WEBVTT - Selects: Carl Sagan: American Hero 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:05.440 Hi everyone. Here on December our Time Capsule episode a 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:08.799 k A. Weekend Saturday Selects, We're going to take you 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:11.440 back and talk about an American hero by the name 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.920 of Carl Sagan. In the appropriately titled podcast episode Carl 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:24.560 Sagan colin American Hero. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:33.239 a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.240 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:40.199 and Noel. The stint of Noel is winding down. Sadly. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.640 It's such an awkward thing having nol here know the 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:50.080 stint of Knell? Right, yeah, oh, you mean the wording? Yeah, fine, 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.920 all right, how you doing? I'm fine, just like that 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:58.920 wording I'm sleepy. Why about I've just been staying up 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.080 late writing until one and two in the morning, like 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:09.120 a dope, like a seventeen Oh yeah, yeah, a manifesto. No, No, 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.840 just staying up too late typing. That's neat. Do you 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:16.320 drink wine while you type? Last night? It was bullet bourbon? Yeah, 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.039 And then you're just like, I'm not typing words correctly anymore. 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:21.720 And then it's time for bed. You get on a 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:23.839 roll and then you look up and it's to two am. 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.160 Nice man, I'm glad to hear that six thirty rolls 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.839 around and here we are. That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.360 So you're creative juices are flowing. They're flowing. Baby. Do 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.040 you know who else is juices were flowing and still 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:39.360 flow through this universe? Carl Sagan, he was. He was 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.319 a creative science type. Yeah, and it made him kind 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:47.560 of controversial, man. It also made him beloved, beloved, and uh, 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.960 I think one of like the precursors to what we 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:55.360 do you know? In fact, he there's a quote on 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.680 him being an explainer, which I thought was very cool, 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.520 which is the geekiest remember, but it's a pretty it's 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:05.200 a good term. Yeah, he said. I think I'm able 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.160 to explain things because understanding wasn't entirely easy for me. 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:10.919 Some things that the most brilliant students were able to 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.639 see instantly, I had to work to understand. I can 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.000 remember what I had to do to figure it out. 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:18.400 The very brilliant ones figure it out so fast that 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.880 sounds familiar. They never see the mechanics of understanding. So 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.840 I really identified with that, and like, man, that's kind 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.360 of what we do, you know? We worked really hard 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.640 to understanding this because we're not experts, and he wasn't 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:32.720 an expert on one thing. He covered a lot of 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.000 That's what made him unique, a lot of different facets 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.880 of science. Yeah, which you don't see much. No you don't. 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:41.720 I mean it does pop up here and there. But 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.280 if you if you think about the people who are 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.040 like that, like Jared Diamond is a really good current 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:53.720 example Neil type. No, that's Dustin Diamond, Okay, Jared Diamond. 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.959 Uh man. I don't even remember what he's trained in. 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.520 He's just such a generalist. But he wrote like guns, 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.440 germs and steel. Um, he's got a little a little 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:10.239 Robert bork Beard, good guy. Um, he's one. Neil deGrasse 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.119 Tyson has definitely become one, although he's still very much 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.480 an astrophysician, right, yeah, but he's he's sort of talked 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.960 about a lot of times in terms of being like Sagan, 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:24.880 and not just because he rebooted Cosmos, which was Sagan's show, 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.520 but um, oh yeah, he's just the face of science, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:30.480 like he's the go to guy. Sure. I mean, like 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.320 he was the obvious choice for Cosmos because he was 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.640 already so much like Sagan following in those footsteps for sure. 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.600 Those other guys like Brian Green as a science explainer, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.040 Bill Nye as a science explainer, Um, they're definitely out 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.680 there for sure. But you can you make a good 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.080 point that Sagan was one of the originals, if not 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:52.040 the original, but the idea that he was somebody who 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:58.160 was willing to draw parallels from different disciplines in science 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.880 or bring him together to create, um, something approachable for people, 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.839 to kind of invigorate people's love of science. I think 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.440 it's amazing. Yeah, it made him beloved. It also just 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.120 made him not reviled. This is not the right word, 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:17.919 but he was definitely criticized in the scientific establishment. Uh 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.520 in parts for sure. Some people in the scientific establishment 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.640 loved him, and some were like, uh, you're not doing 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.760 much real research, you know, you're just sort of a 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.880 face guy. And um, I poo poo that entirely and 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.520 say that he did a lot for science and people 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:41.359 like him are are necessary, and uh, I value their work. Okay, 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.320 you're taking a stand. Huh. Yeah, man, Carl Sagan is amazing. 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.320 He's one of my heroes. Yeah, he's like I watched 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.839 Cosmos when I was ten years old. I've never seen it. Man, 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:52.159 it was great. I mean it was a PBS show 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:57.000 that had tens of millions of viewers. I know, millions 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:01.880 and millions. Yeah, so that's your saken. Yeah. And you 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.520 know what he he told Johnny Carson, he never said 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:09.120 billions and billions. Uh, he said billions upon billions, right, 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.440 I never heard it. There's a super cut on YouTube 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.120 of all of his billions, millions and trillions from Dots 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.440 Moats cut to uh with it like hip hop music 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:24.680 bed and um, is that a glorious down? I don't 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.080 remember the name of it. There's one. There's a video 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.640 a song that somebody created with him, a super cut 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.440 of him. It's called Glorious Toll. That's pretty great. Well, 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.440 I never heard billions and billions in there. There's a 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.320 lot of billions and millions and trillions. He loved those words, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.520 but um, he said, I never specifically said to billions 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.480 and billions, and I couldn't. I didn't hear it either, 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.200 So he's a misunderstood genius. Yeah. Became I think Carson 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:52.839 did at first, or maybe it was Saturday out Live, 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.120 and then that just became the thing. Billions and billions 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.200 because he is a weird little dude for sure, and 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.799 a lot of what's easily parody, but he also seemed 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.120 to have a really good sense of humor about himself 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.000 at least and in general. He smoked grass. He thought 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:14.320 grass was far out. Man. We just vaulted back in 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.239 time with that one. Yeah, he smoked the marijuana grass 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.279 making a contemporary. He was on the pot, Yeah, he did. 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.880 He liked to smoke weed and um. In fact, I 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:27.520 have a quote here from he wrote an essay. The 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:32.440 quote reads, and woe. Best Pavement album by the way. 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.920 He wrote an essay. I don't know about that. Oh yeah, 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.960 what's your favorite? Um, I've played it in enchanted. Yeah, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.839 the first one. It's hard, although Crooked Ray and Crooked 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:43.920 Rain was pretty good. No, I've never seen him more 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.080 interested in what we're talking about. It's funny. In college, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.080 we used to have a saying, it's not a matter 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.719 of which album are we gonna listen to next? It's 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.520 which Pavement album are we gonna listen to next? Just 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.760 put down T shirt? Yeah. So anyway, Sagan wrote an 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:03.240 essay and Marijuana reconsidered, um, and here is one of 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.479 his quotes. He said, the cannabis experienced has greatly improved 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.680 my appreciation for art, subject which I had never much 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.080 appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist, 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.960 which I can achieve when high, sometimes carries over to 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.560 when I'm down. This is one of many human frontiers 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.440 which cannabis has helped me traverse. Was that Kermit the 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:29.800 Frog doing Carl Sagan Let's sort of kermity but he 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.800 uh yeah, I mean that's not it doesn't define him 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.160 or anything, but yeah, he liked to smoke the pot 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:36.800 and he liked to get out his little tape recorder 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.160 and talk about stuff. But on the turnal neck, yeah, 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:41.760 with nothing else. It was the sixties and seventies, of 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.160 course he was, and I think the eighties and maybe 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:49.160 even into the nineties, that's true. So um, let's let's 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.040 I guess, let's go back to the beginning. We've done 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.680 some pretty good teasing here, right, And when you're talking 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:58.280 about a human being, there's no place better to start 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:03.000 at the beginning than with their earth Brooklyn, New York. 