>From Terry: > Thanks, Jed; but, it was not meant to be a literal, quantitative > statement. It was meant to express a general willingness to > be open toward the end.
I second that. I have an anecdotal story regarding someone I knew who once encountered Sagan in a casual setting. A group of cohorts, including Sagan, were meeting in a hotel bar for a couple of drinks. As the drinks flowed and tongues got a little looser, Sagan slipped out a personal incident he once experienced where he wanted to get funding to study how would society react if we were suddenly confronted with irrefutable evidence proving beyond a shadow of doubt that extraterrestrial civilizations existed. Sagan said he could not get funding for such a project. It's my understanding that Sagan was also told in no uncertain terms that he should drop the exploration of further proposals of such a nature... that is, if he wanted to keep his good standing. The observer of this conversation was left with the distinct impression that Sagan did not like being told what he could and could not research. But Sagan knew which side of the bread the butter was on. And that was that. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
