New Words from Carl Sagan

I have long regarded Carl Sagan as one of my personal heroes, and so it is with pleasure that I read that a newly discovered collection of his lectures, entitled "The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God" was published last November. In the article, Richard Dawkins is quoted as having said this about Sagan:

The last word may as well go to Dr. Dawkins himself, who in a 1996 book nominated Dr. Sagan as the ideal spokesman for Earth. In a blurb for the new book, Dr. Dawkins said that the astronomer was more than religious, having left behind the priests and mullahs.

“He left them behind, because he had so much more to be religious about,” Dr. Dawkins wrote. “They have their Bronze Age myths, medieval superstitions and childish wishful thinking. He had the
universe.”

Indeed he did, and we had him, though not for nearly long enough.