I like Carl Sagan harder than I've ever liked him before.

[Dark Jaguar]

http://palebluedot.ytmnd.com/

I can't believe "YTMND" managed to bring me to frickin' tears, but wow. I mean the same basic sentiment has been stated before but here's the empirical evidence of our insignificantness and poetry I can only dream of writing.

[T'ai Chi]

Pale blue dot or privilaged planet?

I guess the evidence is interpreted differently.

[Beady]

There's a poster (http://planetarysociety.stores.yahoo.net/planetary-store-326.html). The text is straight out of the book.

[Dark Jaguar]

I was starting to become a fan of this guy already from his Cosmos series being rerun on the Science Channel, but after this I really want to get some of his books.

[Beady]

I was starting to become a fan of this guy already from his Cosmos series being rerun on the Science Channel, but after this I really want to get some of his books.

The usual recommendation is to start with "The Demon-Haunted World," although in this case you might want to go with "Pale Blue Dot," since it's a sort of sequel to "Cosmos."

[Upchurch]

There's nothing so humbling as perspective, huh?

[CFLarsen]

Pale blue dot or privilaged planet?

I guess the evidence is interpreted differently.

How do you interpret it?

As a Pale Blue Dot, or Privileged Planet? Or something else, perhaps?

[KingMerv00]

How do you interpret it?

As a Pale Blue Dot, or Privileged Planet? Or something else, perhaps?

I predict he will not make a commitment. I'll bet he merely finds both ideas "interesting".

[President Bush]

Sagan caused mixed reactions among professional scientists.

On the one hand, there was general support for his popularization of science, his efforts to increase scientific understanding among the general public, and his positions in favor of scientific skepticism and against pseudoscience; most notably his thorough debunking of the book Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky. On the other hand, there was some unease that the public would misunderstand some of the personal positions and interests that Sagan took as being part of the scientific consensus, rather than his own personal views. Some believe this unease to have been motivated in part by professional jealousy, that scientific views contrary to those that Sagan took (such as on the severity of nuclear winter) were not being sufficiently presented to the public.

Sagan's arguments against Velikovsky's catastrophism have been criticized by some of his colleagues. Robert Jastrow of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies wrote: "Professor Sagan's calculations, in effect, ignore the law of gravity. Here, Dr. Velikovsky was the better astronomer."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

[CFLarsen]

I predict he will not make a commitment. I'll bet he merely finds it both ideas "interesting".

And ask what we think.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Erm, harder?

[Orangutan]

Erm, harder?

Yes, I was thinking "get a room" too but I didn't want to derail the thread, too late now I guess!

:)

[KingMerv00]

Sagan caused mixed reactions among professional scientists.

Were reactions to him really so mixed? You never hear a bad word about the guy. I'm sure there were criticisms but were they really common enough to mention?

[Brainache]

I've read most of Sagan's books and I love his work. He has always managed to inspire me.
I recently read "Billions and Billions" a collection of his shorter writings from the last few years of his life. It also includes a very moving piece by Anne Druyan about his last days and his battle with cancer. Definitely a book everyone should read IMO.

[Dark Jaguar]

Erm, harder?

Yeah, I enjoy using badly chosen words in statements sometimes.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Yeah, I enjoy using badly chosen words in statements sometimes.
OK, whatever makes you hard, then.

[orpheus]

There's nothing so humbling as perspective, huh?

There's that great line from This is Spinal Tap, when they're standing at Elvis's grave, and one of them says "it gives you a sense of perspective, doesn't it?" The rejoinder is: "Yeah. Too much [Rule8]-ing perspective."

I couldn't resist the silly reference. But please don't take it amiss; I, too, find this deeply moving.

[Foster Zygote]

There's that great line from This is Spinal Tap, when they're standing at Elvis's grave, and one of them says "it gives you a sense of perspective, doesn't it?" The rejoinder is: "Yeah. Too much [Rule8]-ing perspective."

I couldn't resist the silly reference. But please don't take it amiss; I, too, find this deeply moving.

"There's, like, such a thin line between genius and stupidity."

