Carl Sagan.....thoughts??

[WI Crippler]

Ok, I usually get home late at night from my jiu-jitsu class and I have started a tradition where I come home and watch Cosmos on the science channel. Anyway, I think its great stuff, and I picked up a book of his (Pale Blue Dot) the other day and just started reading it.

My question to the science people here is
Was Carl Sagan a renowned scientist, or more of a modern day philosopher.?
And also, he's not some weird crackpot who was heading some strange religious cult like Scientology was he?? I'd hate to get brainwashed into something weird without knowing it.

 

[cherokee]

Ok, I usually get home late at night from my jiu-jitsu class and I have started a tradition where I come home and watch Cosmos on the science channel. Anyway, I think its great stuff, and I picked up a book of his (Pale Blue Dot) the other day and just started reading it.

My question to the science people here is
Was Carl Sagan a renowned scientist, or more of a modern day philosopher.?
And also, he's not some weird crackpot who was heading some strange religious cult like Scientology was he?? I'd hate to get brainwashed into something weird without knowing it.

You wont.
To me he was an extraordinary scientist with the ability to explain any scientific theories in layman’s terms. When you get the time pick up a copy of his book or dvd's from your library called "Cosmos"


Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrobiologist, and highly successful science popularizer. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was the most-watched PBS program[1] until Ken Burns' The Civil War in 1990. A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name starring Jodie Foster. During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated scientific skepticism, humanism, and the scientific method.



Carl Sagan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ngdawg]

And he died way too soon

 

[Kandahar]

Was Carl Sagan a renowned scientist, or more of a modern day philosopher.?

He was a great scientist, but he was never afraid to share his philosophical and political thoughts.

And also, he's not some weird crackpot who was heading some strange religious cult like Scientology was he?? I'd hate to get brainwashed into something weird without knowing it.

lol, no. No weird religious cults. Sagan was an atheist. The primary message of some of his books (The Demon-Haunted World) was how reason and observation can find the truth in our world.

 

[Voidwar]

The man was absolutely brilliant.

another good title, amazing , is "Dragons of Eden" amazing book, will tell you exactly how your own brain is currently reading to you.