Dreams and Visions: The Second Carl Sagan Blog-a-Thon
As announced on Joel's Humanistic Blog, today is the Second Carl Sagan blog-a-thon. I posted some artwork last year and really wanted to have some new art ready for this year's post, but that didn't work out as I'd hoped.
But recently I read this wonderful 1995 essay he wrote for the Skeptical Enquirer, entitled "Wonder and Skepticism" and I'm going to share a few thoughts I got out of it.
Carl Sagan was a prophet. He dreamed scientific dreams and saw cultural visions and wrote future scripture -- and some of them have come to pass.
There's another reason I think popularizing science is important, why I try to do it. It's a foreboding I have -- maybe ill-placed -- of an America in my children's generation, or my grandchildren's generation, when all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when we're a service and information-processing economy; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest even grasps the issues; when the people (by "the people" I mean the broad population in a democracy) have lost the ability to set their own agendas, or even to knowledgeably question those who do set the agendas; when there is no practice in questioning those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and religiously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in steep decline, unable to distinguish between what's true and what feels good, we slide, almost without noticing, into superstition and darkness.
Try telling me that we haven't reached this point! Go on, try. I'll counter by pointing out:
When our field of presidential hopefuls is asked the question, "Do you believe in God?" and every single one says "Yes" without any hesitation, I am concerned. That anyone thinks this is an important attribute for a president is frightening; that the press asked it and reported the answers as serious news is appalling.
When asked if they believe in evolution, more than 50% of our citizens say, NO. Only Turkey had a lower percentage than we did.
Stem cell research, which could possibly cure diseases such as Parkinsons, replace vital organs and improve life for millions, is stymied by public policy, while erectile disfunction seems to be the major health crisis of our day.
Fewer U.S. citizens are studying math, science, engineering and medicine, while students from other, developing nations know where the future lies (I'm looking at you, India, China, Korea, Japan...). That's why they're "developing" and we're... not so much. And now we're denying many foreign students access to that education based on a criteria of fear. (Though the balance in this situation, at least, seems to be improving somewhat.)
What has brought us, as a nation, to the sorry, superstitious, priest-ridden (in all its forms), narrow-minded, science-phobic, blissfully ignornant culture we seem to be today? What happened to what Sagan refers to as "the time of hope"? And what can we do to bring it back?
Born-again Skeptics, like me, tend to be angry, dismissive, arrogant and despairing when we see our fellow citizens seemingly willingly drowning in a sea of misinformation, misdirection and ignorant pap, when there is the shore of reason within their reach. We get angry, scratchy and didactic.
But perhaps, before surrendering to despair, we should remember that Sagan was a wise, compassionate, humanistic -- and even humourous -- prophet. Perhaps, before losing our voices from shouting, and our reason from the frustration of it all, it would be behoove us to remember some other of his words from that same article:
Our culture in one way produces the fantastic findings of science, and then in another way cuts them off before they reach the average person. So people who are curious, intelligent, dedicated to understanding the world, may nevertheless be (in our view) enmired in superstition and pseudoscience. You could say, Well, they ought to know better, they ought to be more critical, and so on; but that's too harsh. It's not very much their fault, I say. It's the fault of a society that preferentially propagates the baloney and holds back the ambrosia.
***
The least effective way for skeptics to get the attention of these bright, curious, interested people is to belittle, or condescend, or show arrogance toward their beliefs. They may be credulous, but they're not stupid. If we bear in mind human frailty and fallibility, we will understand their plight.
***
People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. Let us not dismiss pseudoscience or even superstition with contempt.
***
If we understand this, then of course we have compassion for the abductees and those who come upon crop circles and believe they're supernatural, or at least of extraterrestrial manufacture. This is key to making science and the scientific method more attractive, especially to the young, because it's a battle for the future.
Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis -- which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism -- especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested -- and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.###
We needed Carl Sagan before and we still need him. We should let his words, and deeds, his humor and compassion, inspire us so that we can lead the generations to come away from easy and dark superstition and fear into the hard, tough but rewarding light of Reason. He should be our Prophet.
Some other favorite Carl Sagan quotes:
In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
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But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
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One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.
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Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
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Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
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When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.
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