As Saul despised David for receiving ten thousand cheers to his
own mere thousand, we scientists often stigmatize, for the same
reason of simple jealousy, the good work done by colleagues for
our common benefit. Because we live in a Philistine nation filled
with Goliaths, and because science feeds at a public trough,
we all give lip service to the need for clear and supportive popular
presentation of our work. Why then do we downgrade the professional
reputation of colleagues who can convey the power and beauty of
science to the hearts and minds of a fascinated, if generally uninformed, public?

This narrow-minded error--our own Philistinism--arises in part from our
general ignorance of the long and honorable tradition of popular
presentation of science, and our consequent mistake in equating
popularization with trivialization, cheapening, or inaccuracy. Great
scientists have always produced the greatest popularizations, without
compromising the integrity of subject or author. In the 17th century,
Galileo wrote both his major books as dialogues in Italian for generally
literate readers, not as formal Latin treatises designed only for scholars.
In the 18th century, the Swiss savant J. J. Scheuchzer produced the
beautifully elaborate eight-volume Physica sacra, with 750 full-page
copperplate engravings showing the natural history behind all Biblical
events. In the 19th century, Charles Darwin wrote the Origin of Species, the
most important and revolutionary of all scientific works, as a book for
general readers. (My students often ask me where they can find the technical
monograph that served as the basis for Darwin's popular work; I tell them
that the Origin of Species fulfills both allied, not opposing, functions.)

With the death of Carl Sagan we have lost both a fine scientist and the
greatest popularizer of the 20th century, if not of all time. In his many
books, and especially in his monumental television series Cosmos--our
century's equivalent of Scheuchzer's Physica sacra and the most widely
viewed presentation in the entire history of science--Carl explained the
method and content of our discipline to the general public. He also conveyed
the excitement of discovery with an uncanny mix of personal enthusiasm and
clear presentation unequaled by any predecessor. I mourn his passing
primarily because I have lost a dear friend, but I am also sad that many of
us never appreciated his excellence or his importance to all of us, while a
few of the best of us (in a shameful incident at the National Academy of
Sciences) actively rejected him. (Carl was a remarkably sanguine man, but I
know that this incident hurt him deeply.) Too many of us never grasped his
legendary service to science.

I would epitomize his excellence and integrity in three points. First, in an
age characterized by the fusion of high and pop culture, Carl moved
comfortably across the entire spectrum while never compromising scientific
content. He could joke with Johnny Carson, compose a weekly column for
Parade, and write a science fiction novel while maintaining an active
laboratory and publishing technical papers. He had foibles aplenty; don't we
all? We joked about his emphatic pronunciation of "billions," and my young
son (much to Carl's amusement) called Cosmos the "stick-head-up show"
because Carl always looked up dreamily into the heavens. But the public
watched, loved, and learned. Second, for all his pizzazz and charisma, Carl
always spoke for true science against the plethora of irrationalisms that
surround us. He conveyed one consistent message: Real science is so damned
exciting, transforming, and provable, why would anyone prefer the
undocumentable nonsense of astrology, alien abductions, and so forth? Third,
he bridged the gaps between our various cultures by showing the personal,
humanistic, and artistic side of scientific activity. I will never, for
example, forget his excellent treatment of Hypatia, a great woman,
philosopher, and mathematician, who was martyred in Alexandria in 415 A.D.

You had a wonderful life Carl, although too short. You will, however, always
be with us, especially if we as a profession can learn from you that the
common touch enriches science and extends an ancient tradition that lies at
the heart of Western humanism, and does not represent (when properly done) a
journalistic perversion of the "sound bite" age. In the words that John
Dryden wrote about another great artist, the musician Henry Purcell, who
died even younger in 1695: "He long ere this had tuned the jarring spheres
and left no hell below."