What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Your support makes all the difference. He is world-famous for his popular science books and the television series Cosmos, which he co-wrote and presented. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. He thought about what life from other planets would be like. The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God - Kindle edition by Sagan, Carl, Druyan, Ann. Carl Sagan - context of quote “Advances in medicine and agriculture” - Medium image (500 x 250 px) Carl Sagan - context of quote “Advances in medicine and agriculture” - Large image (800 x 400 px) Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos, by William Poundstone. Literary Productivity, Visualized, 7 Life-Learnings from 7 Years of Brain Pickings, Illustrated, Anaïs Nin on Love, Hand-Lettered by Debbie Millman, Anaïs Nin on Real Love, Illustrated by Debbie Millman, Susan Sontag on Love: Illustrated Diary Excerpts, Susan Sontag on Art: Illustrated Diary Excerpts, Albert Camus on Happiness and Love, Illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton, The Silent Music of the Mind: Remembering Oliver Sacks, the vital balance between skepticism and openness, PBS’s Joe Hanson on how to read science news, Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”. Carl Sagan, the Defender of Critical Thinking. Thank you for collaborating with the OpenMind community! Carl Sagan begins his essay “Wonder and Skepticism” (published the year before he died) by describing the feelings of hope and awe that inspired him to study science as a child, leading to the joy and excitement of his career as a scientist and a popularizer of science. The first, in 1969, dealt with the study of UFOs. Spin more than one hypothesis. Quantify. We have a method July 12, 2011 Posted by Ezra Resnick in Science. - book suggestion. In the 1990s, when astrology, the debate on alien abductions, alternative medicine and other New Age therapies became fashionable, the cosmologist used his weekly column in the magazine Parade to discredit the “snake oil sellers” and promote education, presenting the latest scientific discoveries to the public. In parallel, he continued to seek contact with alien intelligences through the messages launched on the space probe Pioneer 10 (1972) and the later Voyager probes (1977). But rather than preaching from the ivory tower of self-righteousness, Sagan approaches the subject from the most vulnerable of places — having just lost both of his parents, he reflects on the all too human allure of promises of supernatural reunions in the afterlife, reminding us that falling for such fictions doesn’t make us stupid or bad people, but simply means that we need to equip ourselves with the right tools against them. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. If this labor has enlarged and enriched your own life this year, please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. You must be able to check assertions out. His interest in refuting pseudoscience led him to organize two symposia at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? “My parents knew almost nothing about science. He also worked with the SETI Institute, dedicated to searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence by analyzing the waves that reach us from space. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy. Proposals that cannot be proven or shown to be false do not have much scientific value. Reminding us of where society is most vulnerable to those, Sagan writes: In addition to teaching us what to do when evaluating a claim to knowledge, any good baloney detection kit must also teach us what not to do. Go here. This he has done to the enlightened scientific community, and to the anger of the religious community. Claim yours: Also: Because Brain Pickings is in its fifteenth year and because I write primarily about ideas of a timeless character, I have decided to plunge into my vast archive every Wednesday and choose from the thousands of essays one worth resurfacing and resavoring. But above all, he endures as our era’s greatest patron saint of reason and critical thinking, a master of the vital balance between skepticism and openness. Complement it with Sagan on science and “God”. However, instead of empathizing, the first step to make, after to stablish the problem, is research . Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and wonder, they taught me two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.” This is how the astronomer, astrophysicist and cosmologist Carl Edward Sagan (1934-1996), known as one of the greatest science popularizers in history, recalled his childhood. It seems that there has been an error in the communication. Attaching a numerical quantity is key to discriminating hypotheses. Sagan did not censor himself at the time of asking questions, although he later realized that his hypotheses were unfounded. https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/ Two renowned astronomers, J. Allen Hynek and James McDonald, argued that unidentified flying objects were visiting the Earth and that, although there were not enough sightings to make a convincing case, the large volume of reports justified the examination and study of the subject. In a chapter titled “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” Sagan reflects on the many types of deception to which we’re susceptible — from psychics to religious zealotry to paid product endorsements by scientists, which he held in especially low regard, noting that they “betray contempt for the intelligence of their customers” and “introduce an insidious corruption of popular attitudes about scientific objectivity.” (Cue in PBS’s Joe Hanson on how to read science news.) Scientific method is also based on the problem. —. It helps us recognize the most common and perilous fallacies of logic and rhetoric. Also, David Hume wrote in 1748: "A wise man … Ask yourself why you like the idea. They will do so again in the future. Tags: Carl Sagan add a comment. