"If we teach school children the habit of being skeptical perhaps they will not restrict their skepticism to aspirin commercials and 35,000 year old channelers. Maybe they will start asking awkward questions about economic or social or political or religious institutions, and then where will we be? Skepticism is dangerous. In fact, it is the business of skepticism to be dangerous. That is exactly its function."
-Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan Day Nov. 7th

I'm excited that he is being honored like this, I hope that someday it will be more widely recognized. I would argue that he was one of the most important figures of the later part of last century. Not only was he key in introducing a generation to the importance to science, he also made significant contributions to our understanding of the solar system and universe. On a more humanitarian note, he is largely responsible for spreading the concept of the nuclear winter and putting real consequences in the minds of those who argued for nuclear proliferation.