’t have been this way. We didn’t impose it on the Universe. That’s the way the Universe is. If this is reductionism, so be it."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"Even if the aliens are short, dour, and sexually obsessed—if they’re here, I want to know about them."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"The same few dozen organic molecules are used over and over again in biology for the widest variety of functions."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority'. (Scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always follow this commandment.)"
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no scientist enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection for his or her ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics, Wait a minute; this is a really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s done you no harm; please leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw them away."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"It is certainly true that all beliefs and all myths are worthy of a respectful hearing. It is not true that all folk beliefs are equally valid - if we’re talking not about an internal mindset, but about understanding of the external reality."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
"In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos. And the cumulative worldwide build-up of knowledge over time converts science into something only a little short of a trans-national, trans-generational meta-mind."
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark