Is Carl Sagan's description of ancient history correct or incorrect?

[Politesse]

I should think so. I never know what to do with specific language used vaguely. People hate being corrected, but absent correction the conversation descends into cross-talk and absurdity.

"Mystic" and "spiritual" seem to be the waffliest terms, followed at a few paces by "magic", "superstition", and "cult".

Sagan was all about verifiability, maybe even a bit of a logical positivist. In any case he really didn't distinguish between traditional religious woo and other forms of woo. He was particularly fond of trouncing astrology for example and went so far as to say we should not immediately discount things like prayer and Velikovskyism, but should instead submit them to scientific examination.

Sagan smoked some weed and opined at one point that Jesus must have been some type of an alien to have been able to perform impossible feats. Probably just the weed talking there.

He just didn't grant any particular form of woo any special status. It was all woo, all mystical mumbo jumbo when held up against scientific inquiry, observation and experiment.

Exactly. If one don't respect the legitimacy of any religious language, so why bother using it correctly? So correcting such a one accomplishes little as a rule.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I should think so. I never know what to do with specific language used vaguely. People hate being corrected, but absent correction the conversation descends into cross-talk and absurdity.

"Mystic" and "spiritual" seem to be the waffliest terms, followed at a few paces by "magic", "superstition", and "cult".

Sagan was all about verifiability, maybe even a bit of a logical positivist. In any case he really didn't distinguish between traditional religious woo and other forms of woo. He was particularly fond of trouncing astrology for example and went so far as to say we should not immediately discount things like prayer and Velikovskyism, but should instead submit them to scientific examination.

Sagan smoked some weed and opined at one point that Jesus must have been some type of an alien to have been able to perform impossible feats. Probably just the weed talking there.

He just didn't grant any particular form of woo any special status. It was all woo, all mystical mumbo jumbo when held up against scientific inquiry, observation and experiment.

Exactly. If one don't respect the legitimacy of any religious language, so why bother using it correctly? So correcting such a one accomplishes little as a rule.

Isn't woo just woo? Isn't science just science? Does giving woo a myriad of different names really change anything about the claims? Aren't all the claims just more woo? If someone claims "Creation Science" who really cares about the new use of words? It's the claims that are important and whether any of the claims stand up to scientific scrutiny. Putting a new wrapper on old claims hardly establishes legitimacy.

Perhaps the final redoubt of woo is to say its claims are beyond the realm of science. We've all heard that one, and that's just another layer of woo cake. At least with something like Velikovsky we can ask what would cause a large gas giant to expel a rocky body like Venus that would somehow mysteriously take up a standard orbit like other planets. Eventually we discount such a scenario as not being possible, and therefore does not explain biblical accounts of claimed momentous events.

 

[Politesse]

Exactly. If one don't respect the legitimacy of any religious language, so why bother using it correctly? So correcting such a one accomplishes little as a rule.

Isn't woo just woo? Isn't science just science? Does giving woo a myriad of different names really change anything about the claims? Aren't all the claims just more woo? If someone claims "Creation Science" who really cares about the new use of words? It's the claims that are important and whether any of the claims stand up to scientific scrutiny. Putting a new wrapper on old claims hardly establishes legitimacy.

Perhaps the final redoubt of woo is to say its claims are beyond the realm of science. We've all heard that one, and that's just another layer of woo cake. At least with something like Velikovsky we can ask what would cause a large gas giant to expel a rocky body like Venus that would somehow mysteriously take up a standard orbit like other planets. Eventually we discount such a scenario as not being possible, and therefore does not explain biblical accounts of claimed momentous events.

Precisely. There's no point in trying to correct someone on something that they are proud to not know anything about.

But it also precludes meaningful conversation on the topic. By design, I suppose.

 

[steve_bank]

Late in life he admitted to chronic pot use for inspiration.

I remember an old black and white film clip of him claiming there was life on Venus and describing what they looked like.

