Carl Sagan citáty

strana 12

„Jako děti se bojíme tmy. Neznámé nás děsí. Tam venku může být cokoliv. Paradoxně je to náš osud žít ve tmě. Vyrazte ze Země, kterýmkoliv směrem si vyberete a po počátečním záblesku modré, jste obklopeni černotou, přerušovanou pouze světlem mdlých hvězd. Dokonce i poté, co dospějeme, si temnota uchovává svou moc nás děsit. A proto jsou zde tací, kdož hovoří, že bychom se neměli příliš tázat, kdo další může žít v té temnotě.“

„Nepřítomnost důkazu není důkazem neexistence.“

„Je dobré mít otevřenou mysl, ale ne tak aby nám vypadl mozek z hlavy.“

„Nechci věřit, já chci pochopit.“

„Fantazie nás někdy zanese do světů, které neexistují. Ale bez fantazie se nedostaneme vůbec nikam.“

„Vesmír není povinen být v dokonalé harmonii s lidskou ctižádostí.“

„Ptám se. Kdo má větší pokoru? Vědec, který se dívá na vesmír s otevřenou myslí a přijímá cokoliv, co nás vesmír učí? Anebo někdo, kdo říká, že všechno v této knize musí být vykládáno jako čistá pravda a nikdy se nemáme starat o omylnost lidských bytostí, které tuto knihu psali?“

„Věda je více než jen soubor poznatků. Je to způsob myšlení. Způsob skeptického vyslýchání vesmíru s jemným porozuměním lidské omylnosti.“

„Je mnohem lepší brát vesmír takový, jaký doopravdy je, než setrvávat v bludu jakkoliv uspokojujícím a uklidňujícím.“

„Nemáme-li žádnou výjimečnou polohu, rychlost či zrychlení, ani odlišný původ než jiné rostliny a živočichové, pak bychom alespoň mohli být nejchytřejšími bytostmi celého vesmíru. V tom je naše jedinečnost.“

„Žijeme ve společnosti, naprosto závislé na vědě a technologii, a přesto skoro nikdo vědě a technologii nerozumí. To je jasný recept na katastrofu.“

„Mozek je jako sval. Když je používán cítíme se velmi dobře. Chápání je radostné.“

„Nemůžete přesvědčit věřící o čemkoli, protože jejich víra není založená na důkazech, ale je založena na hlubokém základě potřeby věřit.“

„Zánik je pravidlem. Přežití je výjimkou.“

„Mimořádná tvrzení vyžadují mimořádné důkazy.“

„Jedinou svatou pravdou je, že žádné svaté pravdy neexistují.“

“But there is a chance that the answers will discomfit a great many bureaucratic and doctrinal religions. The idea of religion as a body of belief, immune to criticism, fixed forever by some founder is, I think, a prescription for the long-term decay of the religion, especially lately.”

“The idea that a God or gods is necessary to effect one or more of these origins has been under repeated attack over the last few thousand years. Because we know something about phototropism and plant hormones, we can understand the opening of the morning glory independent of divine microintervention. It is the same for the entire skein of causality back to the origin of the universe. As we learn more and more about the universe, there seems less and less for God to do.”

“It is astonishing in the face of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration were needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.”

“Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction. And the fact that some of that science fiction was not of the highest quality is irrelevant. Ten-year-olds do not read the scientific literature.”

“In the face of all this, many of the standard ideas of science fiction seem to me to pale by comparison. I see the relative absence of these things and the distortions of scientific thinking often encountered in science fiction as terrible wasted opportunities. Real science is as amenable to exciting and engrossing fiction as fake science, and I think it is important to exploit every opportunity to convey scientific ideas in a civilization which is both based upon science and does almost nothing to ensure that science is understood.”

“St. Anselm argued that since we can imagine a perfect being, he must exist—because he would not be perfect without the added perfection of existence. This so-called ontological argument was more or less promptly attacked on two grounds: (1) Can we imagine a completely perfect being? (2) Is it obvious that perfection is augmented by existence? To the modern ear such pious arguments seem to be about words and definitions rather than about external reality.”

“Vigorous criticism is more constructive in science than in some other areas of human endeavor because in science there are adequate standards of validity that can be agreed upon by competent practitioners the world over. The objective of such criticism is not to suppress but rather to encourage the advance of new ideas: those that survive a firm skeptical scrutiny have a fighting chance of being right, or at least useful.”

“A clear prediction in an area undergoing vigorous study permits doctrines to be subject to disproof. The last posture a bureaucratic religion wishes to find itself in is vulnerability to disproof, where an experiment can be performed on which the religion stands or falls.”

“Very few scientists actually plunge into the murky waters of testing or challenging borderline or pseudo-scientific beliefs. The chance of finding out something really interesting—except about human nature—seems small, and the amount of time required seems large. I believe that scientists should spend more time in discussing these issues, but the fact that a given contention lacks vigorous scientific opposition in no way implies that scientists think it is reasonable.”

