Celebrate Carl Sagan Day
While Isaac Asimov knew of none more handsome, he did admit to having meet in his life two people who were smarter than he was. One was Carl Sagan. The question of who was the better looking has yet to be definitively resolved.
One way to celebrate the day would be to take a poor believer to lunch and actually listen to them compasionately while evidencing not the slightest hint of your pity. But then you don’t have to be Carl Sagan. It is enough for the rest of us to endeavor to be more like him. Alas, most can expect to fall short of thinking as well as he did.
So what to do? Well you can hardly go wrong rewatching an episode of Cosmos (or all 13 in a Cosmos marathon-much easier than running 42+ klicks). Don’t own a copy? They’re all over: see YouTube, Hulu, bitTorrents…)
In episode 7 of Cosmos, “The Backbone of Night,” Sagan speaks of not the cosmos, but how he and the collective we came to know what we think we know about the cosmos. The story is largely the story of the Ionian Greeks, begining with Thales. For a brief introduction, consider: Ionian Heros of Mind.
You could do his ‘ Dragon in the Whatever’ as preference art. One person, as prearranged, states that “there’s a fire-breathing dragon in my basement.” Everyone else gets to play Carl. One person knows Carl’s answers and can guide the happening if needed.
You can have an apple pie making contest. While all are eating apple pie, watch Carl’s video where he explains how to make an apple pie FROM SCRATCH!
Provide free copies of Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit to each. It’s just a link away and prints on one page. Even better, read/print the article.pdf itself in its full awesomeness.
Originally published at https://www.celebrateinquiry.org.