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The Varieties of Scientific Experience
Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan
A Personal View of the Search for God
Penguin
November 2006
On Sale: November 2, 2006
304 pages
ISBN: 1594201072
EAN: 9781594201073
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
On the 10th anniversary of his death, brilliant
astrophysisist and Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sagan's
prescient exploration of the relationship between religion
and science and his personal search for God. Carl Sagan is considered one of the greatest scientific
minds of our time. His remarkable ability to explain science
in terms easily understandable to the layman in bestselling
books such as Cosmos, The Dragons of Eden, and The
Demon-Haunted World won him a Pulitzer Prize and placed him
firmly next to Isaac Asimov, Stephen Jay Gould, and Oliver
Sachs as one of the most important and enduring
communicators of science. In December 2006 it will be the
tenth anniversary of Sagan's death, and Ann Druyan, his
widow and longtime collaborator, will mark the occasion by
releasing Sagan's famous "Gifford Lectures in Natural
Theology," The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A
Personal View of the Search for God. The chance to give the Gifford Lectures is an honor reserved
for the most distinguished scientists and philosophers of
our civilization. In 1985, on the grand occasion of the
centennial of the lectureship, Carl Sagan was invited to
give them. He took the opportunity to set down in detail his
thoughts on the relationship between religion and science as
well as to describe his own personal search to understand
the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. The Varieties of Scientific Experience, edited, updated and
with an introduction by Ann Druyan, is a bit like
eavesdropping on a delightfully intimate conversation with
the late great astronomer and astrophysicist. In his
charmingly down-to-earth voice, Sagan easily discusses his
views on topics ranging from manic depression and the
possibly chemical nature of transcendance to creationism and
so-called intelligent design to the likelihood of
intelligent life on other planets to the likelihood of
nuclear annihilation of our own to a new concept of science
as "informed worship." Exhibiting a breadth of intellect
nothing short of astounding, he illuminates his explanations
with examples from cosmology, physics, philosophy,
literature, psychology, cultural anthropology, mythology,
theology, and more. Sagan's humorous, wise, and at times
stunningly prophetic observations on some of the greatest
mysteries of the cosmos have the invigorating effect of
stimulating the intellect, exciting the imagination, and
reawakening us to the grandeur of life in the cosmos.
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