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The Varieties of Scientific Experience
- A Personal View of the Search for God
- Narrated by: Adrienne C. Moore, Ann Druyan
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
Carl Sagan's prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality
The late great astronomer and astrophysicist describes his personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, Sagan presents his views on a wide range of topics, including the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets, creationism and so-called intelligent design, and a new concept of science as "informed worship". Originally presented at the centennial celebration of the famous Gifford Lectures in Scotland in 1985 but never published, this book offers a unique encounter with one of the most remarkable minds of the twentieth century.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
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His Master's Voice
- By: Stanislaw Lem
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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A witty and inventive satire of "men of science" and their thinking, as a team of scientists races to decode a mysterious message from space. "I had the feeling that I was standing at the cradle of a new mythology. A last will and testament...we as the posthumous heirs of Them...."
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Excelent and entertaining
- By Jakub on 01-10-12
By: Stanislaw Lem
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Where the Conflict Really Lies
- Science, Religion, & Naturalism
- By: Alvin Plantinga
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates - the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord.
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The reader makes or breaks an audiobook.
- By Alec on 02-16-15
By: Alvin Plantinga
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The Island of Knowledge
- The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
- By: Marcelo Gleiser
- Narrated by: William Neenan
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.
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Island of knowledge
- By Joshua Kring on 07-26-15
By: Marcelo Gleiser
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The Landscape of History
- How Historians Map the Past
- By: John Lewis Gaddis
- Narrated by: Jack Chekijian
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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What is history, and why should we study it? Is there such a thing as historical truth? Is history a science? One of the most accomplished historians at work today, John Lewis Gaddis, answers these and other questions in this short, witty, and humane book. The Landscape of History provides a searching look at the historian's craft as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us today.
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Excellent Book!
- By Billy on 09-15-18
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Is God a Mathematician?
- By: Mario Livio
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner once wondered about "the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in the formulation of the laws of nature. Is God a Mathematician? investigates why mathematics is as powerful as it is. From ancient times to the present, scientists and philosophers have marveled at how such a seemingly abstract discipline could so perfectly explain the natural world. More than that - mathematics has often made predictions, for example, about subatomic particles or cosmic phenomena that were unknown at the time, but later were proven to be true.
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Origins of Mathematics
- By Rick B on 07-08-21
By: Mario Livio
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Undeniable
- How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed
- By: Douglas Axe
- Narrated by: Neil Hellegers
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Douglas Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now, he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the "design intuition" - the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need knowledge to accomplish can be accomplished only by someone who has that knowledge.
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Seductively Challenge what are consider facts
- By Rafael Vila on 10-08-16
By: Douglas Axe
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Why Darwin Matters
- The Case for Evolution and Against Intelligent Design
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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Columnist and publisher Michael Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents invoke a combination of ad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology in their new brand of creationism. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.
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TOTAL MISREPRENTATION: WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE?
- By Theo Tsourdalakis on 09-04-11
By: Michael Shermer
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13 Things That Don't Make Sense
- The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
- By: Michael Brooks
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Science starts to get interesting when things don't make sense. Science's best-kept secret is that there are experimental results and reliable data that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. If history is any precedent, we should look to today's inexplicable results to forecast the future of science. Michael Brooks heads to the scientific frontier to meet 13 modern-day anomalies and discover tomorrow's breakthroughs.
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10 interesting chapters-read epiloge first
- By Stephen on 06-10-09
By: Michael Brooks
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In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will it end, and how can we meld science and compassion to meet the challenges of the coming century?
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A very important read, poor audio performance
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Carl Sagan, writer and scientist, returns from the frontier to tell us about how the world works. In his delightfully down-to-earth style, he explores and explains a mind-boggling future of intelligent robots, extraterrestrial life and its consequences, and other provocative, fascinating quandaries of the future that we want to see today.
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Captivating Read.
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Surprisingly strengthened by historical context
- By RoguePisigit on 12-07-19
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Pale Blue Dot
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In Cosmos, the late astronomer Carl Sagan cast his gaze over the magnificent mystery of the Universe and made it accessible to millions of people around the world. Now in this stunning sequel, Carl Sagan completes his revolutionary journey through space and time.
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Audio Quality Choices
- By JR on 05-30-17
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The Demon-Haunted World
- Science as a Candle in the Dark
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How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.
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Some good points, but not a great book
- By William Jenks on 07-25-19
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Billions & Billions
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In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will it end, and how can we meld science and compassion to meet the challenges of the coming century?
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To The Stars
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A very important read, poor audio performance
- By Tyeen Taylor on 03-17-19
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Broca's Brain
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Captivating Read.
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Surprisingly strengthened by historical context
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Audio Quality Choices
- By JR on 05-30-17
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The Demon-Haunted World
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How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.
