“This combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is soon going to blow up in our faces,” said Carl Sagan in his last interview with Charlie Ross. The sentence could fit any situation, in the world of today, but Sagan was talking specifically on how we have ordered our life on science and technology but, in general, have such a poor understanding of it that we are unlikely to be able to navigate right through it.
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking, a way of interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask sceptical questions to interrogate those who tell us something is true, to be sceptical of authority, then we are up for grabs…” says Sagan emphasizing that the major question is not of rights but more of a knowledgeable people asking for their rights. Only when rights are backed with an understanding of not just what is good for us and humanity but what falls within the purview of logical progression of life of earth in the context of the entire cosmos that we can assert our rights with rectitude. In this context Sagan says we are very, very insignificant in the panorama of the entire cosmos…this humility alone should set us on the right track.
He does not see science as difficult to comprehend. “People read the stock markets…see how complicated that is…understanding science is not more complicated than that…,” says Sagan while also making a distinction between science and religion. “…faith is belief in the absence of evidence. To believe in the absence of evidence, in my opinion, is a mistake. The idea is to hold belief until there is compelling evidence. If the Universe does not comply with our previous propositions, then we have to change…Religion deals with history poetry, great literature, ethics, morals, compassion…where religion gets into trouble is when it pretends to know something about science,” says Sagan adding that religion must accept that we have learnt something since the religions were born. The problem comes with, “…people who believe the Bible has been dictated by the Creator of the Universe to an unerring stenographer…”
Continuing in this strain, he asks, “Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the Universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the Universe has to teach us or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of the writer…”
Ignorance perverts our understanding and takes it in another direction. “In India there is a madness about astrology, in Britain it’s ghosts, in Germany it is rays coming from the earth which can be only detected by dowsers…every country has its own specialty…” says Sagan. There is nothing, for example, to the UFO’s…Sagan says those who believe in such things talk of the “profound emotional force” associated with the above ideas but Sagan says we could wake up from a nightmare with profound emotional force but that does not mean what we dreamt about is true. Sagan speaks of how he loved his parents and, “…would love to believe there are spirits and would give anything to spend five minutes with them every year. I hear them, that does not mean they are in the next room…it just means I have had an auditory illusion…”
At the same time, Sagan says there is a lot we do not know, but that does not mean every fraudulent claim has to be accepted. We have to demand evidence…There is not likely to be anything after you are dead. I think of my family. It has enhanced my sense of appreciation of youth, the sheer joy of being alive…you imagine missing it all and certainly it becomes all the more precious...’” so finishes the man who died in 1996 at the age of 62.
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Web link: https://www.youtube.comwatch?v=SxeN6Wf7mbU
