As yesterday (Dec 20) was the anniversary of Carl Sagan‘s death, I think it’s fitting that tonight we discuss his life and contributions to humanity. If you want to join me on the show, then let me know in the comments section below. We’ll kick-off about 9.30pm AEDT. Check out the shownotes here. I remember visiting Ithaca, NY, a few years ago and doing the tour of the “Pace The Space” monument.
I was ten when Sagan’s TV show “Cosmos” came out in 1980 and I remember watching it in awe. His ability to communicate how mind-boggling yet logical the processes of evolution and the creation of the universe were/are, helped destroy the last vestiges of my Catholic upbringing, far more than anything I was taught at school. Ah, the power of television used for good and not evil!
Watch Carl explain 4 Billion years of evolution.
And remember Fat Boy Slim’s version?
That’s an awesome film-clip that i’d never actually seen before. Love the ending.
The Sagan clip is good too. So concise. I did geology at school and now i’ve done mining engineering but more geology should be taught at school. It touches on so many facets of science that are visible everywhere.
I was reading a national geographic from 2004 about evolution while waiting at the barbers this week. It shot down so many misconceptions about the “theory” of evolution with the greatest of ease.
Darwin was actually training to be a clergyman before going to university. He later called himself an agnostic and believed in a distant higher power but by no means adhered to christian beliefs. He stopped short of too often openly going against the church for the sake of his christian wife though.
Here’s the natgeo article.
And all of Darwin’s writings can be found here.
Sorry, here’s the link for the all Darwin’s works.
There’s also audio here but it’s only cg speech from text.
I’m free tonight if you need someone for the show Cam. Ping me on skype if you do – skypeid: hello_operator
Hi,
The monument isn’t called “Pace the Space”. It is called the Sagan Planet Walk. But I will let the Sciencenter committee know there’s some confusion about the name.
Now what’s this FatBoy Slim reference? YouTube took the video down. What was it about? He did something on evolution??? I’m rather astonished to see this linkage to Carl because just the other day I was thinking that rather than using Christopher Walken, Carl Sagan would have been very cool for the Weapon Of Choice video. 🙂 But sadly that would have been impossible.
Hi “Sagan Gathering”, thanks for clarifying the name of the monument in Ithaca. The Fatboy Slim reference was his film clip for “Right Here Right Now” – check this copy out here: