Astrophysicist Carl Sagan during a NASA press conference in 1990. (Image: Bettmann Archive)
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Astrophysicist Carl Sagan during a NASA press conference in 1990. (Image: Bettmann Archive)
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Carl Sagan was a scientist and a great communicator, he transmitted ideas to the world with unparalleled lyrics. But it is not always regarding complex ideas, but he also spent time reflecting on humanity. Sagan, known worldwide for hosting the TV show “Cosmos,” made a prediction more than 25 years ago, and it’s worryingly accurate.
In 1995 in his book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Sagan details how the scientific method helps unveil the most remote places in the Universe. In it he seems to predict the rise of big technology and disinformation.
Between these pages the scientist points out how the search for peace and truth is being undermined by the old friends of humanity: superstition and pseudoscience. Although the prediction specifically mentions the United States, the issues he ponders are global in scope.
Carl Sagan’s prediction regarding America, from 1995.
From The Demon-Haunted World pic.twitter.com/ZY6FNvMDKd
— Ali A. Rizvi (@aliamjadrizvi) August 8, 2022
It’s been 27 years since that book was published, and today, a quote that predicts the future of the United States has drawn a lot of attention on social media. In the passage from the text that has gone viral, Sagan shares where a society is headed if it loses its admiration for reason, rationality, and open thinking.
«Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a presentiment of an America in the time of my children or grandchildren, when the United States will be an economy of services and information; when almost all the key manufacturing industries have gone to other countries; when the impressive technological powers are in the hands of a few, and no one who represents the public interest can even understand the problems; when people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowingly challenge those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what is true, we slip, almost without realizing it, back into superstition and darkness” .
Sagan, who died a year following publishing his book, is usually portrayed as an optimistic character, although in certain quotes he expresses deep concern for the future of humanity.
Carl was often described as the scientist who made us love the cosmos, “the one who made the Universe clearer to the average citizen.” He helped popularize science by writing hundreds of articles and more than two dozen books. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for his book “The Dragons of Eden.” His television series “Cosmos” was one of the most watched programs in the history of public television. It was seen by more than 500 million people in 60 different countries.
According to the biography provided by NASAIn 1968, Carl became a professor at Cornell University, where he was also director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. “He was well known as a pioneer in the field of exobiology, which is the study of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He was one of the first to determine that life might have existed on Mars. And he constantly appealed to NASA to expand its exploration of the Universe ».
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