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.760 His mother was Rachel, was a garment industry manager and 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:14.760 apparently oh yeah, yeah, but his mom was overbearing. Yes, 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:17.800 mom was overbearing. Sorry, dad was a Ukrainian immigrant Samuel 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.840 who worked as a garment industry manager. Because in ninety 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:23.800 four they prebad and hire women to do chops like that, 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.040 which is really stinky. So uh and we it's not 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.360 like we've met the lady or anything and can report 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.480 that she's overbearing. The idea that she's overbearing comes from 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:36.160 this long standing image of her of she had very 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:40.360 high hopes and high expectations and aspirations for Carl very 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.680 well may have made the man. Yeah, you know, moved 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.760 to New Jersey after a little while and was voted 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.440 the class brain at Rahway High School. And I thought 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.240 this is interesting in this what article is this the 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.600 New Yorker, which one while why Carl Sagan's truly replaceable 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:03.560 Smiths and Enjoel Achenbach. Uh. It was a great article though, 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.839 But they tracked down in nineteen fifty three a questionnaire 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.000 from high school that he had to fill out on 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.440 his own character traits, and Sagan said he gave himself 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.720 low marks for vigorousness like with sports, an average rating 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.520 for emotional stability, and the highest ratings for being dominant 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:27.000 and reflective. I'm gonna start using that vigorousness. Yeah, and 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.160 I worked out this morning. I'm so vigorous. Um. So 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.360 that's not just a piece of paper they dug up, chuck. 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.640 That's from his archives, which were actually sold to the 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.760 Library of Congress by his widow. Um what is his 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.160 widow's name, Anne andrew In one of his uh well, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.760 his his widow, but he was married three times, um 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.800 and uh ann sold the papers. Are supplied the papers 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.240 for an honorarium, I guess, to the Library of Congress. 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.720 And the Library of Congress got that money from Seth 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.800 McFarlane had basically Seth McFarland bought Carl Sagan's papers and 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.560 donated them to the Library of Congress. Yes, that's why 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.920 it's pretty cool. That's why it's called the Seth McFarland 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:12.319 Collection of the Carl Sagan and and Drury and Archive. 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.240 I had to put his name on there. Well, I mean, sure, 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.840 why not? You know, no, it's fine. He's he's he's 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:20.480 a huge fan of his work, and he's the one 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.840 who rebooted Cosmos right and genuinely, like I mean, I 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.400 gotta say, like whatever you have to say about Seth McFarland. 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.280 And there's plenty to say about Seth McFarland. He is 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.000 he proved himself a true fan of Carl Sagan and 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.600 a rich guy to fan. I've always liked a family guy, 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.240 so I don't have anything bad to say about him. Uh, 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.959 what have you seen American dad? No, I never got 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.120 into that. Actually, OK, yeah, it's not family guy. It's 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:50.120 definitely just totally different. Gotch uh seven hundred and ninety 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:55.760 eight boxes of stuff of archival material. Um. The guy 0:10:55.840 --> 0:11:00.079 love to log every conversation he ever had, and he 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.600 thought that ever entered his brain mainly through the cassette tape. 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.400 But um, I guess that was transcribed by other folks. Yeah, 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.679 apparently that's um. Joel achenbach Um says that his his 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.400 writing style was so conversational because he didn't write, He 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:19.080 dictated into a dictaphone and then it was transcribed. Basically, basically, 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.480 it was like the Hunter S. Thompson of science. Yeah. 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.080 Remember Hunter t had like the real real he'd wear 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.560 around his neck when one is high on marijuana. It 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.719 is a buzz kill to type. Actually, that's funny. We 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.640 bring up Hunter Thompson. Hunter Thompson loved acid. You know 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.480 who else loved acid? Timothy Leary. You know who hung 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:40.280 out with Timothy Leary, Carl Sagan. Timothy Leary was trying 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.720 to get Sagan to advise him on how to build 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:48.320 a an interstellar arc because Leary just totally lost his 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.760 stuff by this time. Right, we should do a show 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.040 on him. Oh yeah, I'm surprised. We haven't to be crazy. Um, 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.240 let's do it, man, Yeah, we should. We should do 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.040 one on like the Mary pranks. There's a whole thing 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.679 just basically redo the electric kool Aid asset test totally. 