QnC — Sagan: “Geocentric Conceit”

This is from a famous lecture from Cornell in October 1994. Elements of this lecture — especially the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ — will be rehashed and reshared as videos even to this day. I first came across the idea of “geocentric conceit” some months ago while listening to a rehash of Sagan’s material on YT. The phrase stuck in my craw which led me to research, this lecture and this article.

This theme of “geocentric conceit” = thinking that one is the center of the universe, has been around for centuries. About five years ago I created a video about Copernicus (1514), Galileo and Newton’s struggle to get the church to accept science fact.

In 1572 Voltaire published ‘Micromégas’ about gigantic aliens who come to earth and interrupt a war at sea. It is sarcastic as hell (Voltaire’s signature voice) and the alliance laugh at the short-sighted earthlings and earthling philosophers for their belief about their importance in the universe. Like Voltaire, at one point in his lecture, Sagan said: “And then I imagine the extraterrestrials thinking of us as the planet of the idiots.”