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tolkienfan2759 t1_j1lwjf6 wrote

...eh, sorry to burst your bubble here, but Sagan was not a great mind. He was a pretty pedestrian scientist - I mean, he taught at Cornell, but Thomas Sowell taught at Stanford - someone has to. They hire thousands and keep some, often for reasons that have little to do with intellectual achievement or capacity.

Now, I don't mean he was an idiot; he wasn't. He was a very bright guy. But one of humanity's greatest minds... not even close, sorry. Linus Pauling, maybe. Francis Crick, maybe. These were scientists who dominated their fields and maybe could have dominated any scientific field they chose to go into. They were smart. And they didn't even make (or, for all I know, even attempt) any significant achievements in the field of morality, which is where humanity really needs to improve.

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-rba- t1_j1lywb3 wrote

Hi, planetary scientist here. I got my PhD at Cornell and worked down the hall from Sagan's former office. You're partly right: he was a good scientist. Some of his work is still cited today but was not as revolutionary as an Einstein or Darwin or something. But hardly anyone is, and he did do some important work. I've cited his stuff.

But he was the greatest science communicator ever. He synthesized ideas from philosophers and scientists from the ancient to the recent past with modern scientific ideas and was not afraid to embrace the awe and wonder of science. He communicated not just facts but emotion. His impact in terms of inspiring generations of scientists, not to mention science literacy more broadly, is incalculable. Many of my peers are scientists because of him. It's a different kind of greatness than coming up with general relativity, but still great.

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tolkienfan2759 t1_j1m13bh wrote

lol I stand corrected

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AlaskaExplorationGeo t1_j1omxz4 wrote

I'm also a scientist (a geologist) and Sagan definitely was one of my inspirations for going down this road and I'm sure the same is true for countless other scientists.

Noticing your username there, Tolkien was another one of my inspirations! A love of both science and tales of adventure in the mountains tends to lead one towards the geosciences!

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tolkienfan2759 t1_j1pu24w wrote

You know, I've never been tempted to read anything of Sagan's before, but now I think I will... who knows, maybe he'll inspire me too... or maybe I'll come back in three months with a repellently cynical takedown! lol sorry guys

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Blakids t1_j1nbjw9 wrote

Downvoted for changing your mind.

Never change reddit. Actually do, because that's pretty toxic

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