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.480 It would be a good episode. But Leary um at 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.240 a mental institution because he'd been popped with a bunch 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.600 of acid I think, had a visitor in Carl Sagan 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.400 and Frank Drake of the famous Drake equation, and they 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:15.800 came by to say hi, and and Leary was like, seriously, 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:17.520 you guys have to help me design this. And they 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.720 were like this, the closest star is too far away. 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.960 You're kuk, this isn't gonna work. And Learry said he 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.559 since that they had some sort of neural blockage. That's 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:32.120 why they couldn't think like he could. Man. So that 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.679 was Carl Sagan Timothy Larry story but I think they 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.720 stayed in touch. Oh, I'm sure they did so. Uh, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.640 young Sagan is his life kind of changes when he 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:45.360 goes to the World's Fair in nineteen thirty nine. He 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:47.520 was just five years old. You remember whose World's Fair 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:52.880 that was? Was that? No? Was it Chicago? Eddie bernays, Oh, yeah, 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.559 that was the one. Wow, the one that changed everything, 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.079 including Carl Sagan. Boy, that's a big one. Um. So 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.240 Sagan goes to the World Fair and it was sort 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.760 of a a great time, um, to be a young 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.880 kid interested in science, because in the late thirties and 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:13.439 forties and fifties, it was like everyone was captivated by 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:17.000 the future. Right, there's this idea that science could do anything, Yeah, 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.440 anything and very soon would. It was really exciting and um, 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.080 it was just a great time to be to be 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:29.319 into it. It's the uh what's his name Openheimer? No, Oppenheimer. 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:34.559 Now I'm talking about the article back like, yeah Oppenheimer, 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.480 this guy. Yeah, I'm the I'm become death. That's what 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:41.560 I thought you were talking about. Uh. In the article, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.520 he makes a great point about, um, just that that 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:50.160 time period and um, how exploratory everything was really from then, 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.600 like through the nineteen seventies. That was a great, like 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.840 forty year period in science where basically that was funding 0:13:57.880 --> 0:13:59.840 and like anything is possible, we can do anything we want, 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.760 until they started to you know, I guess disprove things 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.680 here and there, right. And actually what's interesting is there's 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:09.240 a corresponding boost in technology from that era too, And 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.040 a lot of people point out that all of this 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.400 stuff from about nineteen seventy five on is actually built 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.240 on the backs of the stuff that was built in 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.520 the forty years before that, from about nineteen thirty five 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.920 to nineteen seventy five and ever since then, we've had 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:25.440 a technological plateau. It's really interesting, and you don't think 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.080 about You're like, well, no, I mean we have iPhones now. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.520 It's like, yeah, iPhones are all they're a combination of 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.280 different stuff that was first discovered or invented forty or 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.200 more years ago. Um, And basically everything's like that. We 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.320 were in a slump right now. So it was not 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.880 only a time where they thought science could do anything. 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.320 Science was doing just about anything. And we've since hit 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.240 a plateau and um, he the author described him. I 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.360 thought it was a great description. Sagan as a nuanced 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:59.000 referee Because really cool thing about Sagan was he was 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.320 very grounded and science and proof and facts. But he 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.920 wasn't um. He wasn't just a square and a skeptic, 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.840 although he was a skeptic, yeah, but he was also 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.480 like he wanted to to find life on other planets. 