Carl Sagan

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Carl Sagan was a humanist who strived to teach science as a way of thinking and interpreting the world. His 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark was a kind of message he left to humanity before he died of cancer.

See also: Carl Sagan's January 1994 notice to the USA Public as a warning.

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Carl Sagan: "The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key."

"Wonder and Skepticism", Skeptical Inquirer 19 (1), January-February 1995, ISSN 0194-6730

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

"Mankind naturally and generally love to be flatter'd: Whatever sooths our Pride, and tends to exalt our Species above the rest of the Creation, we are pleas'd with and easily believe, when ungrateful Truths shall be with the utmost Indignation rejected. "What! bring ourselves down to an Equality with the Beasts of the Field! with the meanest part of the Creation! 'Tis insufferable!" But, (to use a Piece of common Sense) our Geese are but Geese tho' we may think 'em Swans; and Truth will be Truth tho' it sometimes prove mortifying and distasteful."
"A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain" (1725).