Joel's humanistic blog

Today is the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan's passing, and as I promised in my original announcement , here is my promised meta-post for the Carl Sagan Memorial Blog-a-Thon with a gigantic list of participating blog posts. I've been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of responses, so it's still incomplete. While I will be updating this list repeatedly, if I've missed your post, you can email or post a comment. Also, note that it's fine to post after the 20th. Sagan's wife and collaborator Ann Druyan has started off her new blog today with the post Ten Times Around The Sun Without Carl , while his son Nick Sagan has posted his memories of his dad and his official blog-a-thon welcome following his posts here , here , here , and here . And Louis Friedman, who along with Sagan was one of the founders of the Planetary Society, has posted his memories of Sagan at the Planetary Society Blog . The new website Celebrating Sagan has gathered a staggering amount of ...

Recently, I found out that some choice Stephen Jay Gould essays from The New York Review of Books are free online at the magazine's website (hat tip to 2xSlick on the agony booth forum ). One is the first Gould essay I ever read, "Dinomania" (1993, also in the then-new collection Dinosaur in a Haystack ), where he deals with the Jurassic Park phenomenon, and in particular takes the movie version to task dumbing down some of the themes of the book. Another is "The Streak of Streaks" (1988, also in the collection Bully for Brontosaurus ) about Joe DiMaggio's hitting record, with Gould's memorable account of his personal encounter with his sports hero when his father caught a ball from DiMaggio. So, to complement the many bloggers who are posting anecdotes and memories of Sagan for the Sagan blog-a-thon , I'll describe my own memories of meeting with Sagan's friend and fellow science writer Gould, who also died far too young (Sagan would be ...

I realized I should complement this list with one of notable current Sagan stuff that isn't online. The big news is the new book The Varieties of Scientific Experience , based on rediscovered transcripts of Sagan's 1985 Gifford Lectures edited by Ann Druyan. Look for Sagan stuff in the latest issues of The Planetary Report and Skeptical Inquirer . On the 20th, there will be a memorial dinner in Dallas, Texas.

As inspiration for your blog-a-thon post , here's a collection of cool stuff related to Carl Sagan that's available online. A 1994 CSICOP keynote by Sagan on Point of Inquiry, together with a new interview with Ann Druyan. A transcript of the keynote's Q&A session was rediscovered and published in Skeptical Inquirer magazine in 2005. Ann Druyan also discusses Carl in an interview by Skeptic magazine's Michael Shermer. A NASA video of a 1972 panel on extraterrestrial life, also featuring Ashley Montagu. Carl Sagan on Charlie Rose in 1995 and 1996 . Carl Sagan on MySpace . The website and blog of Carl's son, science fiction writer Nick Sagan. The website of Don Davis , space artist who illustrated such Sagan works as Cosmos and The Dragons of Eden ; including his memories of Sagan .