Happy Birthday, Carl

"Each of us is a tiny being, permitted to ride on the outermost skin of one of the smaller planets for a few dozen trips around the local star… The longest-lived organisms on Earth endure for about a millionth of the age of our planet… They barely set foot on the world stage and are promptly snuffed out — yesterday a drop of semen, as the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote, tomorrow a handful of ashes. If the Earth were as old as a person, a typical organism would be born, live, and die in a sliver of a second. We are fleeting, transitional creatures, snowflakes fallen on the hearth fire. That we understand even a little of our origins is one of the great triumphs of human insight and courage."

— Carl Sagan, "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" 

Monday, Nov. 9, marks the birthday of one of the greatest thinkers and arguably the greatest public advocate of science, reason, rationality and critical thinking the world has ever known. He is the late, great Carl Sagan, who would have turned 75 years old on Monday. Anyone with even a modicum of respect for science and reason should take a moment to pause and reflect on the great works of this amazing scientist. Happy Birthday, Carl, your legacy lives in the hearts and minds of rational people around the world.

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Sincerely,

Doug Fabian