Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.
—Carl Sagan in Cosmos
—Carl Sagan in Cosmos
Carl Edward Sagan (; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences. He is best known for his work as a science popularizer and communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. Sagan assembled the first physical messages sent into space: the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. Sagan argued the now accepted hypothesis that the high surface temperatures of Venus can be attributed to and calculated using the greenhouse effect.
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.
—Carl Sagan in Cosmos
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
—Carl Sagan in Cosmos
It may be that the deep necessity of art is the examination of self-deception.