Quote

Scientists make mistakes. Accordingly, it is the job of the scientist to recognize our weakness, to examine the widest range of opinions, to be ruthlessly self-critical. Science is a collective enterprise with the error-correction machinery often running smoothly.

Carl Sagan

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Carl Sagan
Age: 62 †
Born: 1934
Born: November 9
Died: 1996
Died: December 20
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Cosmologist
Naturalist
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Physicist
Planetary Scientist
Science Communicator
Brooklyn
New York
Carl Edward Sagan
Sagan
Carl E. Sagan
Carl E Sagan
C. E. Sagan
C.E. Sagan
C E Sagan
C. Sagan
C Sagan
Sagan C
Sagan C.
Sagan C. E.
Sagan CE
Self
Critical
Error
Correction
Make
Weakness
Enterprise
Corrections
Mistake
Opinions
Accordingly
Opinion
Range
Examine
Jobs
Errors
Machinery
Often
Recognize
Collectives
Widest
Science
Scientist
Collective
Ruthlessly
Running
Mistakes
Scientists
Smoothly

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Cleverly designed experiments are the key.
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Perhaps the depth of love can be calibrated by the number of different selves that are actively involved in a given relationship.
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If some good evidence for life after death were announced, I'd be eager to examine it but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere anecdote. As with the face on Mars and alien abductions, better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy.
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Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death.
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Frederick Douglas taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.
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Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.
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Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
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Our intelligence is imperfect, surely, and newly arisen the ease with which it can be sweet-talked, overwhelmed, or subverted by other hardwired propensities - sometimes themselves disguised as the cool light of reason - is worrisome.
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Who are we, if not measured by our impact on others? That’s who we are! We’re not who we say we are, we’re not who we want to be - we are the sum of the influence and impact that we have, in our lives, on others.
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It seems madness to say, 'We're worried that they're going to become addicted to marijuana' -- there's no evidence whatever that it's an addictive drug, but even if it were, these people are dying, what are we saving them from?
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The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.
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If intelligence is our only edge, we must learn to use it better, to shape it, to understand its limitations and deficiencies -- to use it as cats use stealth, as katydids use camouflage -- to make it the tool of our survival.
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When you look more generally at life on Earth, you find that it is all the same kind of life. There are not many different kinds there's only one kind. It uses about fifty fundamental biological building blocks, organic molecules.
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The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses.
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The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.
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We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs.
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The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.
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It's hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.
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The old appeals to racial, sexual and religious chauvinism to rabid nationalist fervor, are beginning not to work.
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We are made of stellar ash. Our origin and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.
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