Contact, Carl Sagan, and Bad Fruit
Just watched the 1997 movie Contact again. Hadn’t thought of it for years, but someone suggested looking at it to see what kind of world-view it portrayed. In some ways, it was exactly what you would expect given that the author of the book upon which it was based was Carl Sagan.
But there were signs that either his “science is everything” armor was chinking, or there was a glimmer of uncertainty always lurking inside. Why? Look at Ellie Arroway. She is the ultimate experimental scientist, yet, there is a clear emotional aspect to her search. As the movie (and I presume the book) progresses, we begin to see the desire to find something that makes her significant — not in the sense of importance to others, but in terms of the ultimate significance of man.
One of the most profound statements was when she finally saw the Vegan landscape and sky, her first reaction was to say that they should have sent a poet. Not a likely statement for someone who is all about her science. And her comments at the government inquiry, while not religious, point more to belief in experience and the unprovable than to anything about science. As a scientist she even reassesses her experience, admitting that if she were the inquisitor she would doubt. But she cannot because “everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real!”
