Carl Sagan - Part 2: Science, politics, and leadership in the age of misinformation (#403)

Carl Sagan never lived to see the current presidency, but his writings anticipated many of the tensions that have arisen during 2025. Tensions between evidence and ideology, science and politics, truth and misinformation.

To understand how Sagan might have responded to current policies, we don’t need to imagine new words for him. Instead, we can turn to the principles he championed.

Science as a Candle in the Dark

In The Demon-Haunted World (1995), Sagan warned of a future in which citizens would lose the ability to distinguish fact from fiction, leaving society vulnerable to superstition and manipulation. For Sagan, the scientific method was not just a laboratory practice. It was a civic necessity, a candle in the dark against fear and deception.

Applied to today’s political climate, his words are a reminder that undermining science in areas like public health or climate change carries consequences not just for policy, but for democracy itself.

Vaccines and Public Health

Sagan was a passionate advocate for skepticism paired with evidence-based reasoning.

Sagan often said:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

In the context of vaccines, this principle cuts both ways: outlandish claims about dangers demand scrutiny, but so do overly simplistic reassurances.

What Sagan would have insisted upon is transparency, honesty, and trust in the scientific process.

What he would have rejected outright is the political distortion of scientific findings.

For Sagan, scientific truth is not a partisan possession. It is the product of collective testing, debate, and replication. A baloney detection kit for society.

Research Funding and the Future

Sagan argued that investments in science are investments in survival.

Space exploration, medicine, climate research, and basic science were, to him, necessities rather than luxuries.

Civilizations that fail to value science falter; those that nurture it thrive.

Cuts to research funding or attempts to silence scientists would have troubled him deeply.

Sagan wrote:

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

Without this, progress halts, and superstition fills the vacuum.

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Sagan’s Enduring Warning

Carl Sagan’s most prophetic words seem written for our time:

We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology.

And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.

That warning wasn’t aimed at one politician or party. It was a plea for vigilance: to demand honesty from leaders, to cultivate skepticism without cynicism, and to insist that public policy be guided by evidence rather than ideology.

A Candle Still Burns

The past year has highlighted just how fragile the relationship between science and governance can be. But Sagan would remind us that despair is not an option. The same tools he offered - critical thinking, evidence, humility before the facts - remain available. They are not partisan weapons but shared instruments for survival.

Carl Sagan’s legacy calls us to keep the candle burning.

Rick’s Commentary

When I think about Carl Sagan, I’m reminded that his words were never meant for some distant future. They were meant for us. They were meant for now.

He warned that democracy cannot thrive without a citizenry capable of distinguishing fact from fiction. Watching the struggles of recent years - the politicization of vaccines, the marginalizing of climate science, the erosion of trust in experts - I can almost hear his steady voice urging us to resist the drift back into superstition and darkness.

What I admire most is that Sagan never separated skepticism from wonder. He believed that asking hard questions did not diminish beauty. Rather, it revealed it.

We must all seek the balance of humility, reverence, and critical thinking.

We can’t know exactly what Carl Sagan would say about today’s leaders or policies, but we know the principles he left us:

Seek evidence.

Cherish reason.

Question boldly.

Never stop marveling at the stars.

If we can carry those lessons forward, perhaps his candle in the dark will continue to light the way.

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