Carl Sagan makes a scary warning as to the decline of scientific thinking in America: look at his final interview (1996)

Until the end of his life, Carl Sagan (1934-1996) continued to do what he has done from the start – popularizing science and “transmitting enthusiastically the wonders of the universe to millions of people on television and in books”. Whenever Sagan appeared on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson in the 1970s and 80s, his goal was to connect with everyday Americans – people who did not subscribe American scientist – and increase understanding and appreciation of the public of science.

At the end of his life, Sagan always cared profoundly about where science was in public imagination. But while losing a battle with myelodysplasiaSagan also felt that scientific thinking was losing ground in America, and even more worrying in the rooms of the Congress led by Newt Gingrich.

During his last interview, broadcast on May 27, 1996, Sagan issued a strong warning, saying to Charlie Rose:

We organized a society on science and technology in which no one understands anything about science and technology, and this fuel mixture of ignorance and power sooner or later will explode on our faces. I mean, who directs science and technology in a democracy if people know nothing about it.

And he also added:

And the second reason why I worry is that science is more than a set of knowledge. It's a way of thinking. A way to skeptically questioning the universe with a good understanding of human bankruptcy. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to question those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those who are in authority, then we are to be won for the next political or religious charlatan that is starting.

Almost 20 years later, we reached this point. Under the second Trump administration, DOGE rushed to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of our government, randomly cutting the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and NASA. Then, they are looking for our main research universities, intentionally weakening the search engine which fueled the growth of American societies – and the global American economy – during the Second World War. And they replace scientific leaders with charlatans like RFK Jr. which take place in the very pseudoscience which Sagan warned us. Needless to say, our competitors do not make the same mistakes. Few serious governments are stupid enough to cut your nose to badly turn your face.

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