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Some good points, but not a great book
- By William Jenks on 07-25-19
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Contact
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The future is here...in an adventure of cosmic dimension. In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who - or what - is out there? In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe. In Contact, he predicts its future - and our own.
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Technical problems with this recording - skips...
- By Matt on 11-28-12
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Comet
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Comet begins with a breathtaking journey through space astride a comet. Pulitzer Prize-winning astronomer Carl Sagan, author of Cosmos and Contact, and writer Ann Druyan explore the origin, nature, and future of comets, and the exotic myths and portents attached to them. The authors show how comets have spurred some of the great discoveries in the history of science and raise intriguing questions about these brilliant visitors from the interstellar dark.
Were the fates of the dinosaurs and the origins of humans tied to the wanderings of a comet?
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Lots of important science and cosmic perspective
- By James Weisner on 10-10-20
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Murmurs of Earth
- The Voyager Interstellar Record
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In 1977, two extraordinary spacecraft called Voyager were launched to the stars. Affixed to each Voyager craft was a gold-coated copped phonograph record as a message to possible extra-terrestrial civilizations that might encounter the spacecraft in some distant space and time.
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Disappointed
- By JohnDoe on 07-27-19
By: Carl Sagan, and others
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Cosmos
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Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space.
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Over-acting voice actors
- By John on 11-09-17
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A Path Where No Man Thought
- Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race
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- Unabridged
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In 1982, Professors Sagan and Turco made known their discovery of the concept "nuclear winter", a widespread cold and dark, resulting in agricultural collapse and world famine, that would be generated in even a "small" nuclear war. It was a landmark discovery that revealed in the starkest terms how vulnerable our civilization is to the long-term environmental effects of nuclear war.
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Boring military and political strategy
- By James Weisner on 03-23-22
By: Carl Sagan, and others
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Forces of Nature
- By: Professor Brian Cox, Andrew Cohen
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor Brian Cox uncovers some of the most extraordinary natural events on Earth and in the universe and beyond. From the immensity of the universe and the roundness of Earth to the form of every single snowflake, the forces of nature shape everything we see. Pushed to extremes, the results are astonishing. In seeking to understand the everyday world, the colours, structure, behaviour and history of our home, we develop the knowledge and techniques necessary to step beyond the everyday.
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Complicated in its simplicity
- By Philomath on 06-13-17
By: Professor Brian Cox, and others
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Visions for the 21st Century
- At the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations
- By: Carl Sagan
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- Length: 2 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
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This recording features the highlights of this historic 1995 event sponsored by the Temple of Understanding and includes a talk by the late cosmologist Carl Sagan. Visions for the 21st Century was a powerful forum for religious leaders, diplomats, nongovernmental organizations, and educators to present their visions for the next century.
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Not a Carl Sagan audio.
- By Farhad Masum on 05-17-22
By: Carl Sagan
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Believing Is Seeing
- A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith
- By: Michael Guillen PhD
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Dr. Michael Guillen, a best-selling author, Emmy award-winning journalist and former physics instructor at Harvard, used to be an atheist ― until science changed his mind. Once of the opinion that people of faith are weak, small-minded folks who just don’t understand science, Dr. Guillen ultimately concluded that not only does science itself depend on faith, but faith is actually the mightiest power in the universe.
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Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
- By Stephen J on 09-14-21
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Welcome to the Universe
- An Astrophysical Tour
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- Unabridged
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Welcome to the Universe is a personal guided tour of the cosmos by three of today's leading astrophysicists. Inspired by the enormously popular introductory astronomy course that Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott taught together at Princeton, this book covers it all - from planets, stars, and galaxies to black holes, wormholes, and time travel.
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All About What We Know About the Universe - ALL
- By J.B. on 02-17-17
By: Michael A. Strauss, and others
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Cosmic Queries
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In this illuminating audiobook, Tyson and coauthor James Trefil, a renowned physicist and science popularizer, take on the big questions that humanity has been posing for millennia - How did life begin? What is our place in the universe? Are we alone? - and provide answers based on the most current data, observations, and theories.
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Not worth it
- By Daniel Earl on 03-15-21
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The God Delusion
- By: Richard Dawkins
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Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes.
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Dangerous Religion
- By Rick Just on 12-21-06
By: Richard Dawkins
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Starry Messenger
- Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization
- By: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In a time when our political and cultural views feel more polarized than ever, Tyson provides a much-needed antidote to so much of what divides us, while making a passionate case for the twin chariots of enlightenment—a cosmic perspective and the rationality of science. After thinking deeply about how science sees the world and about Earth as a planet, the human brain has the capacity to reset and recalibrates life’s priorities, shaping the actions we might take in response. No outlook on culture, society, or civilization remains untouched.
