I realize it's childsplay and beating a dead horse to pick on late professor Carl Sagan, especially since most of his idiotic statements were catalogued by historian Charles Ginenthal in his book Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky. However this one is pretty funny:
"Science fiction was a new idea at the time of the Thirty Years War...." -- Carl E. Sagan, pseudoscientist, Cosmos, 1980
Let us analyze this Darwinist claim that has absolutely no basis in historical reality.
The Thirty Years War began in 1618 with the Defenestration of Prague and ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia.
So according to Carl Sagan, the Greco-Roman author Lucian who wrote science fiction in ancient times was actually writing science nonfiction?
"Once upon a time I gathered together the poorest people in my kingdom and undertook to plant a colony on the Morning Star [Venus], which was empty and uninhabited. Phaethon out of jealousy thwarted the colonisation, meeting us half-way at the head of his Ant Dragoons. At that time we were beaten, for we were not a match for them in strength, and we retreated: now, however, I desire to make war again and plant the colony." -- Lucian, author, True History, 2nd century
And again, if science fiction evolved in the 17th century, does that mean the Mahabharata is science fact?
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18 comments:
Keep it up!
Sagan need to be buried under piles of revulsion!
Why the animosity toward Sagan?
I value the truth and Carl Sagan didn't.
The question you should be asking: Why the Neo-Darwinist animosity towards historical honesty and truth?
What is the truth as you see it OIM?
Science fiction was written before 1618 for one thing. However Sagan is so dishonest with himself he has to lie about it.
Good point. Why did Sagan feel the need to lie about that though?
Because he was a hardcore fundamentalist Neo-Darwinist who has to make believe that things are constantly evolving into being. No science fiction prior to Thirty Years War -- then science fiction miraculously and spontaneously evolves for no reason. Likewise science. Evolutionists say no science prior to Thales then -- ta da ... magic -- science evolved!
Excellent points there OIM.
Clearly there was science in ancient Athens. Without science, how were there ever any boats that floated on water or concrete bricks being laid, or metals being mined and processed?
I agree with you -- and most intellectually honest people -- that science existed in ancient Athens. You might not be able to convince someone like Asimov of that fact but Sagan would've granted it. And I would even go further than that and say that science has existed since day one of our species. I agree that without science there would be no boats -- thus it seems that even the alleged and so-called cavemen Homo ergaster and Homo erectus were involved in the practice of science.
Creating fire, telling time, navigating, hunting, fishing, farming, etc...all a matter of understanding science.
My friend and I had a running joke...well, more of an SCTV parody...about Carl Sagan.
Of course he always used to have these lengthy extended metaphors to describe some astronomical (pun intended) measurement about the sun, planets, galaxies and so, that would go like this:
Imagine a car standing on its end represented the (planet|earth|moon|quasar), you would have to stack 100 million cars up to the (sun|troposphere|Neptune) and then, add a U-Haul trailer to each car and then make each one move back and forth until they created a parking space with 5 feet in front and back of it to get some idea how (big|distant) the (class M star|newly found asteroid|carbon atom nucleus) really is.
But then, no matter how grandiose the analogy, (here comes punch line), he would always add: now multiply that by a thousand.
And so for a year in college, the line multiply that by a thousand would send us into peels of laughter. Yes, we were that nerdy...
Haha that is awesome.
Of course, Carl Sagan has dignity and respect. One of the his quotations is: "But I could be wrong."
I'm pretty sure that the words "I could be wrong" never crossed his lips in the presence of Velikovksy.
Indeed OIM, however I think he said it in reference to ancient aliens however.
True.
And I was also totally shocked to learn from a friend who lived in Ithaca that Dr. Sagan was Church-goer. For all his hate-speech against theism it's another interesting paradox in the life of Dr. Sagan.
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