Science & Tech Quote by Carl Sagan

Sagan drags an unfashionable virtue into two domains that like to pretend they don’t need it: science because it’s “objective,” religion because it’s “sacred.” The provocation is in the pairing. By insisting skeptical scrutiny is the means in both, he refuses the comfortable truce where science gets the tools and religion gets the mysteries. He’s also warning science against its own temptation to treat “deep” as a synonym for “true,” the way prestige, jargon, or math can launder weak ideas into authority.

The line works because it’s structurally generous and quietly brutal. “Deep thoughts” and “deep nonsense” are given equal dignity at first: both are deep, both can sound profound, both can move people. That’s the subtext: human beings are meaning-making machines, and our appetite for significance doesn’t come with built-in fact-checking. “Winnowed” is doing heavy lifting. It’s an agricultural verb, humble and patient, suggesting that insight isn’t discovered by revelation but separated by labor - and that the chaff can look a lot like grain until you apply the wind.

Context matters: Sagan spent the late Cold War years defending scientific literacy against pseudoscience, UFO mythology, faith healing, and the politicization of uncertainty. He also understood religion’s cultural power and the emotional needs it answers. So the intent isn’t to sneer at belief; it’s to propose a common discipline. The real target is credulity - the civic hazard that lets charisma and cosmic-sounding claims outrun evidence, whether they arrive in a lab coat or a robe.