Episode 32: From the Archive - Carl Sagan

Nov 29, 2018

In a rare 1977 lecture, Carl Sagan, a legendary astrophysicist and author of 'Dragons of Eden,' delves into the timeline of human intelligence and cosmic origins. He uses the Cosmic Calendar to compress 15 billion years, highlighting crucial moments like tool use and agriculture. Sagan discusses the 'three-brain' model and why intelligence appears so late in our evolution. With insights on the uniformity of biochemistry and the probability of extraterrestrial life, Sagan weaves a compelling narrative about our place in the universe.

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ANECDOTE

Sagan's Connection To Louis Leakey

Carl Sagan recounts knowing Louis Leakey and credits conversations with him for stimulating Sagan's interest in human origins.
He expresses pleasure at speaking under the Leakey Foundation's auspices.

INSIGHT

The Cosmic Calendar Perspective

Compressing 15 billion years into a one-year 'cosmic calendar' shows humans arrived in the last moments of the year.
This framing reveals how recent technological intelligence is and prompts the question: why did it take so long?

INSIGHT

Life Uses Common Cosmic Ingredients

Life's basic biochemical toolkit (nucleic acids, proteins, genetic code) is essentially universal on Earth.
This uniformity likely reflects a single origin of life using abundant cosmic materials, not exotic chemistry.

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Carl Sagan explores the evolution of human intelligence from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, through today in this never-before-released archival lecture.

Show Notes The Leakey Foundation is 50 years old this year, and we're celebrating this milestone by sharing rare, previously unreleased lectures from the Foundation's archive. These talks are like a time machine that lets you hear from scientists in their own words and in their own voices - as they were making the discoveries that made them famous.

The first lecture in this "From the Archive" series is by Carl Sagan, the renowned astrophysicist and science communicator. He gave this Leakey Foundation lecture in 1977, around the time of the launch of the Voyager 1 space probe and five months before the release of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Dragons of Eden… A book about human intelligence and the evolution of the brain.

In this talk, he explores the origins of life on earth and shares his thoughts on how we came to have brains that can attempt to comprehend the vastness of the universe.

About Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan served as the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He played a leading role in the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo spacecraft expeditions, for which he received the NASA Medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and Distinguished Public Service. Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. His Emmy and Peabody award-winning television series, Cosmos, became the most widely watched series in the history of American public television. The accompanying book, also called Cosmos, is one of the bestselling science books ever published in the English language. Dr. Sagan received the Pulitzer Prize, the Oersted Medal, and many other awards, including twenty honorary degrees for his contributions to science, literature, education, and the preservation of the environment.

The Leakey Foundation

Origin Stories is a project of The Leakey Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding human origins research and outreach. The Leakey Foundation funds cutting-edge research about human evolution and human behavior.

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