Celebrating Sagan

Carl Sagan is Dead. Long Live Carl Sagan!

Zane Selvans is an admitted Amatuer Earthling, and is happy to share his thoughts and explorations on what it means to be a member of the adolescent human species. He lives in California, is both a scientist and a cyclist and wrote this exceptional essay that in part discuses two things -- 1) how he came to appreciate that the death of Carl Sagan and the corresponding dearth of new works by the deceased scientist ultimately means its up to us to move the conversation forward, and 2) how 'joyful and persistent understanding' are, in the words of Nietzsche, our, "highest and most proper metaphysical," purpose. Enjoy. Before I finished Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age in the Salt Lake City airport Monday, I found a book by Carl Sagan in the bookstore. “The Varieties of Scientific Experience”, based on his Gifford Lectures from 1985 (and published posthumously, in 2006 by Ann Druyan). I read half of it in the airport, and the other half last night. It went fast, because I’d heard it all before. The main piece of new information was that a decade and a half after the fact, Carl Sagan is truly dead to me. I’ve read most of his books, I’ve seen his television series Cosmos several times. I love his ideas; they’ve shaped me throughout my life, but I no longer hope to find anything new in them. So long as there were pieces of his mind that had been recorded, but that I hadn’t yet been exposed to, it was as if he wasn’t quite gone. He was still, from my point of view, a dynamic entity.

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Doctor Tony Prescribes a Healthy Dose of Idealism and Carl Sagan

Frustrated the modern cultural fixation on cynicism? So is Tony. That is why he's glad that he's found Carl Sagan. Check out this post he wrote for his blog, Your Daily Dose of Vitamin T.

I get so tired of cynicism, even in myself. It's so easy to say that we're going to, as a species, kill ourselves off, destroy the world, all of that, and I'll admit that I subscribe to that view myself sometimes when I run into the truly stupid members of our species. That's why, when I discovered Carl Sagan, a man who was absolutely brilliant and so obviously hopeful for us... it warmed the baseball-glove-sized radiator that I use for a heart.

The Day Neil deGrasse Tyson met Carl Sagan

Sagan book club follow up

Well, due to a problem with the email software, an old email from the Sagan Appreciation Society that contained a plug for last December’s SHSNY Book Club for Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan’s Acquiring Genomes was sent out just a few days ago; since the next book club meeting in the series, devoted to Michael Specter’s Denialism, [...]

Demon Haunted World

Gunnar shared a Sagan related video that he made via the submission form. Check out his take on science as a candle in the dark:

Calling all crafty-types

Hello fans of Carl Sagan. I’m working on post about Sagan related arts / crafts and I’d like your help. If you or anyone you know makes Sagan related things, please fill out this form and let me know. Thanks. Bryan.

The Symphony Continues

Back with the fourth installment of his Symphony of Science, John Boswell turns the focus from the cosmos to biology. This movement features Jane Goodall, David Attenborough and of course Carl Sagan. Check it out! And also check out the new Symphony of Science website. It's great. Click more for lyrics.

A Theory of the Universe

Sophie writes: I wrote this in 2008 with my little brother after we had read "An Index of Possibilities," a large softcover tome which is not related to Carl in any way other than it is a map of life from cosmos to quantum. I found Carl Sagan shortly afterwards, echoing the sentiments of our thoughts. To end, I want to suggest that the old adage taken from John Donne’s Mediation XVII, ‘No man is an island’ could be modernised to express the idea that ‘Every man is a planet’, and that every man and woman has his or her own gravitation, orbit, weather system and sun. No man or woman exists as a section apart from the world. All is necessarily connected and responsive, interrelated and communicative. We exchange information to that which surrounds us, and that which we surround. To go further than that, it is not only true that men are planets, but according to me, Sophie Ward, I believe that ‘Every man is a universe’ and that in light of the parallels of man and universe that make up my theory, get ready for it: The multiverse is a man.

The Known Universe

Danny Ledonne says, "Beautiful stuff - Sagan would want a front row seat."

Remembering Carl Sagan

Alex Michael Bonnici at The Discovery Enterprise writes: Today on Discovery Enterprise we commemorate the memory of Carl Sagan who died an untimely death thirteen years ago today. Carl Sagan, was an astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence [...]