Saganism

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

― Oscar Wilde

"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

"Like it or not, we humans are bound up with our fellows, and with the other plants and animals all over the world.
Our lives are intertwined."

-Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

— James Baldwin

"Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another."

-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

A black and white potrait of Bertrand Russell

“First they fascinate the fools then they muzzle the intelligent.”

― Bertrand Russell

"We are, each of us, largely responsible for what gets put into our brains, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can change ourselves."

-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Black and white potrait of Aldous Huxley

“The purpose of propaganda is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”

― Aldous Huxley

Carl Sagan on star wars in 1978.

"Cosmos is closed and light cannot escape from it, then it may be perfectly correct to describe the universe as a black hole. If you wish to know what it is like inside a black hole, look around you."

-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

"The lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking."

-Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

Astronomers have found the first gap-clearing planet, WISPIT 2b nestled inside the rings of its star’s debris disk, it could be the missing link in planetary formation.

Credit: ESO/Laird Close, University of Arizona, R. F. van Capelleveen et al

It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little about it.

Carl Sagan talks about alien civilizations.

"Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff."

-Carl Sagan

"The secrets of evolution are death and time—the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations."

-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

"The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas."

-Carl Sagan

Appreciation for our favorite science communicator, Carl Sagan.

"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."

Happy 91st Birthday to Carl Sagan – a true pioneer of science who ignited our cosmic curiosity. ❤️

"Those who make uncritical observations or fraudulent claims lead us into error and deflect us from the major human goal of understanding how the world works. It is for this reason that playing fast and loose with the truth is a very serious matter."

-Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain

"In any case, we do not advance the human cause by refusing to consider ideas that make us frightened."

-Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

The more we want it to be true, the more careful we have to be. No witness's say-so is good enough. People make mistakes.People play practical jokes.People stretch the truth for money or attention or fame.People occasionally misunderstand what they're seeing.People even see things that aren't there.

The James Webb Space Telescope spotted a gargantuan ravenous black hole in the ancient universe—nicknamed BiRD (Big Red Dot)—that existed just 4 billion years after the Big Bang. Image credit: F. Loiacono, NASA, ESA, CSA

The James Webb Space Telescope spotted a gargantuan ravenous black hole in the ancient universe—nicknamed BiRD (Big Red Dot) that existed just 4 billion years after the Big Bang.

Image credit: F. Loiacono, NASA, ESA, CSA

There is no deeper religious feeling than the feeling for the natural world. I wouldn't separate the world of nature from the religious instinct...I would not even object to saying that the sense of awe before the grandeur of nature is itself a religious experience.

The only way to escape the personal corruption of praise is to go on working. - Albert Einstein

"I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgements."

-Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

"Thomas Jefferson taught that a democracy was impractical unless the people were educated."

-Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life & Death at the Brink of the Millennium

"Science is an ongoing process. It never ends. There is no single ultimate truth to be achieved, after which all the scientists can retire."

-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe. It is, in a way, the opposite of Chaos.

"For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations."

-Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Carl Sagan sitting on a wooden bench.

After the earth dies, some 5 billion years from now, after it's burned to a crisp, or even swallowed by the Sun, there will be other worlds and stars and galaxies coming into being -- and they will know nothing of a place once called Earth.

― Carl Sagan