The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God | Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God | Carl Sagan | The Varieties of Sagan's Experience

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The Varieties of S...

	The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God Carl Sagan Penguin (Non-Classics), 2007 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Carl Sagan?s prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality

The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design, and a new concept of science as ?informed worship.? Originally presented at the centennial celebration of the famous Gifford Lectures in Scotland in 1985 but never published, this book offers a unique encounter with one of the most remarkable minds of the twentieth century.

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read it

This isn't necessarily an attack on religion like some knee-jerk responses might indicate. Instead, it is for me an attack on the idea that science is itself an attack on religion. Dr. Sagan attempts to impart upon us a sense of awe and wonder at the counterintuitive (and therefore "magical") reality uncovered by the last 4,000 years or so of science. If you are religious then I hope you will come away with a new appreciation for how clever your Creator has been, and how long an arduous a task we scientists have ahead of us in understanding this creation. If you are not religious, you will appreciate that simply being here is improbable enough as to be enjoyed in precisely the same way as a miracle.

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The Varieties of Sagan's Experience

Here is a great gateway into Carl Sagan, a preeminent scientist and thinker of the 20th Century. I don't find it quite as accessible as his PBS series "The Cosmos" or his book/film "Contact." But I really enjoyed it.

This book is actually a series of lectures Carl gave, all relating to science and the search for God. Especially fascinating is the final chapter, transcribed excerpts from Carl's Q&A sessions following each lecture. The give and take between Carl and audience members of different attitudes is a great top off to the lectures themselves.

If you are a Carl Sagan fan, this book is a must read. It's a great contribution to the debate between religion and science. The early chapters are really heavy on scientific terminology. But Sagan does a good job of couching complicated astronomical theory in everyday analogies.

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Carl Sagan Knows How To Reason Effectively

I became aware of Carl Sagan when I first watched his TV series, COSMOS, many years ago. Not only was he a fine communicator, but it was clear that he was also a sound thinker.

I was attracted to this latest work, a compilation of his 1985 presentation of the Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow by the books subtitle: A Personal View of the Search for God.

I attended a small Jesuit College almost 50 years ago in part to search for God. I did not find what I was looking for. My search continues and Sagan adds a grand perspective to the search by offering his thoughts regarding his search, in this interesting and very readable effort, The Varieties of Scientific Experience. The book is edited by Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan and she adds an introduction that sets the reader off on a proper path of expectations.

I am a physician and a writer and reading this work offered some ten years after Sagan's death was enriching to my on-going search for answers that are neither revelation nor dogma, regarding where we humans are from and where we may be going.

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Excellent Reading.

Let me first say that it is very sad that amazon is practically giving this book away, such is its demand.

In it, Dr. Sagan talks about everything from the possibility of life on other planets, to the existence of god(s). He discusses how life arose on this planet, its likely hood on other planets. He compares ideas scientists had in the past to what we know today about this process. He also discusses what UFO sightings really are and also ideas about god, gods, religion, and belief. Very mind-opening and ponderous, I might add.
This book would be great reading for philosophy students, college students, and people looking to expand their critical thinking skills generally.
This book is basically a transcript of the Gifford lectures that Carl Sagan gave in the University of Glasgow in 1985. Since it is basically a transcript of the lectures, reading it is almost like being in the lecture hall and hearing them yourself.

from wikipedia:
"The Gifford Lectures were established by the will of Adam Lord Gifford (d. 1887). They were established to 'promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term -- in other words, the knowledge of God.' The term natural theology as used by Gifford means theology supported by science and not dependent on the miraculous. The lectures are given at the Scottish universities: University of St Andrews, University of Glasgow, University of Aberdeen and University of Edinburgh.
A Gifford lectures appointment is one of the most prestigious honors in academia. They are normally presented as a series over an academic year and given with the intent that the edited content be published in book form. A number of these works have become classics in the fields of theology or philosophy and their relationship to science."

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Why Dr. Sagan Was a Fulfilled Agnostic

I would love to spend a paragraph or two on how lucky we were and are to have had Carl Sagan among us. Of course, anyone reading this review likely already knows that this is true and the extent of its truth. So, I will get to the point.

This is a very impressive posthumous collection of Sagan's Gifford's lectures where he talks about the intersection (or lack thereof) of sceince and religion. Most importantly, he talks about how the religious experience - more appropriately, the experience of extreme awe at our surroundings - is more apt for science than in religion. Where religious awe and wonderment revels in mystery, sceintific awe acknowledges the mystery and goes about extirpate that mystery via some explanation. Wheras religion's version of solving a problem is to postulate magic, science's version of solving problems involves solving them with evidence.

The first few essays are about the idea of the 'religious experience' - the acknowledgement of how small we are and how vast is the universe; the acknowledgement of how sublime all of our surroundings truly are. But science, suggests Sagan, seeks to find out about those surrounding, while religion revels in the idea of the 'incomprehensible.'

There is an essay that continues this theme by postulating on the possible NATURALISTIC origins of life. While we have not solved the puzzle, Sagan walks us through very plausible examples of how the chemical process COULD HAVE gone (certainly more plausible than an infinitely complex god deciding to create all of this, by which you then have to explain how THAT god arose.)

Another essay exposes the very embarassing 'proofs' of god that theologians have come up with through the years. Most atheists or agnostics will already be familiar with most of these, but Sagan rehashes and debunks them with crystal clear prose that is not so much combative as matter-of-fact. (Sagan wins over Dawkins here.)

The next few essays - of concern to Sagan his whole career through - talk about the importance of we humans realizing that just as our existince wasn't inevitable, neither is our continued existence. Sagan died in 1996 and, sad to say, not much has changed in terms of nuclear proliferation, etc. In fact, Sagan died before terrorism really took center stage via 9/11. Had he lived to see it, doubtless these essays would sound more urgent (a la Sam Harris). Yet, he writes of the dangers humans face should they want to live a full and long 21st century.

The common theme in this book - as in his earlier Demon Haunted World - was to guard against the perils of superstition, be it religious beliefs that cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny, the belief that our planet is the center of everything, the belief that humans continued existence is assured because of divine fiat, etc.

I am not sure how else to end my review of this very worthy book but to say - Thank You, Mr. Sagan (and Mrs. Drunyan).

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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