Idols #1: Carl Sagan

I’ve decided to split the bios I cover during this blog into a further two sections. Obviously we have the heroes and legends categories but there won’t be many people in there whom I truly admire. Sure in the heroes category there’ll be people I respect for their actions and in the Legends category there’ll be people I like in certain ways but would never claim to idolise. The further problem with the legends category is I won’t necessarily like everyone listed in it (someone can be an arsehole and still be a legend) whilst other people in that category will merely just amuse me. So with this in mind I’ve decided to create a separate Idols category – it will consist mainly of people who have genuinely inspired me and whose views and outlook on life I share. The people in this category will also normally possess a wisdom I consider being worth aspiring to or will have otherwise accomplished something remarkable with their lives. I also intend to create a villains category or something similar which pretty much speaks for itself – this category will consist mainly of people I consider to be not only my ideological or moral enemies but enemies of the human race in general.

Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996)

So I was watching a documentary about the Solar system the other day and figured Sagan was a good place to start with this. He can’t qualify as a legend for me because he simply isn’t one. He did court controversy in his life but ultimately it was because he was a philanthropist. You might think this would conflict with my general misanthropic attitude towards the human race but it doesn’t because if everyone were like Sagan I would have little or no reason to be misanthropic. So what qualifies him as an idol – well for starters he was one of the greatest minds of the last century. He published 600 scientific papers during his lifetime and authored or co-authored 20 books. He was one of the foremost experts in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, planetary science, space science and astrobiology. Consequently he worked for NASA for most of his life (oh how jealous I am about this). He was heavily involved with the Pioneer and Voyager missions and the time capsules that were sent up with them and lobbied heavily for SETI even turning it around from what many regarded as crank science to one having a modicum of respectability. Sagan came to some unfortunate conclusions about the Fermi paradox arguing that it was likely that technologically advanced civilisations probably had a tendency to destroy themselves rather quickly and this led him to become politically active in lobbying against nuclear weaponry. He was a staunch advocate of nuclear arms controls especially in light of the research he did concerning nuclear winter – he was one of the team that conducted the original study suggesting that a nuclear war would likely bring about a global nuclear winter. Sagan also tried to reconcile the conflict between science and religion in his book Contact by suggesting that perhaps one day science would find the undeniable signature of divinity through mathematics – that signature being at the end of transcendental numbers. In this respect I think his quest may be futile but still it’s an intriguing possibility and I largely agree with the sentiment he was trying to express. The film Contact (1997) starring Jodie Foster although a great film omitted all the core ideas that made the book such a pleasure to read. The reason  - because such ideas would be lost on most people but the book itself explored the issue in considerable depth. Perhaps his most inspiring work though was Cosmos which detailed the universe and our part in it – excerpts shown below.

His death was a great loss for the human race but whilst he was alive – even if only in some small way he certainly made the world a better place.

A few quotes from man of which there are hundreds of great ones:

“If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?”

“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.”

“The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.”

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”

“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavour of science.”

“Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant. They will fear the loss of power. We will hear much about treason and disloyalty. Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones. But the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.”