"Above all, Albert Einstein was a true believer in the scientist's duty to communicate with the public...those attending heard not much more than the words that began his speech: "If science, like art, is to perform its mission truly and fully, its achievements must enter not only superficially but with their inner meaning into the consciousness of the people." This always has been and always will be, the dream of Cosmos. When I stumbled upon Einstein's rarely quoted words of that night during some random late-night wandering on YouTube, I found the credo for 40 years of my life's work. Einstein was urging us to tear down the walls around science that have excluded and intimidated so many of us-to translate scientific insights from the technical jargon of its priesthood into the spoken language shared by us all, so that we may take these insights to heart and be changed by a personal encounter with the wonders they reveal...We didn't know that particular Einstein quote when Carl and I began writing the original Cosmos in 1980 with astronomer Steven Soter. We just felt a kind of evangelical urgency to share the awesome power of science, to convey the spiritual uplift of the universe it reveals, and to amplify the alarms that Carl, Steve, and other scientists were sounding about our impact on the planet. Cosmos gave voice to those forebodings, but it was also suffused with hope, with a sense of human self-esteem derived, in part, from our successes in finding our way in the universe, and from the courage of those scientists who dared to uncover and express forbidden truths."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Women authors from the United StatesAgnostics from the United StatesSkepticsNovelists from New York CityProducers from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
About the 1939 New York World Fair
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Ann Druyan
Ann Druyan (born June 13, 1949) is an American author and producer specializing in productions about cosmology and popular science. She was a co-writer of the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan whom she married in 1981. She is the creator/producer/writer of the follow-up Cosmos seasons: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and Cosmos: Possible Worlds.
40 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Ann Druyan →
Related Quotes
"When we fell in love, it was like discovering a new world. It was one that I had hoped was possible but had never bee…"
"When Carl wrote Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, he imagined an Encyclopedia Galactica-a reference work that includes all t…"
"The possible world that excites me the most-the future we can still have on this one. The misuse of science endangers…"
"We have known about the dangers we pose to ourselves for decades and yet we continue sleepwalking toward a grim futur…"
"Carl made me want to be the best human being I could be."
"One starry night, as we lay together on the deck of a ship in the Pacific, we spotted a dolphin couple riding the wav…"
"If anyone ever says to me, ‘Music is no good anymore’ or ‘These kids today...’ I always fight against that. We are wh…"
"The basic rules of the road for science: Test ideas by experiment and observation. Build on those ideas that pass the…"
"These are stories that make me more optimistic about our future. Through them I have come to feel more intensely the …"
"The words Einstein chose to open the 1939 World's Fair echo in my brain: "If science, like art, is to perform its mis…"