Carl Sagan's (unfortunate) accurate prediction

[SCantiGOP]

In a 1995 Carl Sagan wrote a book titled "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark."

Did he have a time machine or was he just that smart?

“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. 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 key 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.”

[Vilis Veritas]

1. Carl Sagan was one of the Centuries greatest minds, imo.

Loved him and all he did.

To answer: smart.

[Zoonart]

2. Brilliant brilliant man....

and a stoner, who claimed to have figured out his most daunting equasions by writing them in the steam on his shower door after getting baked.

[Raster]

3. Again...

...brilliant, brilliant man!

[Zoonart]

5. Yep!

[northoftheborder]

16. Yes, a brilliant and original thinker! Too few of those show up in our world.

[Vilis Veritas]

20. His tone, his words, his brilliance made for a true poet scientist.

I remember sitting captivated watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos...I still have the entire series.

[TeapotInATempest]

4. Love Mr. Sagan

I wish he were still with us.

[Zoonart]

7. He's out there among those...

"billions of stars".

I do have to say that Neil is pretty fine too.

[TeapotInATempest]

9. Yes to both of those statements. :)

[Binkie The Clown]

6. The Republicans are doing everything in their power to usher in a new Dark Ages. n/t

[mopinko]

8. one of those life changing books, imho.

set my beliefs in stone, and made me see how everything that liberals worried about in the era of st ronnie were going to come to pass.

[SCantiGOP]

13. As has been said before:

Science does not have a liberal bias.

It's just that the right-wing, especially the fundamentalist right-wing, tries to present it as such.

[BootinUp]

10. He wrote about this stuff quite a bit

He was fascinated by how the human mind worked.

[longship]

11. The candle flame gutters...

Light a candle for Carl. Keep the flame lit.

[BittyJenkins]

12. Seems small but big to me

My son went to Cornell University. When I visited him one summer, we went on a walk and I got to see Carl's house, it was sweet. My son went on to work for Cornell and JPL. He takes the pics for Opportunity and is writing the camera software for the next 2020 mission. He lives right next door to us in CA. I love Ithaca and what it creates and I think Carl would agree.

[pangaia]

15. I was in Ithaca during the 1970s and had the great goods fortune

to get to hang with him at a local Japanese restaurant a few times... late into the evening...

priceless....

[MountainFool]

14. not much of a prediction ...

By 1995 we'd already had 8 years of anti-intellectualism with Reagan. Anyone else remember Nancy's obsession with astrology?

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/04/us/white-house-confirms-reagans-follow-astrology-up-to-a-point.html

Trump isn't the first anit-science idiot to occupy the White House.

[Towlie]

17. Also, on pg. 237 he spoke of "a democratic government that had, temporarily at least, lost its way."

Ten thousand American scientists and engineers publicly
pledged they would not work on Star Wars or accept money from
the SDI organization. This provides an example of widespread
and courageous non-cooperation by scientists (at some conceivable
personal cost) with a democratic government that had,
temporarily at least, lost its way.

--------------------------------------------------------------

If Carl Sagan were alive today he'd probably acknowledge that the government has become so completely lost that it seems hopeless that it'll ever find its way back.

[defacto7]

18. His genius connected physical science, history, language

and human nature. Mastering those as he did gave him the ability to see the probabilities in an uncanny way. Then he communicated it so we could see his vision.

He'll always be a hero to me.

[pokerfan]

19. "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge!"