However, Sagan did argue against the intellectual rectitude and truth of theism, and is thus lauded by many atheism-promoting groups and individuals today. Them – the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth that those other people who believe all these stupid doctrines are morons.’ ‘The chief difficulty I see in the sceptical movement is in its polarization: Us vs. Sagan nevertheless resisted the atheist label, describing himself as an agnostic and writing that: ‘There is no necessary conflict between science and religion.’ He also questioned Skepticsm’s frequently antagonistic strategy: Sagan was a founding member and Fellow of the ‘Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal’ (CSICOP), and a member of the Council for Secular Humanism’s International Academy of Humanism. Sagan was a ‘Skeptic’, an American term that tends to designate someone who is sceptical about paranormal and supernatural truth claims, but who (so it often seems to me at least) uncritically endorses an atheistic, naturalistic worldview. Sagan also wrote the science fiction novel Contact, which formed the basis of the 1997 film of the same name. He was also a Pulitzer prize-winning science communicator best known for co-writing and presenting the Emmy and Peabody award-winning 1980 PBS television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, a 13-hour series seen by over 400 million people. Sagan was an astronomer and astrophysicist well known for supporting the ‘search for extra terrestrial intelligence’ (SETI).

IntroductionĬarl Sagan (1934-1996) – ‘the world’s best-known scientist in the late twentieth century’ – was Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences, and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies, at Cornell University. His review provides some excellent responses to arguments that Sagan used and which keep cropping up today. Williams has written an extended review of the book. The transcripts were only recently published as The Varieties of Scientific Experience: a personal view of the search for God (Penguin, 2006). In 1985, Carl Sagan, better know for his book and television series Cosmos, delivered the Gifford Lectures.

Pascal's Fire by Keith Ward