Карл Саган цитаты (403 цитат, страница 8) | Цитаты известных личностей

33 min 20 sec
Источник: Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), Heaven and Hell [Episode 4]
Контексте: There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong. That's perfectly alright; it's the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.
Контексте: There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong. That's perfectly alright; it's the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny. The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his ideas were wrong or silly or in gross contradiction to the facts; rather, the worst aspect is that some scientists attempted to suppress Velikovsky's ideas. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system, and the history of our study of the solar system shows clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.

“Many religions have attempted to make statues of their gods very large, and the idea, I suppose, is to make us feel small. But if that's their purpose, they can keep their paltry icons. We need only look up if we wish to feel small.”

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Carl Sagan

Источник: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

“Science is only a Latin word for knowledge”

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Carl Sagan

Источник: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

“And after we returned to the savannahs and abandoned the trees, did we long for those great graceful leaps and ecstatic moments of weightlessness in the shafts of sunlight of the forest roof?”

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Carl Sagan

Источник: Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

“We are made of stellar ash. Our origin and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.”

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Carl Sagan книга Космос

Источник: Cosmos

“I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.”

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Carl Sagan

Источник: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

“Their position seems to be that their God is so great he doesn't even have to exist.”

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Carl Sagan книга Контакт

Источник: Contact

“What I’m saying is, if God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job.”

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Carl Sagan книга Контакт

Источник: Contact (1985), Chapter 10 (p. 164)

“In fact, the thickness of the Earth's atmosphere, compared with the size of the Earth, is in about the same ratio as the thickness of a coat of shellac on a schoolroom globe is to the diameter of the globe. That's the air that nurtures us and almost all other life on Earth, that protects us from deadly ultraviolet light from the sun, that through the greenhouse effect brings the surface temperature above the freezing point. (Without the greenhouse effect, the entire Earth would plunge below the freezing point of water and we'd all be dead.) Now that atmosphere, so thin and fragile, is under assault by our technology. We are pumping all kinds of stuff into it. You know about the concern that chlorofluorocarbons are depleting the ozone layer; and that carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases are producing global warming, a steady trend amidst fluctuations produced by volcanic eruptions and other sources. Who knows what other challenges we are posing to this vulnerable layer of air that we haven't been wise enough to foresee?”

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Carl Sagan

In Wonder and Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer (Jan-Feb 1995), 19, No. 1.

“Because it is clear from the fossil record that almost every species that has ever existed is extinct; extinction is the rule, survival is the exception.”

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Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

“We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?”

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Carl Sagan книга Космос

Источник: Cosmos (1980), p. 329

“Superstition is marked not by its pretension to a body of knowledge but by its method of seeking truth.”

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Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

“If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.”

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Carl Sagan книга Pale Blue Dot

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)

“There is no question that religions have historically played the role of making people contented with their lot. …such a doctrine would be very appealing to the ruling classes of a society. …Many societies, for this reason alone, encourage the contentment with your lot that the religious premise of heaven affords.”

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Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

“Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.”

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Carl Sagan книга Pale Blue Dot

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)

“If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It… prefer a kind of sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing? Or would He prefer His votaries to admire the real universe in all its intracacy?”

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Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

“The idea that as I walk in this direction my watch goes slightly slower and I am contracted in the direction of motion and my mass has increased slightly does not correspond to everyday experience. …the reason that it does not correspond to common sense is that we are not in the habit of traveling close to the speed of light. We may one day be in that habit, and then the Lorentz transformations will be natural, intuitive.”

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Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

“This planet is run by crazy people. Remember what they have to do to get where they are. Their perspective is so narrow, so…brief. A few years. In the best of them a few decades. They care only about the time they are in power.”

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Carl Sagan книга Контакт

Источник: Contact (1985), Chapter 23 (p. 403)

“Do we, holding that the gods exist,
deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams
and lies, while random careless chance and
change alone control the world?”

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Carl Sagan книга Контакт

Источник: Contact (1985), Chapter 10 (p. 157, quoting Euripides)

“Let's go back to the solar nebula… with the temperature declining the farther we get from the Sun. …at different distances from the Sun, different materials will condense out, because they have different vapor pressures or different melting points. …water condenses out roughly at the vicinity of the Earth, whereas silicates condense out closer to the Sun… you have to go out to somewhere near the present distance of Saturn before methane condenses.”

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Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

“Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? … No other human institution comes close.”

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Carl Sagan

Источник: The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), Ch. 2 : Science and Hope, p. 30

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

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Carl Sagan

Источник: The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), Ch. 2 : Science and Hope, p. 25

“The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans. But there is no evidence that its functioning is due to anything more than the 1014 neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.”

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Carl Sagan книга Космос

Источник: Cosmos (1980), p. 278

“We can’t just conclude that science puts too much power into the hands of morally feeble technologists or corrupt, power-crazed politicians and decide to get rid of it. Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history. Advances in transportation, communication, and entertainment have transformed the world. The sword of science is double-edged.”

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Carl Sagan

"Why We Need To Understand Science" in The Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 14, Issue 3 (Spring 1990)
Контексте: I know that science and technology are not just cornucopias pouring good deeds out into the world. Scientists not only conceived nuclear weapons; they also took political leaders by the lapels, arguing that their nation — whichever it happened to be — had to have one first. … There’s a reason people are nervous about science and technology.
And so the image of the mad scientist haunts our world—from Dr. Faust to Dr. Frankenstein to Dr. Strangelove to the white-coated loonies of Saturday morning children’s television. (All this doesn’t inspire budding scientists.) But there’s no way back. We can’t just conclude that science puts too much power into the hands of morally feeble technologists or corrupt, power-crazed politicians and decide to get rid of it. Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history. Advances in transportation, communication, and entertainment have transformed the world. The sword of science is double-edged. Rather, its awesome power forces on all of us, including politicians, a new responsibility — more attention to the long-term consequences of technology, a global and transgenerational perspective, an incentive to avoid easy appeals to nationalism and chauvinism. Mistakes are becoming too expensive.

“Eratosthenes was the director of the great library of Alexandria, the Centre of science and learning in the ancient world. Aristotle had argued that humanity was divided into Greeks and everybody else, whom he called barbarians and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. He thought it was fitting for the Greeks to enslave other peoples. But Eratosthenes criticized Aristotle for his blind chauvinism, he believed there was good and bad in every nation.”

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Carl Sagan

25 Min 10 Sec
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), Who Speaks for Earth? [Episode 13]

“Imagine we could accelerate continuously at 1 g — what we're comfortable with on good old terra firma — to the midpoint of our voyage, and decelerate continuously at 1 g until we arrive at our destination. It would take a day to get to Mars, a week and a half to Pluto, a year to the Oort Cloud, and a few years to the nearest stars.”

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Carl Sagan книга Pale Blue Dot

Источник: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 395

“It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligent beings. A modulated signal (‘beep,’ ‘beep-beep,’. . . ) comprising the numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, for example, consists exclusively of the first 12 prime numbers—that is, numbers that can be divided only by 1, or by themselves. A signal of this kind, based on a simple mathematical concept, could only have a biological origin.. . . But by far the most promising method is to send pictures.”

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Carl Sagan

Smithsonian magazine, May 1978, pp. 43, 44. Quoted in Awake! magazine, 1978, 8/22.