“But our openness to the dazzling possibilities presented by modern science must be tempered by some hard-nosed skepticism. Many interesting possibilities simply turn out to be wrong. An openness to new possibilities and a willingness to ask hard questions are both required to advance our knowledge. And the asking of tough questions has an ancillary benefit: political and religious life in America, especially in the last decade and a half, has been marked by an excessive public credulity, an unwillingness to ask difficult questions, which has produced a demonstrable impairment in our national health. Consumer skepticism makes quality products. This may be why governments and churches and school systems do not exhibit unseemly zeal in encouraging critical thought. They know they themselves are vulnerable.”

“For many people, the shoddily thought out doctrines of borderline science are the closest approximation to comprehensible science readily available. The popularity of borderline science is a rebuke to the schools, the press and commercial television for their sparse, unimaginative and ineffective efforts at science education; and to us scientists, for doing so little to popularize our subject.”

“Both Barnum and H. L. Mencken are said to have made the depressing observation that no one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The remark has worldwide application. But the lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking.”

“Our perceptions may be distorted by training and prejudice or merely because of the limitations of our sense organs, which, of course, perceive directly but a small fraction of the phenomena of the world. Even so straightforward a question as whether in the absence of friction a pound of lead falls faster than a gram of fluff was answered incorrectly by Aristotle and almost everyone else before the time of Galileo. Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage—at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom.”

“All inquiries carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions. But I do not see how we can deal with the universe—both the outside and the inside universe—without studying it. The best way to avoid abuses is for the populace in general to be scientifically literate, to understand the implications of such investigations. In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work. If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern—if both its delights and its social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press, and at the dinner table—we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us.”

“Society corrupts the best of us. It is a little unfair, I think, to criticize a person for not sharing the enlightenment of a later epoch, but it is also profoundly saddening that such prejudices were so extremely pervasive. The question raises nagging uncertainties about which of the conventional truths of our own age will be considered unforgivable bigotry by the next.”

“The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.”

“Both borderline science and many religions are motivated in part by a serious concern about the nature of the universe and our role in it, and for this reason merit our consideration and regard. In addition, I think it possible that many religions involve at their cores an attempt to come to grips with profound mysteries of our individual life histories, as described in the last chapter. But both in borderline science and in organized religion there is much that is specious or dangerous. While the practitioners of such doctrines often wish there were no criticisms to which they are expected to reply, skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”

“Natural selection has served as a kind of intellectual sieve, producing brains and intelligences increasingly competent to deal with the laws of nature. This resonance, extracted by natural selection, between our brains and the universe may help explain a quandary set by Einstein: The most incomprehensible property of the universe, he said, is that it is so comprehensible.”

“The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence. There is nothing mysterious about this: smart organisms by and large survive better and leave more offspring than stupid ones.”

“That in nonarithmetic operations the small and slow human brain can still do so much better than the large and fast electronic computer is an impressive tribute to how cleverly the brain is packaged and programmed—features brought about, of course, by natural selection. Those who possessed poorly programmed brains eventually did not live long enough to reproduce.”

“Without these experimental tests, very few physicists would have accepted general relativity. There are many hypotheses in physics of almost comparable brilliance and elegance that have been rejected because they did not survive such a confrontation with experiment. In my view, the human condition would be greatly improved if such confrontations and willingness to reject hypotheses were a regular part of our social, political, economic, religious and cultural lives.”

“The search for patterns without critical analysis, and rigid skepticism without a search for patterns, are the antipodes of incomplete science. The effective pursuit of knowledge requires both functions.”

“There is no way to tell whether the patterns extracted by the right hemisphere are real or imagined without subjecting them to left-hemisphere scrutiny. On the other hand, mere critical thinking, without creative and intuitive insights, without the search for new patterns, is sterile and doomed. To solve complex problems in changing circumstances requires the activity of both cerebral hemispheres: the path to the future lies through the corpus callosum.”

“There is no doubt that right-hemisphere intuitive thinking may perceive patterns and connections too difficult for the left hemisphere; but it may also detect patterns where none exist. Skeptical and critical thinking is not a hallmark of the right hemisphere. And unalloyed right-hemisphere doctrines, particularly when they are invented during new and trying circumstances, may be erroneous or paranoid.”

“Evolution often uses this strategy. Indeed, the standard evolutionary practice of increasing the amount of genetic information as organisms increase in complexity is accomplished by doubling part of the genetic material and then allowing the slow specialization of function of the redundant set.”

“The price we pay for the anticipation of our future is anxiety about it. Foretelling disaster is probably not much fun; Pollyanna was much happier than Cassandra. But the Cassandric components of our nature are necessary for survival.”

“There is a popular contention that half or more of the brain is unused. From an evolutionary point of view this would be quite extraordinary: why should it have evolved if it had no function? But actually the statement is made on very little evidence.”

“Note that in all this interaction between mutation and natural selection, no moth is making a conscious effort to adapt to a changed environment. The process is random and statistical.”

“A mutation in a DNA molecule within a chromosome of a skin cell in my index finger has no influence on heredity. Fingers are not involved, at least directly, in the propagation of the species.”