Steven

[Beady]

There's nothing so humbling as perspective, huh?

December 14, 1990:

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/1894451dbb36a67c0.jpg

[Whyatt]

Hey,

Glad you liked the ytmnd, I actually made it. I used to post here loads a few years back but never returned after my finals.

I actually decided to make the ytmnd based on Randi's commentary I read on the quote that I read a few years back. Which has always stuck with me.

[SirPhilip]

http://palebluedot.ytmnd.com/ I can't believe "YTMND" managed to bring me to frickin' tears, but wow. I mean the same basic sentiment has been stated before but here's the empirical evidence of our insignificantness and poetry I can only dream of writing. Classic Sagan romanticism at it's best; I couldn't help but shed tears myself that day he passed on. I hardly consider "us" insignificant though (the striking possibility however that earth like planets are a rule, rather than exception, may refute that someday). Around Sagan's time, many astronomers wondered if this planet were among a few only meaningfully significant things in the cosmos.

[SirPhilip]

I was starting to become a fan of this guy already from his Cosmos series being rerun on the Science Channel, but after this I really want to get some of his books. Start with the original illustrated hardback (http://cgi.ebay.com/Cosmos-by-Carl-Sagan-1983_W0QQitemZ270034126876QQihZ017QQcategoryZ2228Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem). I already have two and I'm thinking of adding a third, autographed one to my collection. It's a travesty the original 1983 large hardback version was never re-printed, but instead a miserable, cheap paperback.

[KelvinG]

I predict he will not make a commitment. I'll bet he merely finds both ideas "interesting".

Ahh, poor T'ai Chi. He's become so predictable he's now a parody of himself.

But, sorry, not the topic of the thread. Bye.

[CaptainManacles]

Ahh, poor T'ai Chi. He's become so predictable he's now a parody of himself.

But, sorry, not the topic of the thread. Bye.

I have an idea for a new drinking game. Every time a woo dodges a question, take a drink. We'll all be smashed before brunch.

[EGarrett]

Beautiful video. But also terrifying because whoever designed thought it would be cool to take each bit of text off the screen about a split second after you manage to rush through reading it.

Broadcasting Rule: Leave ANY text on screen long enough for it to be read twice.

Speaking of which...since when is being small equal to being insignificant?

If there's nothing else out there but dust and gas...then we are pretty significant.

[KingMerv00]

If there's nothing else out there but dust and gas...then we are pretty significant.

We are insignificant relatively speaking. Even if the human race goes extinct, the universe will change very little over all.

On the other hand, humans are very significant to me.

[SirPhilip]

We are insignificant relatively speaking. Even if the human race goes extinct, the universe will change very little over all. On the other hand, humans are very significant to me. That isn't what qualifies as significant (in any meaningful sense but the most primitive).

[EGarrett]

We are insignificant relatively speaking. Even if the human race goes extinct, the universe will change very little over all.

On the other hand, humans are very significant to me.Why would dust and gas be more significant than sentient creatures?

And again, small does not equal insignificant.

[c4ts]

Where's the page of "Billions and billions! Billions and billions! Billions and billions!"

[KingMerv00]

I am merely saying that humans hardly have any effect on the universe as a whole. We have no sizable influence.

But who cares? The things I experience on a day to day basis are what matter to me so I don't feel insignificant.

It is just two ways of looking at the same situation.

[Dark Jaguar]

That's true. But, in the sense of cosmic importance, that sense of the "overarching story" (which in this case only physics seems to have gotten right), we're pretty meaningless.

A billions and billions loop eh? Should that be accompanied by one of those "warp speed" style screensavers of travelling through the endless inky dark of the cosmos?

[T'ai Chi]

What about his nuclear winter stuff?
Hit or miss?

[Jekyll]

What about his nuclear winter stuff?
Hit or miss?

I think it was interesting. What do you think?

[elaine]

Absolutely beautiful.

I ordered the poster.

[plindboe]

Have his Pale blue dot book, but it's always nice with a reminder about how insignificant we are. ;)

Hey,

Glad you liked the ytmnd, I actually made it. I used to post here loads a few years back but never returned after my finals.

