1,131 Quotes by Carl Sagan

Una científica compañera mía me contaba un reciente viaje que realizó a la meseta de Nueva Guinea, donde visitó una tribu todavía en la edad de piedra que apenas había tenido contactos con la civilización. Ignoraban lo que son los relojes de pulsera, las bebidas refrescantes y los alimentos congelados. Pero conocían el Apolo 11. Sabían que los humanos han pisado la Luna.

Dicho de otro modo, cualquier predisposición a la creencia religiosa puede verse poderosamente influida por la cultura indígena, viva uno donde viva. Especialmente si los niños están expuestos desde muy pequeños a una serie concreta de doctrinas, música, arte y ritual, es algo tan natural para ellos como respirar, motivo por el cual las religiones hacen tantos esfuerzos para atraer a los más jóvenes.

Observation: I can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Spurious accounts that snare the gullible are readily available. Skeptical treatments are much harder to find. Skepticism does not sell well.

The whole idea of a democratic application of skepticism is that everyone should have the essential tools to effectively and constructively evaluate claims to knowledge.

All science asks is to employ the same levels of skepticism we use in buying a used car or in judging the quality of analgesics or beer from their television commercials.

Our politics, economics, advertising, and religions (New Age and Old) are awash in credulity. Those who have something to sell, those who wish to influence public opinion, those in power, a skeptic might suggest, have a vested interest in discouraging skepticism,

There may be such intelligences and such starships, but pulsars are not their signature. Instead, they are the doleful reminders that nothing lasts forever; that stars also die.

Individual asexual organisms die by mistake - when the run out of something, or when they experience a lethal accident. Sexual organisms are designed to die, preprogrammed to do so. Death serves as a poignant reminder of our limitations and frailties - and of the bond with our ancestors who, in a way, died that we might live.