As I mentioned before, I am a big fan of public radio (as well as everything on that Stuff White People Like list. Where do I return my Asian card?). One of my favorite episodes of Radio Lab is Space. I’d forgotten just how unbelievably amazing space was, since having pored over my sister’s astronomy textbooks when I was little. I love the opening of the episode - what happens is that a woman points a laser at a star. Sounds simple enough, right? In typical Radio Lab fashion, the hosts’ discussion opens up new ways of looking at things, kind of like peeling the layers of an onion. The way Jad Abumrad, one of the hosts, describes it is that woman actually touches the star with her laser pointer, and it is the coolest thing that Jad has ever witnessed. Radio Lab offers a child’s view of the world, in that it hasn’t lost its sense of wonder; the discussions are grounded in reality but not at all flattened by cynicism.

But the best part of the episode is Annie Druyan, the widow of Carl Sagan. She tells the story of how they married - they were working together on the Voyager Golden Record, essentially a message in a bottle from all of humanity, directed to whoever may be listening. They had known each other for ten years, never having shared a kiss or indicated feelings for the other. The two found themselves so wrapped up in the wonder and beauty of what they were doing, that they made the impulsive decision to get married. And stayed that way, until Sagan’s death in 1996. Here is his dedication to Druyan at the beginning of Cosmos, his most famous novel:

In the vastness of space and the immensity of time,
it is my joy to share
a planet and an epoch with Annie.

It is, without a doubt, one of the most romantic modern stories I’ve ever heard. Forget Casablanca, forget Romeo and Juliet, let’s have movies and write books about Carl and Annie! The real star-crossed lovers.

Since hearing that episode, I’ve become slightly obsessed with Druyan, her sense of wonder and her uplifting, marvelous voice. I found an article she had written in 2003, for Skeptical Inquirer. She covers many topics but the main theme is questioning religion’s dominance over spirituality. Druyan questions why science, the pursuit of knowledge, doesn’t stir people’s souls - why doesn’t the rest of the world at large share her sense of wonder at the universe? Why is optimism automatically associated with faith, and why can’t skeptics have hope?

This is something that I think we have to come to grips with. There’s a confusion generally in our society. There is a great wall that separates what we know from what we feel.

I am pretty much agnostic when it comes to religion. I don’t know if there is a God (or Goddesses, for that matter), and I don’t know if we can ever know that anyways, as the point of religion is faith - believing without evidence. I also can’t say I find any of the mainstream religions particularly inspiring, given their histories of discrimination and violence. And scientific institutions haven’t exactly been angelic, either. Research can lead to things like cures for cancer, sure, but it can also lead to the atomic bomb. Biochemical weapons. Land mines (are there any purpose for land mines, by the way, beyond maiming innocent people?).

In the end, however, I do feel strongly the idea that knowledge is far more inspirational and preferable to the lack thereof. I agree with Druyan that the Garden of Eden, described as paradise, doesn’t sound particularly ideal to me. Would I rather live forever, only dully aware of the static world I inhabit? Or would I risk the unknown and eat the apple? In a heartbeat I would choose the apple, and I think it lovely that the great pioneers of science have done so.