(posted on my blog: davenichols.net)

This most recent book published in Sagan's name is a compilation his Gifford Lectures presentations, along with many of the followup questions and answers, compiled from transcripts by his last wife Ann Druyan. From the beginning, for any reader who has had the pleasure of hearing Sagan speak, Carl's voice will quickly focus on the issues at hand. This set of lectures offers a unique view into Carl's own search for God and his belief that science and reason present our best tools for exploring and explaining our world.

Each lecture offers a segment of his thoughts, each bringing the reader gently through the discussion. Sagan avoids terribly difficult discussions in order to present his listeners (and now, his readers) a clear insight into his mindset. He asks us to think calmly about the subjects at hand, to probe the details with the scientific method and with reason. Religion, in Sagan's view, is not the right answer, if there is indeed a right answer at all.

I enjoyed this book, which at times felt a bit metaphysical some of the injections of slides and descriptions of the beauty in nature and the cosmos. I loved listening to Sagan talk on most any subject, so this book was a neat view of the man and his mind. Four stars. ( )

The Varieties of Scientific Experience is delivered in Sagan's inimitably straight-forward, focused and open style we know so well. The book is in the form of a series of lectures, which were transcribed to book form after Sagan's death. I appreciated the book's division into such easily digestible 'talks,' making this a relatively quick read. But there is depth here and room for much personal pondering, especially where Sagan touches upon any of one's own 'sacred cows' in the form of unsubstantiated assumptions about cosmology and God. Sagan's way of expressing wonder and delight in the awesome vastness and array of the universe, without being dry and especially without resorting to magical thinking or other fuzzy-headed shortcuts, is a working demonstration of the rational mind at play.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God is made up of transcripts of Sagan’s address at the Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow. Among other things, Sagan discusses the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, the urgency of protecting the world against nuclear destruction, molecular religious experience, and a number of proofs for the existence of God. Sagan is a scientist, so it is no secret from the start that by the book’s close he will have debunked all of these proofs (that is, for God) soundly; he will not be satisfied with anything less than the empirical evidence that theology obviously does not admit. It is not the debate over God’s existence, however, that shines most in this book. What takes the forefront (and is most enjoyable) is Sagan’s knack for speaking about the physical universe and managing to create some spark of something within that material world that can only be categorized as divine, despite everything else. Sagan does not believe in the existence of God, but in some strange, unintentional way he manages to fuse pure spirituality with science and physical existence in such a way that renders it (the universe and all that makes it up) sublime, beautiful, an end in itself. ( )

William Huggins, 1910, astronomer. Spectroscopist. Spectrum 1868 comet Brorsen and Winnecke II CN, C2, C3, NH2. Condensation of water, carbon dixide, oxygen, nitrogen. silica condenses at higher temperatures. Temperature declines farther from the Sun. Outer solar system loaded with stuff of life. Not so inner solar system. p. 69 in this book, from1985 Gifford Lectures in Scotland.
After reading this book I felt I understood what he was doing in these lectures. He was exploring what the various strategies were, through out history for proving or disproving that God exists. I enjoy so much his demonstration that the word god must be defined before evidence can be sought to prove that particular definition of god exists.
I really enjoyed his way of thinking and his way of bringing the audience to understand his thinking strategies.

Reading this lovely, profound, and prescient set of lectures from 1985 reminds me of how much I've always liked Sagan's writing, and how much I've missed it in the years since he died. ( )