The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God | 
 enlarge | Author: Carl Sagan
Creator: Ann Druyan
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
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Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 262611
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Media: Paperback
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.4 x 0.9
Dewey Decimal Number: 523
Publication Date: November 6, 2007
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Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 A Gift to Mankind--Cosmos Vision for Leaders February 13, 2008
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
21 out of 24 found this review helpful
I have ten pages of notes on this book. It is a beautifully presented volume of lectures that includes slides and stunning color photographs in the body.
The forward by Ann Druyan, editor, has several noteworthy lines:
+ He believed that the little we do know about nature suggests that we know even less about God.
+ His argument was not with God but with those who believed that our understanding of the sacred has been completed.
+ We are spiritually and culturally paralyzed, unable to face the vastness, to embrace our lack of centrality and find our actual place in the fabric of nature.
+ [His] vision of a critically thoughtful public, awakened to science as a way of thinking, impelled him....
+ The working title for these lectures was "Ethos."
The occasion of the lectures was a series on Natural Theology, which is defined as everything about the world not supplied by revelation.
Here are my flyleaf notes:
+ Coping with godliness versus superstition
+ Universe is mostly nothing/blackness; light is the rarity
+ Religion means "binding together" (consistent with those who seek to make religion more of a communitarian endeavor instead of supporting vast hierarchies of "leaders" living off the backs of the far-flung people)
+ 500 million years from now Earth will probably explode--worlds have lifetimes just as humans do.
+ Earth consists is one of a trillion bits in the universe, with 400 billion comprising our galaxy.
+ Churchs have sought to build a wall against science and be exempt from scientific examination.
+ Origin of earth can be conceptualized as a natural selection over millions of years, in which a single particle of dust, this one time, leads to a chain of collisions, electrical energy, and heat melting reactions that took millions of year to evolve to this point
+ Stability of atoms is a *spectacular* phenomenon.
+ Bio-chemical fossils have been recovered.
+ Sir William Higgins frightened the Earth in 1910 when gas-light analysis revealed that cyanide was present in distant stars some thought were on a collision course with earth.
+ Given millions of years the accidental or incidental spontaneous creation of amino acids is perfectly reasonable.
+ Densities in outer space are consistent with organic matter
+ Titan, specifically, has great lakes of liquid hydrocarbons ("chicken soup" for life) Date of this information from NASA: July 2006)
Search for extraterrestial intelligence could be compared to the search for God. There are two calculations:
+ Tough formula: just one, and it is us.
+ Liberal formula: a million other planets with life, but the nearest one is 100 light years away
+ Mathematics would appear to be the common language for inter-galactic communication (see my online review of "Google 2.0: The Calculating Predator--their computational mathematics are "out of this world."
+ UFO fraud is akin to the sale of religious relics
+ Scientology (declared a cult in Germany) has transmorgified from Dianetics
+ Spinoza and Einstein considered God to be the embodiment of all natural scientific principles
+ Religious "conversions" tend to "join" the existing prevalent community religion
+ Six arguments about the origins of the universe do not satisfy:
- Cosmological
- From Design
- Moral
- Ontological
- Consciousness
- Experience
+ Indigenous peoples recognize other levels of consciousness
+ Emotions may be bio-chemical attributes, and "religion" could be a molecule that produces social conformity
+ Book concludes with a chapter on "Crimes Against Creation" that is most t imely. The author worried about nuclear holocausts leading to firestorms (I would add, aggravated by the collapse of urban water systems). He speaks of a witches' brew of pyrotaxins, ultraviolet light, and time scale readiological fall-out (see also books such as
High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink
Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power
+ Golden Rule matters!
+ The author saw a steady trend of individuals identifying with ever larger wholes to the point of "Whole Earth" [Co-Evolution Quarterly by Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Review by Howard Rheingold, Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link or WELL in the 1970-1990 timeframe; today, the World Index of Social and Economic Responsibility led by Paul Hawken and Peggy Duvette, among others).
The Q&A section is a very fine segue to the book.
Q: How do you recognize truth?
A: It must be consistent of itself, not inconsistent with what is already proven, and we must really understand how badly we want to know or are biased toward accepting without question. Good science is reproducible; miracles are not.
Q: If universe expanding, what is it expanding into?
A: Additional dimensions beyond three.
Q: What is to be done to avoid self-immolation?
A: Demand and practice participatory democracy with a vengeance.
On this latter, see also:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus)
101 Myths of the Bible
Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World
To Govern Evolution: Further Adventures of the Political Animal
The Age of Missing Information
Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West
The Republican War on Science
Other books I would have linked if allowed:
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The Future of Life
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
I put the book down regretting that I never had a chance to hear the author speak in person.
Sharing the Awe of Astronomy January 1, 2008
therosen (New York, NY United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Unlike much of science, these 1985 lectures capturing the awe of astronomy and our minute place in the universe stand the test of time. Sagan describes his veiw of science as the tool to understand the wonder of the universe, compared with traditional theological tools of using faith. It's great pop reading - less of a call to arms than his outstanding "Demon Haunted World" and more a challenge to appreciate the magnitude of the universe and to humbly accept our place in it.
The only atheist book you should bother with July 1, 2008
A. Rehm (Boston)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Wonderfully entertaining and educational. (These lectures were first given in the 80s; footnotes update most outdated information.) I'm usually as irritated by atheist dogma as I am by religious, but Sagan manages to not be annoying. In fact, this is the only atheist book I've ever read (and I've read many) that I found worthwhile.
(In the interest of perspective: I am an atheist. I generally find writing about it unnecessary.)
read it July 27, 2008
Richard Patterson (Austin, TX)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
Carl Sagan Knows How To Reason Effectively August 31, 2008
Joseph M. Degross (TENNESSEE USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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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