8 ms·

I wonder how well Sagan's own "baloney" holds up against his kit. Historians despise the guy for all the stuff he made up about the library of Alexandria, Hypat

by eafer 7mo ago

I wonder how well Sagan's own "baloney" holds up against his kit. Historians despise the guy for all the stuff he made up about the library of Alexandria, Hypatia, Eratosthenes, etc... People still repeat a lot of that to this day.

eafer 7mo ago
I just found out that his story about the Heike Crabs is also complete baloney. That makes me sad, it was really such a great story.
- jgoewert 7mo ago
  Really? I think Joel is the one full of it. Human directed selection is a thing. Have you ever seen a pug or do I need 58 articles with a bibliography 20 miles long to tell you they exist?
  - eafer 7mo ago
    Damn that lying Joel... who is Joel lol? Of course human directed selection is a thing, when did I ever say otherwise? This is the problem with the Sagan types, you actually think that baloney is fine as long as it's sciencey-sounding baloney.
palmotea 7mo ago
> I wonder how well Sagan's own "baloney" holds up against his kit. Historians despise the guy for all the stuff he made up about the library of Alexandria, Hypatia, Eratosthenes, etc... People still repeat a lot of that to this day. Yeah, but he's a saint of science-fandom, so don't question him. Instead, admire and follow him, and encourage others to do likewise.
SoftTalker 7mo ago
I loved watching Cosmos when I was a kid but as I got older I developed a dislike for Sagan. He strikes me as supremely arrogant and probably insufferable to be around. I don't know that of course, I never met him. Just a feeling.
RichardCA 7mo ago
Sagan made solid contributions to Planetary Science in the 60's and 70's. His role as PBS educator, SF author, etc. needs to be considered as a separate thing. I also loved James Burke and his Connections series, but as it got into the later seasons the so-called "connections" got tenuous and sometimes quite strained. You can go through all the classic PBS science shows and find problems, Stephen Hawking's Universe was basically unwatchable because they refused to engage with the math.
- eafer 7mo ago
  People like Sagan have a worldview in which we are all either rational robots that only believe in "science", or else silly magic-believers that can't think by themselves. Of course Sagan himself proves that this is wrong: you can be a great scientist while believing a lot of silly nonsense about the ancient world, and about crab evolution apparently.
  - krapp 7mo ago
    Believing silly nonsense which is still plausible isn't the same category of error as believing in magic. Also I don't think skeptics hold the worldview you ascribe to them. You seem to have a particular grudge against Sagan.
    - eafer 7mo ago
      I actually kinda like Sagan, Cosmos is seriously gorgeous (though Vangelis does a lot of the heavy lifting there). I'm just kinda tired of the whole "Library of Alexandria" myth that comes up constantly around nerdy forums such as this one. > Believing silly nonsense which is still plausible isn't the same category of error as believing in magic. Eh, hard to say what is magic and what is not. Sagan's beliefs about the ancient world could have been fixed with a five minute conversation with an expert. He just didn't care enough to do that, and for some reason that attitude is common among so-called skeptics when it comes to history.
      - krapp 7mo ago
BeetleB 7mo ago
Did he make the stuff up, or did he get them from (now considered) poor sources?
- eafer 7mo ago
  I think "made up" is fair. I can't know what his process was and everybody makes mistakes, but almost every single thing he said about history was wrong in a way that was convenient to his narrative, and it's not like he ever retracted anything. Surely if he wrote a whole book about dealing with bullshit he could have used that opportunity for some reflection about his past mistakes, now that would have been interesting to read.
  - pu_pe 7mo ago
    Do you have a specific source for this claim? I have read through what someone else posted in this thread (https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/02/05/carl-sagan-was-really-bad-at-history/ https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/02/05/carl-sagan-was-...) and while some details are indeed incorrect, a lot of it is nitpicking or common misconceptions from his time.
    - eafer 7mo ago
      You think it's nitpicking because you don't care much about truth when it comes to history, and that's perfectly fine. But it's weird to complain about other people's baloney while spreading your own, and I think in his position as a trusted science communicator he should have been more responsible about this stuff.
      - pu_pe 7mo ago
        No, I think it's nitpicking because it truly is in some cases. Science communication is about simplifying things and making shortcuts while keeping things engaging. Of course Sagan didn't go into a tangent about the first use of the word barbarians or whether ancient greeks would define robots the same way we do. That's pedantic. There are a few good examples of significant errors in the link I cited which I think are substantial - the portrayal of Hypatia is a big one. I just wondered whether there were more discussions about other history topics he got wrong, since you yourself mentioned that "almost every single thing" he said was wrong.
Fricken 7mo ago
"As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. “Beavis and Butthead” remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning—not just of science, but of anything—are avoidable, even undesirable.” Mike Judge's satire was lost on Sagan. Carl took his knee-jerk reaction and ran with it.
- jhbadger 7mo ago
  I think it was lost on a lot of the audience at the time as well, who saw Beavis and Butthead as cool rather than a critique of anti-intellectualism. That's the problem with satire in general -- no position is so absurd that somebody won't take it at face value rather than satire.

