"We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock. The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning."
-Carl Sagan
Science and culture could really use another Carl Sagan. There are several wonderful popularizers of science out there (Neil Degrasse Tyson anyone?) but none of them come close to connecting the spiritual and sublime aspects of human living to scientific understanding like Sagan could. There is really a vacuum here and it seems so critical for someone to pick up where he left off. Scientific understanding underlies almost all human progress and it represents the only means we have to defend civilization from catastrophe. Modern popular science and the media that cover it seldom express any kind of complete vision. Science(human understanding, really) is treated like a domain all to itself and is cordoned off from the rest of life, when it's linked inherently with everything we are and do. More and more I get the feeling that if human civilization is to thrive and survive, leaps in technology need to happen, but to happen safely they need to happen in a world where science is culture and religion and sloppy thinking are artifacts of the past. Daily living and the seemingly human need for spiritual understanding need to be brought more in line with discovery and scientific knowledge, and Carl Sagan was supreme in this endeavor.
Ok, that's enough hippie shit for one day.
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