Celebrating Carl Sagan: 10 Powerful Reflections For The Societies Of The World
Enrique Rubio (he/him)
Top 100 HR Global HR Influencer | HRE's 2024 Top 100 HR Tech Influencers | Speaker | Future of HR
Happy Birthday, Carl Sagan!
Sagan was one of the most important men of science in recent history. He was born 83 years ago, on November 9, 1934.
Dr. Sagan’s accomplishments had an effect that went far beyond science. He was a visionary in the full sense of the word.
He enlightened us with his vision of the cosmos, but also warned us about the political, social and technological problems he predicted were going to happen (and are actually happening).
Today, more than ever, we need more people like Carl Sagan. People using science and technology for the good. People calling on social, religious and political leaders to embrace the truth and take a strong stance in favor of the progress and the betterment of humanity, and not against it!
I feel that Carl Sagan’s warnings are more important than they’ve ever been. Our societies have become extremely entrenched in selfish political and religious positions. And it seems impossible for them to be open-minded and embrace the diversity of others’ truths and perspectives, let alone to change when the evidence and need for change is undeniable.
It looks as if mental, political and religious stagnation became the accepted values and tolerance and the appetite to learn and change became not only obsolete, but societies' enemy!
Carl Sagan warned us, too often, against such stagnation. The progress of humanity depends on our capacity to change and embrace the truth.
He said “the truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.”
On his birthday, I celebrate Carl Sagan’s vision of the world. Not from his scientific accomplishments, but from his strong call on our societies to take action and prevent our self-destruction.
These are ten reflections by Carl Sagan to the people and the societies of the present and the future.
About the relationship between science and spirituality
“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”
About embracing the truth
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
“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.”
“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.”
About change and open-mindedness
“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”
“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
“People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics to get the attention of bright, curious, intelligent people is to belittle or condescend or to show arrogance toward their beliefs.”
About questioning
“There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.”
About the need to learn
“Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.”
About remaining vigilant of the future
“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 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...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
And a bonus:
“I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.
The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you liked this article, please share with your network! And, please, comment below... I'd love to hear what you have to say. Thank you!
Do you want to read the rest of my articles? Click here!
About the author:
Enrique Rubio is a Tech and HR Evangelist. He's passionate about Human Resources, People Operations, Technology and Innovation. Enrique is an Electronic Engineer, Fulbright Scholar and Executive Master in Public Administration with a focus on HR. Over the past 15 years Enrique has worked in the HR and tech world. A lot of his research and work revolves around the digitization of the workplace and Human Resources. Enrique currently works as an HR Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank. He's also the founder of Hacking HR. Enrique is currently building Cotopaxi, an artificial intelligence-based recruitment platform for emerging markets.