Wonder and Skepticism by Carl Sagan

Author:Carl Sagan [Sagan, Carl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

idea is shown to be worthless. The physicist then discards the idea, frees his mind (as I was saying a moment ago) from the clutter of error, and moves on to something else.

The difference between physics and metaphysics, Wood concluded, is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory.

Why is it so important to have widely distributed understanding of science and technology? For one thing, it's the golden road out of poverty for developing nations. And developing nations understand that, because you have only to look at modern American graduate schools ‐‐ in mathematics, in engineering, in physics ‐‐ to find, in case after case, that more than half the students are from other countries. This is something America is doing for the world. But it conveys a clear sense that the developing nations understand what is essential for their future. What worries me is that Americans may not be equally clear on the subject.

Let me touch on the dangers of technology. Almost every astronaut who has visited Earth orbit has made this point: I was up there, they say, and I looked toward the horizon, and there was this thin, blue band that's the Earth's atmosphere. I had been told we live in an ocean of air. But there it was, so fragile, such a delicate blue: I was worried for it.

In fact, the thickness of the Earth's atmosphere, compared with the size of the Earth, is in about the same ratio as the thickness of a coat of shellac on a schoolroom globe is to the diameter of the globe. That's the air that nurtures us and almost all other life on Earth, that protects us from deadly ultraviolet light from the sun, that through the greenhouse effect brings the surface temperature above the freezing point. (Without the greenhouse effect, the entire Earth would plunge below the freezing point of water and we'd all be dead.) Now that atmosphere, so thin and fragile, is under assault by our technology. We are pumping all kinds of stuff into it. You know about the concern that chlorofluorocarbons are depleting the ozone layer; and that carbon dioxide and methane and other greenhouse gases are producing global warming, a steady trend amidst fluctuations produced by volcanic eruptions and other sources. Who knows what other challenges we are posing to this vulnerable layer of air that we haven't been wise enough to foresee?

The inadvertent side effects of technology can challenge the environment on which our very lives depend. That means that we must understand science and technology; we must anticipate long‐term consequences in a very clever way ‐‐

not just the bottom line on the profit‐and‐loss column for the corporation for this year, but the consequences for the nation and the species 10, 20, 50, 100

years in the future. If we absolutely stop all chlorofluorocarbon and allied chemical production right now (as we're in fact doing), the ozonosphere will heal itself in about a hundred years. Therefore our children, our grandchildren, our great‐grandchildren must suffer through the mistakes that we've made.

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