Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

i've always loved Sagan's expository style and friendly tone, but this one in particular leaves me with a distinct impression of wistfulness -- it's definitely a celebration of skepticism and of the scientific method, but it's so clear that Sagan really *wants* to believe in something. the relentlessness of his own skepticism almost seems to bear him down under its weight, no matter how hopefully he tries to write about the human future: perhaps it's a product of reading his forced hopefulness from a perspective of thirty-years-later, but this book leaves a numinous sadness in its wake.

it's been awhile(many many years.. but I remember enjoying this book immensely and will probably re-read it ..

I can't believe how drawn into this I got. Sagan was gifted at making the complicated straightforward.

bueno un excelente lIbro como todos los de Sagan pese al tempo aun sus temas están vigentes y la pregunta principal aun es perfectamente valida superaremos la era tecnologica sin autoaniquilarnos?

Clearly this was a precursor to the grander "Cosmos", but this one is also chock full of sciency goodness.

Interesting book, especially since it's more than 30 years old, and there's been lots of new science in that time. But it holds up well! A must read for Sagan fans.

An interesting collection of essays covering many ideas on astronomy, pseudoscience, veliskovian arguments, birth/death, extra terrestrial life and ai robots. Has an exemplary range of interesting scientific and science-fiction references.

Some interesting stuff and some big questions are asked. It's also a little dated and some the more intense science/math went over my head. Not every chapter has to be read to fully enjoy it.

This book of collected essays on science and critical thinking is a joy to read. Two of the chapters that stood out for me were the one on Velikovskian catastrophism (in which Sagan does a respectful but very thorough job of showing why Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" postulations were utter nonsense) and the chapter titled "Norman Bloom, Messenger of God" (in which Sagan shows the vacuousness of numerology and similar coincidence-based thinking). And those are just samples of the good stuff in here. Sagan scrupulously takes the scientific high road even when the notion being debunked is utter lunacy; and for those capable of following it, he even shows his work -- however, he avoids cluttering up the main text by setting the more cumbersome mathematics in appendices. The writing style, as usual for Sagan, is effortlessly clear and dotted with occasional notes of gentle humor; as one reviewer put it (paraphrasing here), Sagan presents the keys to the mysteries of the universe, yet makes it seem as if he picked up everything he learned while playing in the sandbox. I *highly* recommend this book.

Interesante demostración de Sagan de la incapacidad memorística de los seres humanos y como para compensarlo, debemos pensar.