I actually decided to make the ytmnd based on Randi's commentary I read on the quote that I read a few years back. Which has always stuck with me.

Nice going. I like the repetitive music, reminds me of Ludovico Einaudi. Have you composed it yourself?

[Dark Jaguar]

It's a remix of a 90's Japanese pop song. Sorry to disappoint :D. Still nice though.

http://runningintheninties.ytmnd.com/

[Piggy]

I can't believe "YTMND" managed to bring me to frickin' tears, but wow. I mean the same basic sentiment has been stated before but here's the empirical evidence of our insignificantness and poetry I can only dream of writing.
Thanks, DJ, for posting that.

I owe a lot to Dr. Sagan. As a boy, I watched his Cosmos series, and it changed my life. Perhaps, if he had not made this film, there would have been someone else to come along and show me the wonders that I saw there. Perhaps. But in fact, it was he who opened my mind to the true wonders of the world. It was he who showed me -- who did not only tell me -- that reality is far more amazing than any fairy tale or scripture. And he came along at a time when it made the most difference, before I could get too distracted by jobs (which I started at 14) and cars and girls. These things came in time, but by then, there was no turning back.

And this particular quotation from Dr. Sagan hits home to me especially, as a participant on this board.

Perhaps the primary lesson from the William Golding book "Lord of the Flies", from which I take my avatar, comes at the end:


When the boys finally destroy their island, there is a deus ex machina for them, a young Navy officer in a crisp white uniform. But as Golding himself observed, there is no young officer to come rescue us. We alone must rescue ourselves.


As the "real" Piggy observed, "How can you expect to be rescued if you don't put first things first and act proper?"

I didn't vote for no ghosts. And for that, thank you, Dr. Sagan.

[Foster Zygote]

Perhaps the primary lesson from the William Golding book "Lord of the Flies", from which I take my avatar, comes at the end:

I've always seen some significance in the fact that the boys were rescued by a warship at the end.

Steven

[stocks]

http://www.nationalcenter.org/dos7124.htm

Though Dr. Sagan is one of the most frequently cited experts on atmospheric issues by the media, his predictions are often wrong. For example, at the outset of the Persian Gulf War, Sagan warned that if Saddam Hussein delivered on his threat to set fire to Kuwait's oil wells, so much black soot would be sent into the stratosphere that sunlight would be blocked and a variation of the "nuclear winter" scenario would occur. Hussein followed through on his threat and by the close of the war over 600 wells were on fire. But the fires had little environmental or climatic effect beyond the Gulf region and virtually no ill effects globally. Peter Hobbs, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor who studied the atmospheric impact of the fires for the National Science Foundation, said that the fires' modest impact suggested that "some numbers [used to support the Nuclear Winter Theory]... were probably a little overblown."

"Quickly capping 363 oil well fires in a war zone is impossible. The fires would burn out of control until they put themselves out... The resulting soot might well stretch over all of South Asia... It could be carried around the world... [and] the consequences could be dire. Beneath such a pall sunlight would be dimmed, temperatures lowered and droughts more frequent. Spring and summer frosts may be expected... This endangerment of the food supplies... appears to be likely enough that it should affect the war plans..." - Sagan in op/ed he co-authored with Richard Turco, The Baltimore Sun, January 31, 1991, commenting during the Gulf War on the impact of oil well fires

[Piggy]

Stocks, I think you're on the wrong thread here. Perhaps you're looking for the AGW thread, or the "Carl Sagan was perfect like God" thread.

[Piggy]

Oh, sorry. I see you were responding to T'ai Chi. My mistake.

No, wait... that was your mistake.

[elaine]

Stocks, I think you're on the wrong thread here. Perhaps you're looking for the AGW thread, or the "Carl Sagan was perfect like God" thread.

Or is that God is perfect like Carl? ;)

feel free to ignore me.

[Piggy]

Or is that God is perfect like Carl?

God can't be perfect. He smokes too much weed.

[elaine]

Oh, sorry. I see you were responding to T'ai Chi. My mistake.

No, wait... that was your mistake.

You crack me up.