iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

Planetary scientist, dedicated science communicator, and tireless advocate for the humanizing power of science: Carl Sagan was born #OTD in 1934. 🧪 This passage from "The Demon Haunted World" is as prescient as ever. Image: NASA

Carl Sagan, seated with his hands in his pockets and smiling at the camera. The image has been photoshopped so it looks like he is sitting on top of the Earth, with other planets hanging against a backdrop of nebula.

"But there's another reason: Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question 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's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."

7366138 366

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

The weaponization of ignorance was a great concern of Sagan's, and a recurring theme in his writing. Near the end of his life – now more than twenty years ago – he emphasized two messages which are pretty relevant today.

The quote reads:
"..if the general public doesn't understand science and technology, then who is making all of the decisions about science and technology that are going to determine what kind of future our children live in, some members of Congress? There are only a handful who have any background in science at all, and some of them don't even want to know about it."

The quote reads:
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

16312 63

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

Sagan was a great communicator. And while I think he'd be pleased that we still celebrate his contributions, he would probably be happier to see us elevating new voices. So if there's someone doing good sci-comm whose work you appreciate, mention them here in the replies for others to follow. 🧪

3401 40