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.520 And he didn't shut things down. He was all about 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.200 the discussion of everything as long as you still did 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.280 the research. And we're grounded in facts as a matter 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.680 of fact. And he did not believe in UFOs. He 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.520 did not think that UFOs were extraterrestrial spacecraft. But in 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.640 nineteen sixty nine he mounted a conference on UFOs in 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.800 which everyone apparently had their say all sides. Yeah, it 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.120 wasn't like we're mounting a conference on UFOs. You can 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.200 come so the rest of us can poo poo your 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:48.040 ideas and beliefs. It was come and share your your 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.920 position on it. That's enormous, and that in and of 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.840 itself is worth remembering the person for. But this is 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.560 nineteen sixty nine, before you'd even become like a household 0:15:57.600 --> 0:15:59.800 name or anything like it. Yeah, and I like to 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.600 think we do that and we still get emails. So 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.680 we got one today for people that said it's it's 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:11.040 dangerous to even mention other schools of thought. That's dogmatic. Yeah, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.320 And I just I don't agree with dogmatic and close 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.560 minded and don't even bring don't even email us with 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.640 that crap. Yeah, I just don't don't even bother because 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.920 we're gonna we're gonna make fun of you on the air. Yeah, 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.120 because that's not what our shows about. Even if we 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.440 don't believe something, we like to throw all sides out 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.040 there because I think, uh, discussion is healthy no matter what. 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.360 That's just me. Even when we were mocking crop circles, 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.000 we still like talked about crop circles, did we not. 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.640 It's not like we just pretended like there wasn't such 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.560 a thing as crop circles. That's right, And we have 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:44.280 Carl Sagan, thank for laying that golden path in front 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.840 of us. So you want to take a break, I 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.520 don't want to, but we have we need to, Okay, 0:16:49.560 --> 0:17:14.679 all right, we'll be right back. Alright. So we've been 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:18.200 beating around the bush here. Um, let's talk well not really, 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:20.800 we've been getting into it, but let's let's talk about 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.000 some of the things that Sagan uh he wasn't just 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:28.320 some Johnny come lately. He had uh, degree upon degree. 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:32.240 I think he had billions and billions. We had undergrad degree, 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.159 he had his masters, he had his PhD. He was 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.120 he was well versed in a lot of realms of science, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.240 but his big thing was astronomy. Right. He had two 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:44.720 degrees in undergrad and masters in physics and then a 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.119 doctorate in astronomy um. And he did a little stint 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.400 at Harvard. I didn't get tenure. So he's like, I'm 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.720 out of here. And Cornell is like, you come to 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.679 us and we will treat you like a god. And 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.240 they did. And he settled in at Cornell and set 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.280 up his own lab, right, the Laboratory for Planetary for 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:08.000 Planetary Studies. Uh, and he just that was when he 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.200 really started to get going. He was doing side work 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.119 for NASA at the time as well, doing consulting. He 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.280 did that throughout his whole career, formulas, that kind of stuff. Sure, 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.600 when NASA is picking your brain about like the Apollo mission, 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.760 you're you're doing pretty well for yourself as a scientist. 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.159 But so he had this this this potential to to 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.760 really go as sciency as he wanted to with this stuff, 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.240 and he did in some ways in a lot of 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.880 ways with his consulting with NASA, but he also kind 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:42.639 of pushed NASA into humanities um direction as well, like 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.359 the the Voyager discs, that's a that's a really great 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.960 example of it. Like he talked NASA into including discs 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.560 on Voyager one and two, the Golden Record, Yeah, that 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.160 are They're basically like, here's some stuff that represents humanity 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.800 and Earth. Yeah, pretty much like if we ever do 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.320 mind life on Earth, we need to have something to 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:06.120 offer them to represent us. Yeah, yeah, what I say, 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.439 life on Earth? Yeah, yeah, there's life on Earth. It's 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.160 pretty much documented as fact, life out there, extraterrestrial life. 