Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan

Given the name of my website, its quite bayesian to infer that I'm a fan of Carl Sagan. I believe most people recognize him by name even if they're not familiar with his body of work. As Carl discusses in the opening, the very title "Billions and Billions" is probably the phrase the most quickly evokes thoughts of Carl. If the creators of the game Taboo had used Carl as the object to be guessed, surely "billions" would be the first restricted word, likely followed by "Johnny Carson", "Voyager", "Cosmos", and I would hope "skeptic".

Although his achievements as a science communicator are widely known, I'm not certain as large of the population knows the importance Carl has in the skeptical movement. While this book does belong in the "armchair science reading" section of a good bookstore, it's themes are not entirely those one would expect knowing Carl's most prominent works.

"Billions and Billions" is a particularly personal book completed as Carl knowingly approached the end of his life. It dwells on likelihood of life emerging in the universe, where humanity came from, and what will be the ultimate horizon of the universe. Although I'm not a physicist, I know enough recent advancements to see Carl standing on the edge asking questions about things we now know a little more about. It was interesting to me to hear Carl wax philosophically about the information he had at hand, and wonder how his views might have updated had he survived to 2016.

The book is strongly themed with Carl's concerns about the planet and human impact on the environment. Carl was not the first scientist to enumerate the dangers of human driven climate change. Yet, it's a testament to his vision that he took up this mantle, when he could have easily communicated about the less terrestrial concerns he was most famous for sharing. Clearly Carl recognized the dangerous trends of global warming, even before they were as incontrovertible as they are today.

Carl revisits some of the milestone project he'd participated in. One I was totally unaware of was the "Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders" conference at Oxford in April 1988 and again in Moscow in January 1990. This meeting of leaders prepared an appeal titled "Preserving and Cherishing the Earth" which I believe could be useful today in bridging the gaps that exist with some science deniers that don't believe in climate change. I suppose much of that hinges on whether or not the religious leaders in participation still hold sway today.

My only disappointment in the book was that it lacked a longer and deeper discussion of Carl's thoughts on the Voyager probes. They are mentioned, of course, but given some of the personal tones of the book, it seemed to me I'd get to hear more of Carl's thoughts on what it might mean for a distant alien civilization to one day discover humanity's golden record. I do realize its deeply unlikely that would happen, but I've always found this to be one of my favorite "what ifs", and I was surprised Carl didn't dwell on it more at the end of his life. I would have liked to have heard more of his thoughts on this idea.