Pharyngula

Posted by: Weed Monkey | July 23, 2010 10:43 AM

No autotune + Sagan = lovely.

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | July 23, 2010 11:03 AM

Often I sit here, at night,
on these desolate slopes,
that a hardened lava-flow has clothed
with brown, and which seem to undulate still,
and over the gloomy waste,
I see the stars flame, high
in the purest blue,
mirrored far off by the sea:
the universe glittering with sparks
that wheel through the tranquil void.
And then I fix my eyes on those lights
that seem pin-pricks,
yet are so vast in form
that earth and sea are really a pin-prick
to them: to whom man,
and this globe where man is nothing,
are completely unknown: and gazing
at those still more infinitely remote,
knots, almost, of stars,
that seem like mist to us, to which
not only man and earth but all
our stars, infinite in number and mass,
with the golden sun,
are unknown, or seem like points
of misted light, as they appear
from earth: what do you seem like,
then, in my thoughts, O children
of mankind? And mindful of
your state here below, of which
the ground I stand on bears witness,
and that, on the other hand, you believe
that you’ve been appointed the master
and end of all things: and how often
you like to talk about the creators
of all things universal, who descended
to this obscure grain of sand called earth,
for you, and happily spoke to you, often:
and that, renewing these ridiculous dreams,
you still insult the wise, in an age
that appears to surpass the rest
in knowledge and social customs: what feeling is it,
then, wretched human race, what thought
of you finally pierces my heart?
I don’t know if laughter or pity prevails.

-Leopardi (transl. A.S. Kline)

Posted by: KennyG | July 23, 2010 11:41 AM

Deep video.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 23, 2010 11:51 AM

Of course God is alive, according to human beliefs, so why wouldn't he prefer life to everything else? We do, since finding evidence of life anywhere is perhaps the greatest hope that we have from doing astronomy.

But lately it's become better realized as well that geocentrism wasn't really about how wonderful the earth was. Indeed, the heavens were perfect, rang of the music of the spheres, and were ordered and predictable, and heavenly bodies shown of their own light, while earth was chaotic, dark, unordered, and messy. Earth was where heavy and dull things fell with a thud, the heavens were where wonderful things rose into the aether.

That didn't change the fact that earth was what everything in the heavens observed, though, because it still was where things were interesting. So it was at once the place of imperfection and discord, yet it was the most interesting place of all. The gods, or their God, looked on, ensuring importance and a kind of certainty to the world.

Earth was important, then, however it was far less perfect than the heavens. Galileo was given some grief for claiming that the sun was less than perfect (he said that of the moon, too, yet it had long been thought not quite up to the standards of other heavenly bodies), although much less than for saying that earth wasn't the center of the universe (technically, the center wasn't quite earth, but close enough to keep us the central spectacle).

Glen Davidson

Posted by: charley | July 23, 2010 12:12 PM

[Sagan]...if we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance.

To which the Republicans respond: "Just think what we can accomplish if we combine all three!"

Posted by: Givesgoodemail | July 23, 2010 12:26 PM

Almost 30 years later, Cosmos still brings tears to my eyes at times. I sometimes sail on his Starship of the Imagination when the night is quiet and long.

Oh, Carl. We miss ye.

Posted by: astrokid.nj | July 23, 2010 12:34 PM

Completely unrelated to this blog though.. is PZ just one man, or a set of people cloned from the original PZ?
I just finished reading a bunch of blog posts and comments here, in a couple of hours, and when I hit referesh button there a some more new blogs and tons of comments.

Reminded me of that scene from 'Bruce Almighty' where he responds to all kinds of prayer-emails, and by the time he's done, there's billion more.

Posted by: lessofthedifferent | July 23, 2010 12:41 PM

I miss Sagan. A collection of star stuff with an infectious sense of wonder and insatiable curiosity.

I blame him for my interest in science. :P

P.S. Any cat will tell you, the gods are feline by nature, and humans were made in the image of their servants.

Posted by: Techskeptic | July 23, 2010 12:50 PM

hmm. works with IE8...

whats up with chrome?

Posted by: hznfrst | July 23, 2010 1:06 PM

I've tried Chrome, and Chrome sucks. Combine that with any new release of Windows and you have a recipe for one mother of a computer fuck-up!

