The Varieties of Scientific Experience
I rarely post about books I’ve read or am reading (which is why I don’t have a “books” category), but occasionally a good point or passage inspires a blog. In this case, I have just finished and would like to actually recommend a book.
Carl Sagan’s The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God isn’t really a Sagan-penned book, but an edited transcript of his 1985 Gifford Lecture at Glasgow, originally titled The Search for Who We Are. Oh, and now it just happens to be one of my favorite books. Carl Sagan is one of the most eloquent, inspiring speakers I’ve ever heard (if you’ve never seen Cosmos, definitely check it out to see what I mean), and I can’t help but feel all warm and fuzzy inside reading his stuff. In Varieties, he takes an extremely non-confrontational approach to making a case for skepticism and atheism, something missing among the unholy Dawkins/Harris/Hitchens trinity (not that I don’t love those guys). In fact, several parallels can be drawn between specific arguments in Varieties and Dawkins’ The God Delusion, but even as a loudmouth, obnoxious atheist myself I found myself appreciating the quiet humility of Sagan’s approach over Dawkins’. It’s the type of book that isn’t going to rub anybody the wrong way — the god-fearing might be a little miffed, but I think they could at least concede “Ah, there’s some good points here, I see where they’re coming from,” and the atheists can think “Ah, we are pretty clever, aren’t we?”
But the book isn’t purely religious in nature, or even really anti-religion. He touches on nuclear war, the global community, intelligent extra-terrestrial life and several other moral and philosophical issues. I was extremely surprised to discover how relevant the book still is, 20 years after the lecture was made. A couple footnotes had been added to correct or amend new scientific discoveries and the pictures had been updated (space photography has come a long way in 20 years), but the core message is still pertinent and pressing as ever. I picked this up way back in October, but didn’t get around to starting it until a couple days ago; I’m actually kinda mad I put if off as long as I did. A friend recommended it to me, and I want to recommend it to everybody else. It’s amazing.
Oh, and on top of this, it’s really just a gorgeous book. It’s not printed on a glossy stock, but it’s a good quality paper (to accommodate the full color pictures), there’s a neat die-stamp of a couple stylized astronomical bodies on a cool two-tone, two-texture hardcover, and it has some nice little touches inside, like chapter titles being printed in a very dark purple, barely indistinguishable from the black. It’s a book I’m proud to add to my collection. If that’s not your bag, the paperback edition is like $10 on Amazon. I got shafted on my hardcover copy but now having read it, I would have gladly paid more, if I had to.
I’m now moving onto Chris Mooney’s The Republican War on Science. Haha, should be pretty good. And a little like jumping into the pool after sitting in the hot tub.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
You took the shoutbox away.
L. Ron Hubbard stole scientology from ze germans.
http://forums.enturbulation.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4829
February 28th, 2008 at 2:48 am
Haha yeah, I saw that on Digg today. I might implement a shoutbox again soon, with anti-spam measures.