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.800 He said, we needed to present ourselves and what Earth 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.440 is like and what humans are like. So he included 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.920 a hundred and fifteen images representing the diversity of life 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:26.880 and then uh sounds basically like his wife literally, this 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.080 is pretty out there. I don't know if marijuana had 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.040 anything to do with it. I think so. Yeah, his wife, 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.960 and she created her own sounds for the project. Basically, 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:39.600 she meditated and then thought told the story of the 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.480 universe by thinking it with her brain, and then those 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:48.000 brain waves were translated into music, and she said, my 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.760 mind also wandered to my love of my husband, so 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:54.080 that was translated. So they blasted. That was her message 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:55.919 that they blasted out to space, which is pretty far 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.960 out right, but but awesome messages of love. Yure, man, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.720 it's pretty neat. He wasn't afraid to show his tender side. No, no, no, 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:10.320 he definitely wasn't. He was vulnerable in a lot of woics. Um. 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.359 And also on those discs, there's I believe etchings of 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:15.320 a man and a woman. I think it's etched on 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.520 the disc and they're like laser disc size. They're super 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.080 retro and made of gold, which is pretty cool. Um. 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:25.040 And then there's a basically a depiction of where Earth 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.680 is in the Milky Way, I believe, so it's basically 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.680 saying we're here if you ever find this. And then 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:36.760 of course Voyager one, I believe, got lost and awakened 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:41.200 and became sentient and then became a god on to 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.000 some beings. Remember, and I think Star Trek one, the 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.320 first the first movie. I never saw this veture. You 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.360 never saw any of the Star Trek movies, dude, I've 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:53.520 never seen one episode of the TV show. I've never 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.920 seen one episode of the Next Generation. The only Star 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.320 Trek thing I've ever ingested was Our Apologies to a Wheaten. 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.639 By the way, was that first movie that J. J. 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.720 Abrams did. I saw that. I saw the second one 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:11.200 of that. I also saw I think Star Trek maybe one, two, 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:15.040 and three. And in one of those there's this god 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:19.520 vjer who's like this artificial intelligence, and they finally meet 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:24.040 Vijor and realized that the oi uh is blotted out 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:29.280 and it's really Voyager one, the Space Probe. Wow. Yeah, 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.639 that's pretty cool. I thought it was pretty neat too. 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.280 I'm not a tricky by any means, but yeah, they 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:36.280 were still entertaining. I just never got into it. I 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:38.879 was always a Star Wars guy, not that they're mutually exclusive, 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.159 but I don't know, it just didn't grab me. You know, 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:43.359 who would have predicted that we go off on a 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.120 Star Trek Tangent and the Carl. Although I think I've 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.200 told the story of working on a commercial with William Chatterer, 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:52.880 you have, didn't he like bend you over a car 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:57.680 and pretend to arrestue That was punch, Hey shot, it 0:21:57.800 --> 0:21:59.760 was t J. Hooker. Could have happened. Yeah, he was 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.800 though he was awesome. He'd loved being William Shatner. Oh yeah, man, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.320 you can tell like guy wears it like a suit. 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.360 Yeah he was. He was awesome, very nice guy. So, um, 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.640 we're getting off track again here, Sagan with science. There 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:15.440 was actual science to stuff. As a matter of fact, 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.520 the idea of the greenhouse effect is rooted partially in 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:22.199 his work. Yeah, I mean that that had been around 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:27.159 since the late nineteenth century. But um, he looked at 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:29.320 like a planet like Venus and said, you know what, 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.000 Venus is really hot, and I think wise because this 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:38.520 greenhouse effect. And um, then because of that work, people 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.800 started thinking, well, maybe Earth has a greenhouse effect. Going 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:43.800 on to right really opened the door for that line 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:47.919 of thought. It did, and he's correct. Earth definitely does 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:52.880 have a greenhouse effect and it's problematic. Correct. Another one 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:55.960 that he's widely cited for is the Fate Young Young 0:22:56.119 --> 0:23:00.119 Son paradox. Um. I don't know if the if he 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:04.480 was the one who first pointed this out, or if 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:06.320 he just kind of built upon it and it's still 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:08.920 not fully solved. I think so he and George Mullen 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:11.879 figured this out. I'm pretty sure Yeah. So the idea 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:15.400 is that Earth early on its history was a ball 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:20.760 of ice. But problematically, there was also some liquid water 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:23.520