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4.29 AVERAGE
4.29 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
slow-paced
This is required reading for anyone who desires to understand the full power of critical thought and the history of impacts of the scientific method - to include human shortfalls when it is restrained.
Kids should definitely be reading this in high school
Though occasionally meandering, Sagan is never boring. He takes us on a nourishing journey through rationalism and scientific thought, the virtues and dangers of skepticism, and the innumerable risks, both intellectual and social, immediate to an increasingly illiterate nation-- whether that illiteracy shows itself in mathematics, science, language, or politics (and indeed, they can hardly be separated). Carl Sagan was the proverbial candle in the dark, shining light on historical insights and truths, reminding the modern world of all it risks destroying through ignorance and always striving to illuminate the wonders of science and discovery.
This book was an absolute inspiration to read, and all the more unsettling a decade after its publication, now that the situation has in many ways become more dire... though the exponential advent of the internet and the wealth of knowledge, communication, and global awareness that came with it have in other ways tempered the outlook. Sagan's writing is fluent, level, informed, and cheerful, quite a surprising and welcome contrast to many of the more "militant" rationalists of the present day (Dawkins, et al.), with whom Sagan would have disagreed on many of the finer points of promoting rational thought.
I will definitely pick up another Sagan book in the near future; what a beautiful, brilliant mind, and a most regrettable loss for humanity. We the young generation of scientists pick up his torch and press on....
This book was an absolute inspiration to read, and all the more unsettling a decade after its publication, now that the situation has in many ways become more dire... though the exponential advent of the internet and the wealth of knowledge, communication, and global awareness that came with it have in other ways tempered the outlook. Sagan's writing is fluent, level, informed, and cheerful, quite a surprising and welcome contrast to many of the more "militant" rationalists of the present day (Dawkins, et al.), with whom Sagan would have disagreed on many of the finer points of promoting rational thought.
I will definitely pick up another Sagan book in the near future; what a beautiful, brilliant mind, and a most regrettable loss for humanity. We the young generation of scientists pick up his torch and press on....
A book with a very important point, but one unlikely to be read by those who don't already know just how important science is to our quality of life.
Carl Sagan demonstrates powerful insight and eloquent communication skills. While at times he may go on a bit long on a particular topic, that is counterbalanced by his thorough inventory, past and present, of the ways in which we seem to invite demons as the explanation for things we might not understand. And perhaps the greatest demon is the shortcoming in all of our education and upbringing regarding the scientific approach to understanding.
I really wanted to like this book. DNF. Boring and rambling.
This book, published in I think 1997, is timely in 2019. It celebrates the wonder of nature and the wondrous and horrific results of scientific inquiry. It laments the dumbing down of America. Carl Sagan explains how turning away from and spurning science is useful to authoritarian rulers. So what have we today, in 2019? Millions of evangelical so-called "Christians" worshipping a Trump.
Sagan saw this coming and tried to warn us. He tried to remind us that even absent an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent god, Nature itself reveals all the spectacle and wonder of life itself. That it is, that it persists, that civilizations rise and fall.
That humans are part of this spectacle and do not run it, but we are blessed with the tools to explore and learn and create. The book itself can drag and I wish he had not spent so much time on UFOs, but overall I think everyone should read this book.
Sagan saw this coming and tried to warn us. He tried to remind us that even absent an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent god, Nature itself reveals all the spectacle and wonder of life itself. That it is, that it persists, that civilizations rise and fall.
That humans are part of this spectacle and do not run it, but we are blessed with the tools to explore and learn and create. The book itself can drag and I wish he had not spent so much time on UFOs, but overall I think everyone should read this book.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book but I have giving it 4 stars instead of 5 because I feel Sagan spent the first half of the book talking too much about aliens. There are a few sections of the book where I feel he could have developed better by really going into more detail as to why people think they see ghosts or demons since it's my belief that more people believe they have seen ghosts than UFOs. Overall, great book. The book may be 17 years old but he is correct when he says that the USA certainly falls behind in education, particularly in science. While there is much more science programming now than there was 17 years ago, I'm constantly shocked by the lack of science knowledge by those around me.
Sagan's book does a decent job of comparing things that are equally evidenced and believed for similar reasons. Unfortunately, in reading this book with my dad, I've learned that cognitive dissonance will all for a distinction between the reliablility of one's beliefs that eyewitness testimony from two thousand years ago versus other's more recent testimony. To paraphrase Ken Hamm, my father "has a book," you see. Sorry to make this review more about my circumstances than Sagan's book, but I think this is one of those that will lead those who want to come to it to knowledge, while those who are coerced into reading it will lean into their cognitive dissonance. A warning, and a reccomendation.