“We have a tendency today to think we occupy some exalted vantage point, and to pity the poor Newtonians for having so limited a world view. But within certain reasonable limitations, the same harmonic equations that describe clockwork really do describe the motions of astronomical objects throughout the Universe. This is a profound, not a trivial parallelism.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Sagan’s point: we didn’t grow out of Newton, we stand on his equations. Here, he bridges metaphysics and realism—are our mathematical descriptions reflections of reality, or just predictive tools? Meanwhile, Sagan pushes back on modern smugness, critiquing chronological snobbery toward pre-modern science.