Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of expanding our loyalties beyond ourselves and our immediate communities to embrace all of humanity and the planet.
Carl Sagan urges us to broaden our loyalties to encompass not just our individual interests or those of our local communities, but to extend them to the entire human race and the Earth itself. This perspective is vital for our survival, as it promotes global unity and collective responsibility, recognizing that we are all interconnected and that the well-being of one affects the well-being of all.
In practice
During a climate change conference, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for collective action.
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever.
We cannot afford to spend millions and millions over nuclear arms when there is poverty and unemployment all around us.
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
I am convinced that the deepest desire within each of us is to be liberated from the controlling influences of our own psychic madness or patterns of fear. All other things—the disdain of ordinary life, the need to control others rather than be controlled, the craving for material goods as a means of security and protection against the winds of chaos—are external props that serve as substitutes for the real battle, which is the one waged within the individual soul.
A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.
And the men who loan money to governments, so called, for the purpose of enabling the latter to rob, enslave, and murder their people, are among the greatest villains that the world has ever seen. And they as much deserve to be hunted and killed (if they cannot otherwise be got rid of) as any slave traders, robbers, or pirates that ever lived.
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