Aristotle's Law of Inertia?

"... a thing will either be at rest or must be moved ad infinitum, unless something more powerful get in its way." -- Aristotle, philosopher, Physics, Book IV, 350 B.C.

Despite the actual historical record, the Neo-Darwinist Carl E. Sagan believed that Sir Isaac Newton "discovered" the law of inertia in 1663.

"Newton discovered the law of inertia, the tendency of a moving object to continue moving in a straight line unless something influences it and moves it out of it's path." -- Carl E. Sagan, professor, Cosmos, 1980

However Isaac Newton himself knew this was false.

"All those ancients knew the first law [of motion] who attributed to atoms in an infinite vacuum a motion which was rectilinear, extremely swift and perpetual because of the lack of resistance... Aristotle was of the same mind, since he expresses his opinion thus...[in Physics 4.8.215a19-22], speaking of motion in the void [in which bodies have no gravity and] where there is no impediment he writes: 'Why a body once moved should come to rest anywhere no one can say. For why should it rest here rather than there ? Hence either it will not be moved, or it must be moved indefinitely, unless something stronger impedes it.'" -- Isaac Newton, alchemist/mathematician, Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton, 1962

"Democritus' atomism in principle is built only on quantities, namely the number and size of the atoms and their velocities. Here Democritus was far ahead of his time in that he took, preceding Galileo in assuming something like a law of inertia, each atom's velocity to be constant, unless a collision with another atom prevents it's free motion. For Democritus, the cosmos is a world of quantities uniquely given which continue their motion according to their own inertia until they are perturbed by other particles of the same nature." -- Hans-Jürgen Treder, physicist, October 1987

Yet Another Idiotic Sentence By Carl Sagan

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?

The Miraculous Spontaneous Evolution of Science

"As it turned out, Ionia was the place where science was born. Between 600 and 400 B.C., this great revolution in human thought began. The key to the revolution was the hand." -- Carl E. Sagan, pseudoscientist, Cosmos, 1980

Prior to 600 B.C. no human being had a hand?

After all, Carl Sagan should know since he was there.

The Redeemable Carl Sagan

On Exobiology

"In the vastness of the Cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours." -- Carl E. Sagan, professor, Cosmos, 1990

"For all I know we may be visited by a different extraterrestrial civilization every second Tuesday...." -- Carl E. Sagan, professor, Cosmos, 1990

On Intelligent Design

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl E. Sagan, professor, Cosmos, 1980

"In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist's signature." -- Carl E. Sagan, professor, Contact, 1985