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Optimistic
- By Anonymous on 09-23-22
What listeners say about The Varieties of Scientific Experience
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- timothy Wunder
- 07-04-22
very relevant
a must read to help with current times. this gave me hope while explaining some mindsets.
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- Raymundo Solis
- 10-17-22
Extraordinary!
Absolutely fabulous narration by Adrienne C. Moore, made Carl Sagan’s scientifically beautiful and profound thoughts come to my ears as if he was speaking by my side. Fantastic book!
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- David T.
- 11-13-17
Sagan's lectures about the possibility of God
This audio book is mostly a transcript of Sagan's Gifford lectures from 1985, where Sagan discusses his views on the question of if there is a deity. According to Druyan (from the appendix), she felt the need to publish these now with the growing “extreme fundamentalism violence” and when the United States is in a state of “phony piety”. I partly assume this book was published a few years ago to cash in on the new Cosmos series and the then huge popularity of the new atheist literature. Compared to the modern new atheist movement, this book is far less of an anti-religious polemic but more of a discussion about why when Sagan looks up at night he doesn't see the work of a interventionist deity. (For this reason, I think the book might be a better introduction to some reasons why there might not be a god, than something like End of Faith).
As for the book itself, a major reason Sagan doesn't believe in a god is because of the vastness of space. I can see his point, take a minute watch a youtube video or get a book such as Sizing up the Universe which shows the sizes of the planets relative to the sun and the sun relative to some of the large stars. The earth is just a minor spec in our solar system and our solar system is just a spec in our galaxy and our galaxy is just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. It definitely puts things into a different perspective, it could cause a loss of faith. If everything was created by a deity and humans were the culmination of creation, then everything else sure seems like a waste. Of course to a theist this could have the opposite effect and confirm how magnificent god is, it all depends on your mindset.
The book is far more than just this one argument though and I don't want to list them all out now. I enjoyed it a bunch, I really liked the Q&A where Sagan was questioned by theists and while disagreeing with them, he seemed to at least respect their opinion and give real answers. This is the least offensive agnostic/atheist book I've read. As for the arguments and book itself, I previously read Pale Blue Dot which contained many of the same arguments (although not as focused), and really if you've read then many parts of this are redundant.
The narration is like the other Sagan books on Audible, it's not world class but average and get's the job done.
Also I wrote this during 20 anniversary stuff so:
Audible 20 Review Sweepstakes Entry
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12 people found this helpful
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- Just Jim
- 01-14-18
Billions And Billions.....
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. How can you go wrong? An introspective book that really made me question things.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Peter Tchoryk
- 04-11-23
If I could have future generations read only one book on science and religion, it would be this one.
Like so many others in my generation, I was inspired by the Cosmos series and accompanying book of that name by Dr. Carl Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan. Cosmos was an affirmation of the sheer wonderment and almost obsessive desire many of us felt to understand the universe and our place in it.
Now, more than ever, we must provide future generations with the tools they need to make the most informed decisions about the many crises we face on our planet. If I could have these future generations read only one book on this topic, it would be this one.
We keep finding ourselves debating the most critical issues of our time with those who justify their arguments in religious terms: climate crisis, reproductive justice, Black identities, voter suppression, anti-trans legislation, LGBTQ rights, stolen elections and insurrection, vaccines and masks, and even gun control.
Superstition is not easily overcome, but that is exactly what needs to be done. I'm grateful to Ann and Carl for sharing so much of their knowledge and wisdom with the world.
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- MGGGK9
- 05-30-23
If only…
If only Carl were still with us, what a world we might have today.
This is a fantastic book of Carl’s lectures and the end portion has a wonderful Q&A. I would not recommend this book for first time Sagan readers. Check out some of his other works first and gain insight into his views and ideas, then enjoy this as a wonderful continuation.
Wonderful editing and narration.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
HAIL SAGAN
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- Leslie RP
- 09-12-23
Great like everything they present
I am making this year the year I complete reading all books by Carl Sagan, I’ve been reading his fiction and non-fiction for decades and now that I’m retired I can listen (actual written text is not an option any more) to everything now. I like his ability to present science in clear way for non experts to understand and follow, no not like a scientist but have an understanding of the principle behind the discovery or theory.
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- chris
- 07-06-18
excellent
very thought provoking and intelligent presentation on hard questions and ideas shared by all cultures
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2 people found this helpful
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- Ozzy Reaver
- 01-23-22
An Excellent Lecture
The only aspect that hampers this audiobook is the voice presenter who does not capture the essence of Carl or present his words in a manner that captures the spirit of the work.
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- dr yeyo
- 01-23-23
Amazing CS, one "must read"
In my opinion, this book is a "must read" for anyone that wants learn about how the brain process religion and magic thinking.
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