Tag: science
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“David Goodstein, a physicist at Cal Tech, notes that science has been growing nearly exponentially for centuries and that it cannot continue such growth — because then everybody on the planet would have to be a scientist, and then the growth would have to stop.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World At first, this passage…
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“The idea that Mr. Spock could be a cross between a human being and a life-form independently evolved on the planet Vulcan is genetically far less probable than a successful cross of a man and an artichoke.” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World Yeah we don’t like to think about that do we? Ironically, Star…
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“Why aren’t we using sports to teach science?” – Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World Sagan was apparently a huge fan of basketball as a way to teach science and mathematics. In his book, The Demon-Haunted World, Sagan’s bit about using basketball to teach probability and logic is classic for him—he’s always looking for sneaky scaffolding.…
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In his 1993 book Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science, Alan Cromer of Northeastern University suggests that we never would’ve invented science if not for what Carl Sagan refers to as “an unlikely concatenation of historical events.” Cromer writes, “This hostility to science, in the face of its obvious triumphs and benefits, is… evidence…
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“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…