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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carl Sagan | 11/13 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:17:36.414677+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Marijuana advocacy === Sagan was a user and advocate of marijuana. Under the pseudonym "Mr. X", he contributed an essay about smoking cannabis to the 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered. The essay explained that marijuana use had helped to inspire some of Sagan's works and enhance sensual and intellectual experiences. After Sagan's death, his friend Lester Grinspoon disclosed this information to Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson. The publishing of the biography Carl Sagan: A Life, in 1999 brought media attention to this aspect of Sagan's life. Not long after his death, his widow Ann Druyan went on to preside over the board of directors of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), a non-profit organization dedicated to reforming cannabis laws.
=== UFOs === In 1947, the year that inaugurated the "flying saucer" craze, the young Sagan suspected the "discs" might be alien spaceships. Sagan's interest in UFO reports prompted him on August 3, 1952, to write a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson to ask how the United States would respond if flying saucers turned out to be extraterrestrial. He later had several conversations on the subject in 1964 with Jacques Vallée. Though quite skeptical of any extraordinary answer to the UFO question, Sagan thought scientists should study the phenomenon, at least because there was widespread public interest in UFO reports. Stuart Appelle notes that Sagan "wrote frequently on what he perceived as the logical and empirical fallacies regarding UFOs and the abduction experience. Sagan rejected an extraterrestrial explanation for the phenomenon but felt there were both empirical and pedagogical benefits for examining UFO reports and that the subject was, therefore, a legitimate topic of study." In 1966, Sagan was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's UFO investigation project. The committee concluded Blue Book had been lacking as a scientific study, and recommended a university-based project to give the UFO phenomenon closer scientific scrutiny. The result was the Condon Committee (1966–68), led by physicist Edward Condon, and in their final report they formally concluded that UFOs, regardless of what any of them actually were, did not behave in a manner consistent with a threat to national security. Sociologist Ron Westrum writes that "The high point of Sagan's treatment of the UFO question was the AAAS' symposium in 1969. A wide range of educated opinions on the subject were offered by participants, including not only proponents such as James McDonald and J. Allen Hynek but also skeptics like astronomers William Hartmann and Donald Menzel. The roster of speakers was balanced, and it is to Sagan's credit that this event was presented in spite of pressure from Edward Condon." With physicist Thornton Page, Sagan edited the lectures and discussions given at the symposium; these were published in 1972 as UFO's: A Scientific Debate. Some of Sagan's many books examine UFOs (as did one episode of Cosmos) and he claimed a religious undercurrent to the phenomenon.
He wrote: Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is 'in contact' with extraterrestrials. I am invited to 'ask them anything.' And so, over the years I've prepared a list of questions. These extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So I ask things like, 'Please provide a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.' Or the Goldbach Conjecture. So then I have to explain what these are, because extraterrestrials will not call it Fermat's Last Theorem. So I write out the simple equations and the exponents. I never get an answer. On the other hand, if I ask something like 'Should we be good?' I almost always get an answer. Anything vague, especially involving conventional moral judgments, these aliens are extremely happy to respond to. But on anything specific, where there is a chance to find out if they actually know anything beyond what most humans know, there is only silence. Something can be deduced from this differential ability to answer questions. He noted: "It's a stimulating exercise to think of questions to which no human today knows the answers, but where a correct answer would be immediately recognized as such. It's even more challenging to such formulate such questions in fields other than mathematics. Perhaps we should hold a contest and collect the best responses in 'Ten Questions to Ask an Alien.'"
== Death ==
After suffering from myelodysplasia for two years and receiving three bone marrow transplants from his sister, Sagan died from pneumonia at the age of 62 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle on December 20, 1996. He was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Ithaca, New York.
== Legacy == Sagan has been credited with inspiring a generation of scientists and science popularizers. Simon Singh dedicated Big Bang to "Carl Sagan, James Burke, Magnus Pyke, Heinz Wolff, Patrick Moore, Johnny Ball, Rob Buckman, Miriam Stoppard, Raymond Baxter, and all the science TV producers and directors who inspired my interest in science." The Sagan Teaching Awards at the University of Chicago are named in his honor. Discover Magazine named The Cosmic Connection as one of the 25 best science books of all time. In 2013, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington joined Ann Druyan for the opening of the Carl Sagan Archives. Speakers included Carolyn Porco, Bill Nye and Kip Thorne. In 2014, Druyan and Seth MacFarlane produced Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, hosted by Neil Degrasse Tyson. He received the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences for "distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare." He was denied membership in the academy, reportedly because his media activities made him unpopular with many other scientists.