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. He explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science and those that can be considered … ‘Extraordinary claim’ and ‘simplest explanation’ are two common buzz-phrases of that market’s huckster, hustler and shyster. 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It has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. In 2020, I spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars keeping Brain Pickings going. You can beam some bit-love my way: 197usDS6AsL9wDKxtGM6xaWjmR5ejgqem7. Recently, while perusing ATL’s own Criminal Records I happened upon a curious 7” emblazoned with “Carl Sagan: A Glorious Dawn .” Since I’ve always been prone to geeking out over life-affirming contextualizations of astrophysics (and since one of the store clerks assured me, quite emphatically, that it was “amazing, the best record of the year”), I immediately snagged it. Knowledge is the key to understand the state of the art of a problem from a scientific point of view, and often, it involves an important research work to study available documents and books. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. 22) If this labor has enlarged and enriched your own life this year, please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Despite his temperament as a skeptical and rigorous scientist, many of his first publications were about exobiology, and on several occasions he speculated about life on Venus, Mars, Jupiter and even the Moon. In 1970, Sagan became a professor at Cornell University, where he directed the Planetary Studies Laboratory, and spent most of his career dedicated to research and improving public understanding of the nature of science. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. In the 1990s, Carl Sagan was diagnosed with a blood condition called myelodysplasia. In The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (public library) — the same indispensable volume that gave us Sagan’s timeless meditation on science and spirituality, published mere months before his death in 1996 — Sagan shares his secret to upholding the rites of reason, even in the face of society’s most shameless untruths and outrageous propaganda. Recognize that there is always more than one hypothesis. In a chain of argument, all the links must work—not just most of them. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding, Occam’s Razor. The seventh episode of Cosmos, “The Backbone of Night,” is about scientific curiosity and the history of that curiosity—its evolution, and its suppression.The episode begins in Sagan… The Wisdom of Carl Sagan Animated. Do not confuse expert and authority. Follow him at @jdmagness I have collected some of the best quotes Booklist for Carl Sagan. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a 1995 book by the astrophysicist Carl Sagan, in which the author aims to explain the scientific method to laypeople and to encourage people to learn critical and skeptical thinking. Through their training, scientists are equipped with what Sagan calls a “baloney detection kit” — a set of cognitive tools and techniques that fortify the mind against penetration by falsehoods: The kit is brought out as a matter of … If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. Learning about mortality and immortality from my father, Carl Sagan. In the 1980s, through his television series Cosmos, he turned science into part of mass culture, spreading his passion for astronomy to more than 400 million viewers, trying to instill in them the power of logic for skeptical thinking. In her debut book, Sasha Sagan reflects on being raised by two 20th-century science heroes – the influential Carl Sagan and his better half Ann Druyan – without any sense of burden or urgency. Richard Feynman Creates a Simple Method for Telling Science From Pseudoscience (1966) Noam Chomsky Calls Postmodern Critiques of Science Over-Inflated “Polysyllabic Truisms” Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Carl Sagan By Instant Noodle ¶ Posted in Scientific method ¶ Tagged Carl Sagan , Donald R. Prothero , Evolution , Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters , Pale Blue Dot , Science and Religion , Science in Society ¶ Leave a comment If we were thinking scientifically and using the scientific method — which, remember, is evidence-based and reliant upon drawing conclusions from the data you collect — the question of the existence of a human soul would require extraordinary evidence to be validated. Like? Many good examples can be found in religion and politics, because their practitioners are so often obliged to justify two contradictory propositions. He tried to make science popular. He noted that there were no simultaneous and reliable cases (reported by many witnesses), that they were very exotic (not explainable in terms of reasonably postulated phenomena), and he applied the skeptical standard most associated with his name: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary levels of proof or evidence.”.
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