Cosmos: The Story of Cosmic Evolution, Science and Civilisation

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Cosmos: Bibliographical Data". Book Depository. The Book Depository International Ltd . Retrieved 3 January 2010. The Cosmos has been a huge object nearly above understanding; however, we are aware that is occupied with remarkable and great things. For several hundred years and thanks mainly to scientific scholarship, we could understand that the world is only a point in the huge Cosmos. Currently, we understand our place; however, astrophysics let us explore it gradually. Much of human history can, I think, be described as a gradual and sometimes painful liberation from provincialism, the emerging awareness that there is more to the world than was generally believed by our ancestors. (Chapter 16, “The Golden Age of Planetary Exploration”)

My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings—what we sometimes call “mind”—are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more. (Introduction)

As a matter of fact, it’s really huge that we’ve needed to form a unique measurement scale according to light’s pace. Sagan’s abilities lie in turning the hard relatable. In large part, nothing can be more huge than Cosmos. Knowing about the world isn’t usually about complicated math. It’s more like a history course like a science course. Pursuing Sagan’s clue, these book chapters lead you to a trip through humankind’s concern in space and the earth from ancient eras coming to the ultimate journeys of universe discovery during the 20th hundredth year.

The integrity of the experimenters in the face of this unexpected finding is breathtaking. (It is difficult to imagine any experiment that would convince leading practitioners of many political or religious philosophies of the superiority of a competing doctrine. ( Chapter 8, “The Future Evolution of the Brain”) I wish to propose a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and our political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it. I have…a terrible need…shall I say the word?…of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars. (Quoting Vincent van Gogh) This finding was critical. From this understanding, determined travelers embarked on small boats. The distance they covered, we might never understand. However, the soul of discovery has been urged on by scholarships until this moment. What do you think have been satellites other than ships traveling through space? The 1986 special edition of Cosmos features new computer animated sequences and filmed segments with Sagan, as well as new narration. It includes content from Sagan's book Comet and discussion of his theory of nuclear winter; this material was not used in subsequent television or home video releases. The special edition premiered as one marathon program on the TBS network, and was later broadcast in Japan, Germany, Australia, Singapore, and Argentina. It is much shorter than the original version, at four and a half hours, divided into six 45-minute episodes:With that being said, if it is possible for us to melt Mars’s icebergs to load developed water channels such as Lowell believed he observed, then perhaps someday we people could refer to ourselves as Martians.

The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit. (Introduction) It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.” A mutation in a DNA molecule within a chromosome of a skin cell in my index finger has no influence on heredity. Fingers are not involved, at least directly, in the propagation of the species. (Chapter 2, “Genes and Brains”)

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution encourages a diversity of religions but does not prohibit criticism of religion. In fact it protects and encourages criticism of religion. Religions ought to be subject to at least the same degree of skepticism as, for example, contentions about UFO visitations or Velikovskian catastrophism. I think it is healthy for the religions themselves to foster skepticism about the fundamental underpinnings of their evidential bases. There is no question that religion provides a solace and support, a bulwark in time of emotional need, and can serve extremely useful social roles. But it by no means follows that religion should be immune from testing, from critical scrutiny, from skepticism. It is striking how little skeptical discussion of religion there is in the nation that Tom Paine, the author of The Age of Reason, helped to found. I hold that belief systems that cannot survive scrutiny are probably not worth having. (Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon”) Whether in some sense the universe is ultimately knowable depends not only on how many natural laws there are that encompass widely divergent phenomena, but also on whether we have the openness and the intellectual capacity to understand such laws. Our formulations of the regularities of nature are surely dependent on how the brain is built, but also, and to a significant degree, on how the universe is built. For myself, I like a universe that includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence. (Chapter 2, “Can We Know the Universe? Reflections on a Grain of Salt”)