Today is Carl Sagan Day. This popular scientist and writer awakened a generation to the wonders of our Universe through his books
You may want to celebrate this, the anniversary of his birth, by wearing a turtleneck and looking at the stars. Or by fostering the curiosity of a child in your life as Sagan’s mother and father did. His working class parents struggled financially but they nurtured their only child’s questions, bought him chemistry sets and books, and showed him by example what it means to think for oneself. As Sagan observed, “My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.“
I have mixed feelings about Carl Sagan– he wasn’t quite as cantankerous toward religion as Richard Dawkins still is… but he was close.