Posted by: spaninquis | July 23, 2010 1:09 PM

Hard to believe he's been gone for 14 years already.

Posted by: LuoAnLai | July 23, 2010 1:14 PM

How depressing.

Xenopheles (sp?) sussed it 8000 years ago and we're still dealing with religion.

Move on people. There's nothing to see here.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 23, 2010 1:20 PM

I'm using chrome right now and I'll be honest. It freezes up more than Firefox ever did to me.

Posted by: Shplane, some shit in french | July 23, 2010 1:39 PM

Y'know, I'd barely even heard of Sagan before getting involved in the whole "Atheist" thing. It's a real shame that this kind of stuff isn't being celebrated by our society. It's an absolute shame that children are introduced to spiteful, monstrous gods instead of hearing the voice of reason and hope that was Carl Sagan.

Maybe some day.

Posted by: rippingrich | July 23, 2010 1:52 PM

@ 16

1. missing codecs.
2. missing plugin
3. missing flash player
4. player blocked by security settings

I would down load the latest flash player.

I would install VLC which is a very good video player.
This has a codec pack that will pay most videos.

Could also be if you use something like ad block, and it has blocked the video or your security setting could be blocking the video.

Posted by: DanishDynamite | July 23, 2010 1:53 PM

Never heard of Carl Sagan until about 5 years ago when I stumbled across his name at the JREF Forum. Intrigued, I researched him and quickly realized he was a wonder.

His "Cosmos" series shold be mandatory viewing for all high school science classes, anywhere in the world.

And I`m saying this as a Danish citizen.

Posted by: Just Al | July 23, 2010 2:50 PM

Man, that guy can write. Succinct, sharp, incisive, and still a bit poetic.

How is it that we sent some idiot senator up on the space shuttle and not Sagan?

Then again, he could do this without having been in space, so we might've gone into overload had he ever made it.

And if anyone has not read The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark, go do so now. I can't recommend that book enough.

Posted by: Circe | July 23, 2010 3:03 PM

But, but, there were at least some people much before Galileo who at least hinted at heliocentrism: I am sure of the ancient Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata(c. 500CE) who also prepared the first sine tables, and I seem to remember reading that heliocentrism was propounded by some Greeks as well.

Posted by: Peter H | July 23, 2010 3:43 PM

Everyone - not just those who are here - should read The Dragons of Eden, Random House, 1977, ISBN: 0-394-41045-9. Cosmos both print and DVD can be found on Amazon & eBay. I suggest also Murmurs of Earth - The Voyager Interstellar Record, Sagan et. al., Ballantine, 1978, ISBN: 0-345-28396-1. This is the story of the LP of and by the many peoples of Earth which was sent forth "For Future Times and Beings," (heading for Chapter One).

Sagan's delicate sense of irony and great urgency in finding and celebrating truth are truly candles banishing darkness.

Posted by: Cosmic Snark | July 23, 2010 4:05 PM

Nobody, nobody, does it better than Carl did. We need somebody like him to carry on his work of enlightening the general public, but there is no one that to my knowledge has matched his combination of intellect, eloquence and genuine heartfelt love of the work he was doing and the message he was spreading. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Phil Plait and others, as good as they are, don't come close to the matchless scientific ambassadorship of Carl Sagan.

I first heard of Carl in high school, in the early 80's. My public high school is a rarity in that it has a planetarium (not a converted room, but an honest-to-FSM domed planetarium, complete with a sophisticated projection system). Astronomy class was a seniors-only course - not because it was difficult, but because it was a "cake" intro course that was offered as kind of a perk to seniors who were looking for an easy way to fulfill their science credits requirement.

I watched the entire Cosmos series projected on the dome of that planetarium, surrounded by the projected display of the constellations surrounding Earth. What a way to see that great series. Carl, you are missed.

Posted by: MJP | July 23, 2010 4:23 PM

No autotune + Sagan = lovely.

Are yOU saYINg thAT yoU diDN't hEAr iT?

