The Varieties of Scientific Experience:
A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
Edited by Ann Druyer
284 pages
In 1985, renowned astronomer and author Carl Sagan gave the Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow; two decades later his wife, Ann Druyer, collected and edited the resulting transcripts, and published them as The Varieties of Scientific Experience. Noting in her Editors Introduction that in giving the lectures Sagan was “following in the footsteps of some of the greatest scientists and philosophers of the last hundred years – including James Frazer, Arthur Eddington, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Alfred North Whitehead, Albert Schweitzer, and Hannah Arendt,” she recalls that he viewed the series as an opportunity to “detail his understanding of the relationship between religion and science.” (xiii)
Turning to the theme of his lectures, he describes how advances in scientific understanding that challenged religious claims about the natural world have altered our view of ourselves and our place in the universe. He recalls in particular the revolution that began with Copernicus, overturning the concept of humankind as having a privileged position in the universe, shifting us from its center to a planet circling an average star, at the fringes of a galaxy that is one of trillions.
But, he argues, by the late 20th century this revolution had stalled in the face of the propagation of the concept of intelligent design – the claim that only an intelligent being could create something as complex as a human.
He pushes back against the arguments for intelligent design by noting the fundamental fallacy of the assumption that the complexity of human beings, or even bacteria for that matter, could not have arisen naturally, that it must needs have required a purposeful designer. Given the power of evolution when operating over immense timespans, he argues that rather than imagining humans – or bacteria – as suddenly appearing, fully formed, their current appearance must be recognized as the quite natural cumulative result of a vast series of tiny, incremental steps over many tens of millions of years.
Broadening the implications of evolutionary change, he explores how scientists’ growing understandings about the possibility of extraterrestrial life support the reanimation of the revolution de-emphasizing humankind’s privileged position in the universe.
In their search for life beyond Earth, scientists have discovered significant amounts of organic matter on various bodies in the Solar System, as well as beyond it. Coupled with an understanding of the power of evolution, it becomes natural to look out into the Milky Way galaxy and consider whether there are not other worlds with life.
More generally, Sagan explores the ways in which the possibility of extraterrestrial life has impacted people’s thinking about both human history and our future. In a lecture titled Extraterrestrial Folklore, he describes the cottage industry that arose in the second half of the 20th century around supposed evidence of pre-historic visits by aliens, and the recurring reports of UFO sightings. Noting the emotional and psychological motivations that trigger the popular imagination about such theories and reports, he shines a scientific light on them, and, in the end, finds that they don’t stand up to thorough examination.
In a similar manner, Sagan explores the many and varied concepts of God, and more generally of religious experiences people report. Here, as throughout these lectures, he does not attempt to disprove such beliefs or experiences; he does not argue that a specific piece of scientific evidence – or lack thereof – means that a particular belief or experience is not true. Rather, he applies his scientific approach to understanding the world as a lens through which to examine religious belief and experience, and so to question whether they can make sense in such a light.
In The Varieties of Scientific Experience, as in his earlier work, Sagan presents an enthralling view of the cosmos, and an engaging and thought-provoking view of humankind’s place in it. Though he maintains a fairly light tone through most of the lectures, he concludes with a bracing, final talk in which he makes a plea for recognizing, and acting to avoid, what he refers to as crimes against creation, describing the dangers of nuclear war, environmental destruction and the petty disputes that lead nations to war. In a statement that recalls his famous quote about a photograph of Earth from Voyager 1 as it departed for the edges of our solar system, “a pale blue dot,” he writes:
When you look at the Earth from space, it is striking. There are no national boundaries visible. They have been put there, like the equator and the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, by humans. The planet is real. The life on it is real, [but] the political separations that have placed the planet in danger are of human manufacture. They have not been handed down from Mount Sinai. All the beings on this little world are mutually dependent. It’s like living on a lifeboat. We breathe the air that the Russians have breathed, and Zambians and Tasmanians and people all over the planet. Whatever the causes that divide us, as I said before, it is clear that the Earth will be here a thousand or a million years from now. The question, the key question, the central question – in a certain sense the only question – is, will we? (210)
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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf
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