by eafer 7mo ago

eafer 7mo ago

I just found out that his story about the Heike Crabs is also complete baloney. That makes me sad, it was really such a great story.

jgoewert 7mo ago
Really? I think Joel is the one full of it. Human directed selection is a thing. Have you ever seen a pug or do I need 58 articles with a bibliography 20 miles long to tell you they exist?
- eafer 7mo ago
  Damn that lying Joel... who is Joel lol? Of course human directed selection is a thing, when did I ever say otherwise? This is the problem with the Sagan types, you actually think that baloney is fine as long as it's sciencey-sounding baloney.

palmotea 7mo ago

> I wonder how well Sagan's own "baloney" holds up against his kit. Historians despise the guy for all the stuff he made up about the library of Alexandria, Hypatia, Eratosthenes, etc... People still repeat a lot of that to this day. Yeah, but he's a saint of science-fandom, so don't question him. Instead, admire and follow him, and encourage others to do likewise.

SoftTalker 7mo ago

I loved watching Cosmos when I was a kid but as I got older I developed a dislike for Sagan. He strikes me as supremely arrogant and probably insufferable to be around. I don't know that of course, I never met him. Just a feeling.

RichardCA 7mo ago

Sagan made solid contributions to Planetary Science in the 60's and 70's. His role as PBS educator, SF author, etc. needs to be considered as a separate thing. I also loved James Burke and his Connections series, but as it got into the later seasons the so-called "connections" got tenuous and sometimes quite strained. You can go through all the classic PBS science shows and find problems, Stephen Hawking's Universe was basically unwatchable because they refused to engage with the math.

eafer 7mo ago
People like Sagan have a worldview in which we are all either rational robots that only believe in "science", or else silly magic-believers that can't think by themselves. Of course Sagan himself proves that this is wrong: you can be a great scientist while believing a lot of silly nonsense about the ancient world, and about crab evolution apparently.
- krapp 7mo ago
  Believing silly nonsense which is still plausible isn't the same category of error as believing in magic. Also I don't think skeptics hold the worldview you ascribe to them. You seem to have a particular grudge against Sagan.
  - eafer 7mo ago
    I actually kinda like Sagan, Cosmos is seriously gorgeous (though Vangelis does a lot of the heavy lifting there). I'm just kinda tired of the whole "Library of Alexandria" myth that comes up constantly around nerdy forums such as this one. > Believing silly nonsense which is still plausible isn't the same category of error as believing in magic. Eh, hard to say what is magic and what is not. Sagan's beliefs about the ancient world could have been fixed with a five minute conversation with an expert. He just didn't care enough to do that, and for some reason that attitude is common among so-called skeptics when it comes to history.
    - krapp 7mo ago

BeetleB 7mo ago

Did he make the stuff up, or did he get them from (now considered) poor sources?

eafer 7mo ago
I think "made up" is fair. I can't know what his process was and everybody makes mistakes, but almost every single thing he said about history was wrong in a way that was convenient to his narrative, and it's not like he ever retracted anything. Surely if he wrote a whole book about dealing with bullshit he could have used that opportunity for some reflection about his past mistakes, now that would have been interesting to read.
- pu_pe 7mo ago
  Do you have a specific source for this claim? I have read through what someone else posted in this thread (https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/02/05/carl-sagan-was-really-bad-at-history/ https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2020/02/05/carl-sagan-was-...) and while some details are indeed incorrect, a lot of it is nitpicking or common misconceptions from his time.
  - eafer 7mo ago
    You think it's nitpicking because you don't care much about truth when it comes to history, and that's perfectly fine. But it's weird to complain about other people's baloney while spreading your own, and I think in his position as a trusted science communicator he should have been more responsible about this stuff.
    - pu_pe 7mo ago
      No, I think it's nitpicking because it truly is in some cases. Science communication is about simplifying things and making shortcuts while keeping things engaging. Of course Sagan didn't go into a tangent about the first use of the word barbarians or whether ancient greeks would define robots the same way we do. That's pedantic. There are a few good examples of significant errors in the link I cited which I think are substantial - the portrayal of Hypatia is a big one. I just wondered whether there were more discussions about other history topics he got wrong, since you yourself mentioned that "almost every single thing" he said was wrong.

Fricken 7mo ago

"As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. “Beavis and Butthead” remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning—not just of science, but of anything—are avoidable, even undesirable.” Mike Judge's satire was lost on Sagan. Carl took his knee-jerk reaction and ran with it.

jhbadger 7mo ago
I think it was lost on a lot of the audience at the time as well, who saw Beavis and Butthead as cool rather than a critique of anti-intellectualism. That's the problem with satire in general -- no position is so absurd that somebody won't take it at face value rather than satire.