Billions & Billions

“We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.”

“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting. The siren song of un-reason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.”

"Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is."

“In the way that skepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness.”

“National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space.” 

“I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only through a fluke, or because, by and large, we don't have the brainpower to grapple with it. Instead, the enormous zest for science that I see in first-graders and the lesson from the remnant hunter-gatherers both speak eloquently: A proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places, and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright. When, through indifference, inattention, incompetence, or fear of skepticism, we discourage children from science, we are disenfranchising them, taking from them the tools needed to manage their future.”

“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe.” 

“Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.”

"Gullibility kills."

"Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side, and light on skepticism. They're curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I'm asked follow-up questions. They've never heard of the notion of a 'dumb question'."

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

“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 all the human beings involved?”

“I don't want to believe. I want to know.”

“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.” 

“I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float, like a mote of dust, in the morning sky.” 

 “If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.”

“المزاعم الاستثنائية، تحتاج إلى أدلة استثنائية”
― Carl Sagan 

 This is,

Believing In The

"Billions & Billions"

Of Stars,

Of

Carl Sagan

And Our Cosmos,

Jim Hauenstein,

And,

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
- Carl Sagan -

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

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