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June 13, 2012

Carl Sagan a ‘great scientist’?

You mean, like Einstein, Faraday, and Newton? Guys whose contributions to science reverberate to this day
and are incorporated into technologies used daily around the world?  THAT kind of "great scientist?"  The dude was a college professor and tireless self promoter who, even according to his fans, made only trivial, work-a-day contributions to his field such as any competent college professor of astronomy might make. What’s more, and more telling, his name is attached to at least two very dubious bits of pseudoscience – SETI and Nuclear Winter. In the first case, he championed the Drake Equation – a hopeless bit of fantasy masquerading as science, and in the second, he championed conclusions which the science itself hardly supported. -- My Sagan Obsession « Yard Sale of the Mind

Posted by gerardvanderleun at June 13, 2012 5:26 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

Yeah he's a great scientist the way Richard Dawkins is... a spokesman without much scientific merit or achievement.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at June 13, 2012 6:01 PM


But didn't you love the way he said...Billions and billions and billions..

Posted by: Rocky at June 13, 2012 7:57 PM

A nice rant. And the guy has a point, one of my pet peeves actually. Science is not a collection of facts. It is a process for learning about the world. When you ignore the process and turn science into a fat book of received wisdom, you set yourself up for frauds like the Piltdown Man and global warming.


I loved "Cosmos" as a kid, maybe because it was one of the few sciencey things on the tube. I wonder how it would hold up today...

Posted by: SteveS at June 13, 2012 8:28 PM

SteveS "Cosmos" is available on YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix

Stephen Hawking is another popularly over-rated scientist. To watch the various TV programs you might think Hawking invented the universe.

Posted by: Scott M at June 14, 2012 2:36 AM

I wonder how it would hold up today...

The Dems would be pushing Sagan for POTUS.

Posted by: BillT at June 14, 2012 2:37 AM

Feh. Like Bill Nye the Science Guy is a scientist.
The worst thing to ever happen to science is making scientists into rock stars.

Posted by: Jewel at June 14, 2012 3:22 AM

If there are extraterrestrial life forms we had better hope that they don't show up here! Since they'd be from another star system or galaxy they'll be thousands, if not millions of years beyond us technologically. If we discovered a new chimp species in the Congo would we have it ride a unicycle in a clown hat or teach it calculus?

Posted by: Shooter1001 at June 14, 2012 4:21 AM

Want to know how you can tell authentic science? When it becomes engineering.

Posted by: John Hinds at June 14, 2012 4:56 AM

Carl Sagan is a pop culture icon, but he is not highly respected by working scientists: (1) He was not that talented a scientist. (2) He made claims that could not be backed up with evidence (he's a BS-er). (3) He loved fame too much. (4) He had a huge ego which got in the way of his judgement.

A few years ago I spoke with a physicist who knew him as an undergraduate (at Cornell?) and his memory of Carl Sagan was amused but not respectful.

Posted by: pst314 at June 14, 2012 4:58 AM

Nuclear Winter was political crap but the Drake equation served a useful purpose in providing a tool to think about extraterrestrial life possibilities in a nonemotional way. Comparing how our estimates of some of its terms have evolved is certainly thought provoking. I remember when the estimates of the fraction of stars with planets commonly hovered between 1/100 and 1/10 at best. Not anymore!

Posted by: Sherlock at June 14, 2012 6:23 AM

Most scientists are socialists. They spend their lives attempting to solve problems--while being paid for it by others--and assume that problems with human behaviors are not being solved because their own minds are not being assigned to the project. Increasingly, they are. Gasoline, fire.

I can think of two Nobel winners who were banned from polite discussion when they left the reservation. Science was in stronger hands when there were fewer of them. Ike--"The free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research... The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded...we must also be alert to the danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Posted by: james wilson at June 14, 2012 9:25 AM

I have a Carl Sagan story, second hand.

Years ago I was a member of an astronomy club, and I heard another member recount the time (before I was there) when Sagan was invited to speak.

The club members were helping him set up his presentation, and he'd say, "Bob, move that over there" and "Steve, bring that over here". The member said, "Hey, Carl..." and was icily told, "That's Dr. Sagan to you."

Posted by: rickl at June 14, 2012 5:28 PM

I have a Carl Sagan story, second hand.

Years ago I was a member of an astronomy club, and I heard another member recount the time (before I was there) when Sagan was invited to speak.

The club members were helping him set up his presentation, and he'd say, "Bob, move that over there" and "Steve, bring that over here". The member said, "Hey, Carl..." and was icily told, "That's Dr. Sagan to you."

Posted by: rickl at June 14, 2012 5:28 PM

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