Carl Sagan: My God, it's full of stars

Decoding the Gurus

Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne

Science, Leisure, Social Sciences, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2021

⏱️ 133 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the second instalment of the personal gurus season we take a look at Matt's childhood science guru: the famed astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan.

Sagan's regarded as an intellectual hero amongst skeptics and supporters of science but is the admiration warranted or is this a halo effect enhanced by youthful innocence and the distorting mists of time? Was Matt's first science crush justified? Is Carl as 'right on' as popular sentiment suggests? Join us as we struggle to peer into the vast abyss, stare deep into the heart of the guru constellation, and uncover the truth. It's time to take a long hard look at a small sliver of our demon haunted, pale blue dot.

Along the way we address the burning issues including: whether Carl Sagan is actually a woke cuck, how Chris feels about chimpanzees in lipstick, if humility might actually be a good thing, and whether the universe was actually created for rocks.

So join us as we return to a simpler time, when scientists wore turtleneck sweaters, ill advised tweets were not yet possible, and gurus were REAL gurus.

Also featured in this week's episode: Weinstein Watch, Viewer Feedback, the Next Guru Announcement, and an illustration of how to provide an even tempered & measured response to critical feedback.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's it's the podcast
0:26.4	where an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world
0:29.8	has to offer and we try best to understand what they're talking about.
0:33.6	I'm Professor Matt Brown and with me is my perennial bridge over troubled waters,
0:39.2	the Simon to my Garfun call, Associate Professor, Chris Kavanaugh. Hi Chris.
0:43.4	Well hello I thought you were gonna repeat yourself in your old age and do the same
0:50.0	introduction that you done before but no you didn and you proved it either the last minute it was a curveball so
0:57.3	Congratulations Matt you're not going to see now just yet this is the objective for every episode just to throw you a curveball and see how you react and you don't have a comeback for that one do you?
1:08.0	I don't, I never get what any of those, you know, you don't get the gravel to your muscle master I don't get your 70s and 60s
1:16.1	references I just assume that it's it's all complimentary and accurate it's pretty complimentary in this case you've never heard of
1:26.3	Simon and Garfunkel what's wrong with you? I know okay I know them yeah they do that song the sound of silence right that's them yeah that's them that's them
1:35.7	so our favorite two intellectuals of the modern era. The Weinstein
1:44.0	Growlers, I believe they've been out in force. We know that Mr Brett has been
1:50.2	art with Heller trying to convince everyone to kill themselves by taking
1:55.2	hypermepton instead of vaccines. That's his general thing at the minute. That's what
1:59.3	he's generally up to. That's his kind of default mode. We were considering doing a
2:03.0	emergency release episode to cover some of his anti vaccine stuff but I think
2:10.2	something has happened today. So Brett Weinstein of course has been heavily
2:16.5	promoting Iver mechtin as the silver bullet, the miracle cure, and a far better
2:21.8	alternative to fix that old COVID than the vaccines.
2:25.8	And he's been relying heavily on some meta analyses, at least one of which was done by what seems like this yes
2:38.6	Tess Lawrence who is an activist I would say I think her credentials are real but she is a dubious figure promoting
	...

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