Carl Sagan: Broca`s Brain

We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.

Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is.

It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.

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Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

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Science is a way of thinking, much more than it is a body of knowledge.

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Chapter 5, Page 64