SHIFT Celebrates Carl Sagan Day

by Jason Cooperrider

On Saturday, November 7, 2009, Secular Humanism, Inquiry and Freethought (SHIFT) at the University of Utah, celebrated what would have been the 75^th birthday of Carl Sagan, famed astronomer, skeptic, activist, and writer. Sagan was born on November 9, 1934 and was lost to the world on December 20, 1996. During his 62 years on our planet, Sagan inspired many people and had a significant impact on our world. He was a brilliant scientist, primarily in the field of planetary astrophysics, and had an uncanny talent for explaining scientific ideas to and popularizing science for the general public. He did this through his books, interviews, talks, and popular television series, Cosmos. In 1980, Sagan co-founded The Planetary Society, which continues its original mission of promoting space science, travel, and colonization. He was also one of the pioneering (and lifelong) proponents of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

Physics professor John Belz talking about Carl Sagan's areas of research.

After receiving the suggestion in a mass email from the Center for Inquiry to celebrate Carl Sagan Day, the leaders of SHIFT decided that Carl Sagan is certainly worth honoring. Like SHIFT, Sagan's goal was to proclaim the greatness of science and reason so everyone might have a better understanding of the amazing universe we inhabit. He sought meaning in life through an understanding of the universe itself, not in the faith and dogma preached by religions. Sagan championed science and reason in both his fiction and nonfiction works. His authored and coauthored books include The Demon-Haunted World, Pale Blue Dot, Cosmos, Billions and Billions, Contact, and his Pulitzer-winning The Dragons of Eden, just to name a few.

SHIFT celebrated Carl Sagan Day with astronomy-themed food, such as Starburst fruit chews, Milky Way bars, and Sunkist fruit snacks, along with flying saucer-shaped pita bread to dip in hummus. After refreshments, SHIFT screened Contact, the film based on Sagan's novel (Sagan and his wife also wrote the outline for the film adaptation).

Contact follows a brilliant SETI researcher, Ellie Arroway, who discovers a signal from somewhere near the star Vega, which is 26 light years from Earth. The signal is a retransmission of the first television signal strong enough to travel beyond Earth's atmosphere: Adolf Hitler's opening speech at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Within that signal, however, is embedded a prime number sequence to demonstrate intelligence via the understanding of mathematics, the universal language, and the three-dimensional designs for what seems to be a device that will allow advanced human space travel for one occupant at a time. After overcoming persecution for her lack of theistic beliefs, Ellie is eventually selected to be the representative from Earth to use the device to travel to those who had sent the signal. Her journey is successful, but very few people believe her claims about meeting the aliens because she was only gone for a fraction of a second in Earth time. She seemed to have gone nowhere at all and had no empirical evidence for her journey to prove what she had experienced. The movie contains many important messages about the nature of faith and the importance of science and reason.

To conclude the event, John Belz, PhD, from the University of Utah Department of Physics and Astronomy, gave a presentation on the life, science, and beliefs of Carl Sagan, and described how Sagan influenced him to become a scientist. Belz told us that, until he, as a child, first saw Sagan on the television show Cosmos, he thought that scientists were all rich people doing neat experiments and research funded by their own money. However, after hearing Sagan talk about the wonders of science, he decided that he would become a scientist himself, specifically, an astrophysicist like Sagan. So, it is largely thanks to Sagan that Belz became the scientist he is today, researching cosmic rays via the University of Utah's High Resolution Fly's Eye cosmic ray observatory. Belz's presentation was very interesting, especially when he was discussing some of the ways that Sagan, despite tirelessly promoting science and reason, was himself somewhat of a "mystic and spiritualist." Sagan derived his "spirituality" from the glories of the universe itself and the patterns it contained, rather than from belief in a supreme being.

SHIFT president Jason Cooperrider (far right foreground) sitting with the audience during Belz's presentation.

SHIFT intends to continue celebrating Carl Sagan Day in the future and hopes that many more secular groups and individuals will do so as well. Carl Sagan was a treasure to all of humanity, so he deserves to be honored and remembered as such.

Jason Cooperrider, president and co-founder of SHIFT, holds a BS in neuroscience and a BS in psychology from The Ohio State University. He is pursuing a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Utah.