Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon Post

In honor of the tenth anniversary of astronomer and skeptical luminary Carl Sagan's death, Joel Schlosberg is hosting a Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon. (Follow that link for dozens of other posts, including some by Sagan's wife and son.) Searching back through my posts, I found that I've already mentioned Sagan in nine posts. I think the best way to honor him is simply to point out how often I've already referred to him:

The Danger of Religious Thinking: American "Treatment" of Addiction

Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy... Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?

Beautiful Science

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

[T]he Bible describes a God who watches over one tiny world a few thousand years old. I look out there and see a universe of hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars... I mean burn me for a heretic, but your God seems awfully small. --Ellie Arroway, in Sagan's Contact

Baloney Detection Kit

• (Page long excerpt from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark)

Quote of the Day - Orthodoxy and the Suppression of Ideas

The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.

Quote of the Day: Science Vs. Religion

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

What Kind of Atheist am I?

• In which I mention Sagan's role in my becoming an atheist.

Somehow I've never mentioned my favorite Sagan quote, which actually comes from his wife. When asked, "Didn't he want to believe?" she answered, "He didn't want to believe. He wanted to know."