Today, December 20, is the 10th anniversary of Carl Sagan's death. Cornell University is attempting a massive worldwide blog for the occasion, and here is the
linky.
What are your thoughts, memories, and impressions of Carl Sagan? My big brother turned me on to him in 1977 when I was in high school. At the time, I was reading all kinds of mystical shit and Sagan's voice was exactly what I needed to help me balance and sift what was going into my head at the time. We were driving home from the dentist and talking about alien visitors and I was babbling ridiculously about how humans were probably aliens to this planet because we didn't seem to match anything else found on earth. My brother asked me if I'd ever heard of Carl Sagan or
Dragons of Eden and my life was forever changed after that. I have no idea how many times I read that book (followed closely by
Broca's Brain), and it would definitely set the stage for my eventual career in behavioral science and my mistrust of psuedo-science.
When the
Cosmos series came on PBS, I tape recorded all 13 episodes and I still use things from those shows in my teachings. I finally got a chance to see him in person in Tuskegee, Alabama in the early 80's when he gave a lecture at Tuskegee Institute. I remember being a little disappointed when he went off on the Nuclear Winter tangent in the mid-80's, but (as usual) most of his thoughts on that subject have proven correct.
I never read
Contact, but I was highly impressed by the movie. I miss his insight and I always felt badly that he never got to see all the latest Mars missions.
Farewell, old friend, and thank you for my appreciation of scientific method and its applications in my career.
