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Carl Sagan

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You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe. [This is from Dr. Arroway in Carl Sagan's Contact (New York: Pocket Books, 1985]

 
Carl Sagan

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I was applying to colleges in high school and I already knew I wanted to study the universe at age seventeen because I knew at age nine. So my applications were dripping with the universe. I was accepted at Cornell, and it's time to decide what school you go to, and a set of other schools as well. The admissions office, unknown to me, sent my application to Carl Sagan. He was already famous. He was already on Johnny Carson, Tonight Show. To get him to just comment on it. Carl Sagan then sent me a letter, hand signed, saying, 'I understand you're considering Cornell. If you come by and visit I'd be happy to show you the lab.' And I said, 'Is this Carl Sagan?' I showed it to mom, dad, I said, 'Could this be?' And it was. I wrote back and I said, 'Yeah, I'll go up in two weekends.' He met me on a Saturday morning in the snow, gave me a tour of his lab. I'm in his office, he reaches back, pulls out one of his books, signs it to me. It's time for me to leave, he drives me to the bus station, snowing a little heavier. He writes his home phone on a sheet of paper, says, 'If the bus can't get through, call me, spend the night at our place.' And I thought to myself, who am I? I'm just some high school kid. And to this day, to this day, I have this duty to respond to students who are inquiring about the universe as a career path, to respond to them in the way that Carl Sagan had responded to me.

 
Carl Sagan
 

It has nothing to do with belief. It's a fact. It's the truth! As a scientist, I know it's true because science is based on skepticism. We consider all possibilities equally and decide on facts based on what stands up to empirical evidence. Which is how I know that you gomers are absolutely and totally wrong.

 
Orl Unho
 

Her life was like a whirlwind... Generous, inspired, quick, rebellious, unclassifiable, inimitable... We loved Sagan, even if we had not read her books or no longer read them … Sagan was more than just Sagan, more than a writing phenomenon: a writer, a woman, an era. …She rushed through her life and her books at full speed, without ever taking herself seriously.

 
Francoise Sagan
 

This book lays out the main lines of evidence for evolution. For those who oppose Darwinism purely as a matter of faith, no amount of evidence will do—theirs is a belief not based on reason.

 
Jerry Coyne
 

But at least I don't suffer from self-deluding identity problem like, say, Carl Sagan does.

 
Ray Bradbury
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