Posted by: Che | July 23, 2010 4:58 PM

What is everyone’s favorite Sagan book? Mine is between Cosmos and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.
I think Sagan is singlehandedly responsible for a whole generation of scientist. He brought humanity to science, and as an Atheist he gave me the closest I could ever get to a true mystic experience, without all the new age mumbo jumbo. I wish I could take him to my South American home, we have the best night sky in the world, and just stare at the stars while enjoying a doobie, although I think he would have preferred a pipe.

Posted by: jbowen42 | July 23, 2010 5:46 PM

I just started reading Demon Haunted World and I'm loving it. Sagan was amazing.

Posted by: DLC | July 23, 2010 8:07 PM

Sagan was one of the all-time great speakers for the rationalist movement. wonderful to hear him again.

Posted by: Peter H | July 23, 2010 8:56 PM

Sili,

Did your irony meter melt down just then?

Posted by: «bønez_brigade» | July 23, 2010 10:44 PM

Long live the sagacity of Sagan...

Posted by: Betelgeuse | July 23, 2010 10:54 PM

@fuman #42

I'm going to borrow that, if that's alright? :P

Posted by: John Morales | July 23, 2010 11:16 PM

Actually, Sagan used to bug me sometimes, great though he was.

E.g. from Episode 1 of Cosmos:

We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.

I find sentences 1,2 and 4 moving and poetic.

I find the third irritating.

Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook | July 24, 2010 2:38 AM

Bearing the time in mind, the "meaningless self-destruction" Sagan refers to was nuclear war. I find it hard to object to condemning that.

Posted by: Sundog | July 24, 2010 1:46 PM

I love that voice.

I first heard it all the way back in 1980, when I was just eight. I'd been interested in space for about two years, and starting to get semi-organised as an amateur astronomer, and I heard about this new programme all about space called "Cosmos". I knew I wanted to watch it.

8:00PM was my bedtime about then, but I knew that wouldn't be a problem. My mum used to let me stay up and watch programmes that she thought I'd particularly enjoy, so I saw it (also "Life on Earth", "I, Claudius", selected episodes of "Horizon" and a bunch of other stuff that might have been considered a bit odd by my peers).

But Cosmos was more, much more, than another programme about space. It was about all of the Universe, from atoms to superclusters, The beginning to forever, and how I, just this little kid, fitted into it all.

It was exhilarating, enthralling, and through it all the mellifluous tones of a man who was so unlike the men who surrounded me at that time in my life; a pitiful procession of inadequates,from my so-called "father" (who I hadn't seen in three years by that time and, thankfully, have never seen since), my pathetic uncles, hypocritical grandfather and the assorted detritus of petty burglars, shoplifters, loan sharks and conmen that constituted our neighbours. Not an inspiring lot, any of them.

My male role models instead came from books and television, people like Carl Sagan and David Attenborough, people who shared my budding love of nature and indicated to me that perhaps an adult life could concentrate on these things.

We got the book later that year, and I devoured it cover to cover. I borrowed later books out of the library, each as fascinating as the last. Their breadth of scope, the gentle humour of his writing, his earnestness and his overarching love for his fellow creatures, even those who may have despised him, always put his writing into its own level. Although my career in science died before it was born, the love of science and its insights into nature have remained with me to this day, and continue to give my life a sense of adventure. How lucky I am to live in this time; dead right, Carl!

I remember in the late summer or thereabouts in 1996, watching another episode of "Horizon", which briefly showed Carl, commenting on the subject (since forgotten!). His hair was gone, his features catastrophically thin. Only that wonderful voice remained. Our whole family was shocked at the sight "That's Carl? What's happened to him?" That was the first time we discovered that he was ill.

He died on my 25th birthday; I was coming in from the kitchen carrying cups of tea when it came on the news the day after. I remember standing there, watching the screen. I remember the awful tie the newsreader was wearing. I set the cups down carfeully, and sat down for a moment.

Then I wept, bitterly.

Posted by: Aitor | July 27, 2010 4:21 AM

Never met this man, and yet, with Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Crichton they are probably the most influential (modern) people in my life.

Sometimes, for a brief spell I share the appeal of immortality.
Can you imagine a world where we would still have Archimedes, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Sagan...?

If someone's loss sends me weeping into the comforting arms of superstition, that is Sagan.
(all close family still alive)