All that says is science is peopled by real human beings not computers and Vulcans. Imagination is a requirement.

 

[DBT]

Late in life he admitted to chronic pot use for inspiration.

I remember an old black and white film clip of him claiming there was life on Venus and describing what they looked like.

All that says is science is peopled by real human beings not computers and Vulcans. Imagination is a requirement.

There may actually be life on Venus... high in the atmosphere;

''The clouds of Venus may provide an environment capable of supporting microbial life. "I think we should really take another look at Venus,"

Though Venus' surface has gone hellish hothouse, the environment a few dozen miles high in the skies is pretty benign, Grinspoon and others have stressed. Temperatures and pressures up there are close to those of Earth's surface, so it's possible that Venusian life — if it ever existed — didn't die out with the dramatic climate shift long ago but rather retreated into the clouds.''

 

[steve_bank]

He was talking about Venusians walking around.

 

[DBT]

He was talking about Venusians walking around.

That's unfortunate. However, before the probes began to explore the planet it was being speculated that Venus may be a hot swampy planet, maybe life, maybe jungles. etc. Perhaps 2 - 3 billion years ago it was

 

[steve_bank]

Hardly unfortunate. All of them from the period had quirks.

Hawking claimed he proved the universe creates itself from nothing.

AE had his quirks. At Princeton he was known to not undress for bed, too distracting when he a problem going in his head. He liked to play chicken when sailing. He was a party animal of his day. Read his family authorized bio.

Sagan was pretty good. His greatest contribution was putting a popular face on science. Stimulated interest in scince. His successor is Tyson.

 

[Tharmas]

I googled "Sagan" and "life on Venus" and got this hit. I just read the Abstract (naturally it's behind a paywall), but it doesn't seem like he was necessarily into woo.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I googled "Sagan" and "life on Venus" and got this hit. I just read the Abstract (naturally it's behind a paywall), but it doesn't seem like he was necessarily into woo.

Sagan was definitely not into woo. I don't know his speculations on Venusian life, but I'm sure they didn't possess any mysteriously inexplicable qualities or perform miraculous acts that defied physical laws. His predictions and speculations were always grounded in observations and scientific reality. Even his novel Contact was decidedly anti-woo.

 

[4321lynx]

The post war American political ideology has been if we but make the right decisions in foreign policy we can make things turn out our way. Constantly proven wrong. Yet we still believe it in our mid east foreign policy.

If it had not been FDR and Churchill would the Brits and Americans have been as motivated and strong at the darkest times?The Japanese failed to destroy the dry docks and fuel stores at Pearl Harbor out of fear of being ambushed by our carriers.

Some agued it cost Japan the war. The Yorktown had ben severally damaged but was repaired sufficiently to join the task force at Midway. Three American carriers instead of two. The Japanese thought Yorktown had been sunk and expected only two carriers.

If the opposing fleets were on slightly different courses and speeds the Japanese may have found us first.

If the code breakers had not figured out Midway was a target who knows.

A long list of what ifs. It comes down to historical conditions lining up with an individual. Napoleon.

Or two individuals: Nelson and Wellington. And two others beside these: Alexander I and Kutuzov (Mikhail Illarion Golenishchev-Kutuzov Graf von Smolensk)

 

[Treedbear]

...
Even his novel Contact was decidedly anti-woo.

And yet it left room for an afterlife of sorts. (At least in the movie. I didn't read the book.)

 

[lpetrich]

As to Carl Sagan having once claimed that there may be life on Venus, I think that some of you are taking this issue WAY too seriously. Before Mariner 2, there were at least four main theories of what Venus's surface was like: a tropical jungle, an ocean of water, an ocean of hydrocarbons, and a desert.

The first one includes habitability, and the second one includes the possibility of habitability. The third and fourth ones are very iffy about habitability.

So Carl Sagan speculating about life on Venus would not have been anything unusual.

 

[DBT]

I think that was the Venera project, Venera 9 being the first to orbit the planet, I think. Mariner was Mars.