Carl Sagan on Truth: Why Preferences Don't Determine What's Real
AryHHAry · x · 2026-09-06
Quoting Carl Sagan's 1995 essay "Wonder and Skepticism" in Skeptical Inquirer, the author unpacks Sagan's core point: truth may be puzzling and counterintuitive, but our preferences don't determine what's true. The scientific method reaches only asymptotic approximations of truth — never absolute — and cleverly designed experiments are the key.
He ties this to Karl Popper's concept of verisimilitude from Conjectures and Refutations (1963): theories are never "finally proven," only not yet refuted, and one well-designed test can topple a model that has comfortably ruled for decades — citing Michelson–Morley's 1887 failure to detect the ether as a concrete example.
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