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Carl Sagan
Dec. 20th, 2006 03:43 pmToday is the Carl Sagan blogathon on the anniversary of his death.
I've spent most of the day trying to figure out how to say what I need to say, but I just can't seem to get it down. So, let me tell you a story.
I was in high school, and it was not a pleasant time for me. I kept drifting in and out of science, in and out of interest in school, and just basically... bleh. A friend of mine gave me one of his books, This Demon-Haunted World, and I devoured it, as usual, but this taught me something a little more than the other books I was reading at the time. It taught me exactly how many people can take advantage of you. It taught me about pseudoscience, and reinforced in my mind the danger of religious fanatics. Most importantly, it served me well by giving me a Baloney Detection Kit, a series of logical tests and examples of fallacies to check whether an idea is sound or not. I came away thinking how much better the world would be if everyone had read a book like that, and I still feel that way.
So, raise a glass to Carl Sagan! The fact that I went into science at all is in some small way his fault!
I've spent most of the day trying to figure out how to say what I need to say, but I just can't seem to get it down. So, let me tell you a story.
I was in high school, and it was not a pleasant time for me. I kept drifting in and out of science, in and out of interest in school, and just basically... bleh. A friend of mine gave me one of his books, This Demon-Haunted World, and I devoured it, as usual, but this taught me something a little more than the other books I was reading at the time. It taught me exactly how many people can take advantage of you. It taught me about pseudoscience, and reinforced in my mind the danger of religious fanatics. Most importantly, it served me well by giving me a Baloney Detection Kit, a series of logical tests and examples of fallacies to check whether an idea is sound or not. I came away thinking how much better the world would be if everyone had read a book like that, and I still feel that way.
So, raise a glass to Carl Sagan! The fact that I went into science at all is in some small way his fault!
