Can you believe it? Two men talked on television for over 12 minutes and I, just like the audience in 1977 listened. Oh, how I long for civil discourse that enlightens.
Yes.... I believe my TV made itself .... Thanks Carl .. I want a new house ...but I am still waiting for it to create itself .. How long must I wait Ben ? ..1 billion years ,100 billion years ... or for all eternity . I can't listen to idiots for a few seconds, because it makes me depressed how many idiots do listen to them, even though they are supposed to have a brain.
@@MrMurraymanson Your body is not a house; the house is designed, the body has evolved. Your body bears the lowly mark of its origins in its numerous superfluous and poorly designed bits. A house, for all its defects, does not.
I'm so surprised that Carson went so far into this topic of discussion, No talk show today touches on these topics in depth especially not without adding comedy to it lol
Johnny Carson knew who he was in the presence of to make a fool of himself. Carson also was a very deep minded individual who was so interested in many areas just like Carl Sagan.
Yes, they would never let a scientist talk that long and that in-depth without interrupting for a stupid joke on any show today. Credit to Stephen Colbert, who clearly has a love of the sciences and brings scientists on to his show. But he's often guilty of said interruptions.
Rawkstar Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight’s Show sits on the opposite side of the spectrum compared to Johnny Carson. The show is dumbed down considerably. 🤦🏻♂️
Hard to believe that late night talk shows were ever this good, interesting, intelligent and worthwhile. Thank you Johnny and Carl. Have we ever gotten dumb and simple.
Johnny Carson was a powerful person in the media of you had a shot to get on his show and he liked you, you were made.. No other tv host since can do that. I look back and realize how lucky I was to be born in the late 1960s and to have had such an epic childhood especially the 80s 🤘🎸
When Johnny imitated him in his comedic sketches, he will emphasize the long vowels even longer for fun effect. Dr Sagan was a genius, humanity is poorer without him, a loss to Scientific enquiry and literacy.
Can ANYONE imagine a conversation like this one being held on ANY of the nighttime talk shows today? It's truly saddening to think of how our society has dumbed itself down in the last few decades. :o(
Full credit to Johnny Carson. I cannot imagine a night show host asking questions pertaining to scientific curiosity. Today they try to dumb down the conversation with lame jokes even if the other person is a doctor or a scientist OR they gang up to joke about politics.
Johnny Carson is a pretty smart man to keep a conversation going with Carl like he is. So many hosts today don't know wtf theyre talking about and resort to jokes and laughter and ask completely unrelated questions. Johnny knew the kinds of questions to ask to get for his audience interesting nuggets of new information that they could consume and gnaw on.
@@Araconox he really worked at what he did and it wasnt just comedy. He spent his mornings reading several news papers, magazines, and kept up with current events. He seemed to also read books in what ever free time on the weekends he had. He never seemed to dumb down for the audience nor did he try and bring comedy down. Tho some of his jokes were a bit too over folks heads.
Johnny knew when to be serious, when to include a funny remark, when to let his guest speak uninterrupted, etc. The questions and comments he made were insightful and you could tell he was really curious and not just asking for sake of the TV show.
@@GameTime-yj6qv i think thats the balance he struck. Being personally interested in what this person has to say and not just for the sake of good television. People like to see genuine interactions on the show. And i always see that when i watch his shows.
Fascinating and marvelous - and 40 years ago... why don't we have dedicated, weekly science shows, with intelligent, articulate and earthy presenters like this now...? Dr Sagan, you're sorely missed :(
Why don't we have these types of weekly scientific, intellectual shows on a mainstream source for people to consume? Because the more we know, the less we can be controlled by the system and the powers that be. The more we know, the less we can be tricked and fooled. The more we question, the more we find out the truth and realize we really are in troubled times, in a troubled system that needs to change if we want to see any sort of healthy, sustainable future ahead. Carl Sagan in the 1970s was already talking about 'troubled times' and he was right then, it's just become even worse today. The mainstream news it not a source of real news, by and large, it is a source of soft and hard propaganda. Our job, is to think critically and question everything, come to a common understanding about natural law and what system would be best for human prosperity? It certainly isn't market capitalism. Slavery and destruction is guaranteed in a monetary-market economy. It is time for a new system. Don't be afraid of asking these big questions and probing to find answers.
Johnny went to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he graduated with a Bachelor Degree for radio/speech and a Minor in Physics. His interest in Astronomy was legitimate, and here he was absorbed and learning from the best, the incomparable beautiful mind of Dr Carl Sagan.
5:36 Carl Sagan describing how to answer children's questions: when he said this over 40 years ago you needed to access a library and have some knowledge of how to search for that information. This helped keep the poor and isolated ignorant, and prevented social mobility. The internet provides instantaneous answers and further reading. There is now no reason why any child should be told not to ask stupid questions, nor for the parent make up answers when they don't know themselves. (Unfortunately I had one parent who did this, which created much hatred when I grew older). Such a shame the internet is being used to spread so much bullshit instead.
@@tiprat5051 Not everyone could: I lived in a city and it was still a 30 min journey to the library, then I had to ask for help. Now the access to information is instant.
@@tiprat5051 ... the salient point, IMO, is no adult ever needed to be ashamed of their ignorance. Better to admit it and direct the child to learn the answer. Join them, even, if the subject material was of interest. There's no true context where "that's a silly question" is a valid response. Agreed?
It's ironic to see this pragmatic appreciation for the merits of education in applied technology, juxtaposed with nostalgic remarks of "Jimmy Fallon would never have an intelligent conversation like this." How sad that we should retreat to the safety of some vision of the past, when the future and present have so much to offer.
@@WanderingBrushArt I heard about it in 81 or very early 82. I was working in a music store and my manager played bass in a band in NYC. He told me and a woman who worked in a store next door that a bunch of young gay guys were dying of a weird cancer, The women says wow this could kill us all and I was like nah, probably nothing. She was right. It was spreading before that I agree.
Thomas Brooklyn the three stooges made short comedy films for the movie theater, not tv and started in the 1920s. Do you think that’s comparable? Hell, this episode is 1977, 43 years ago. The stooges were in their heyday 45 years before the 1977 Carson episode. In closing, that’s a really bad comparison.
I think Sagan did more to further the general public's knowledge of astrophysics than anyone. His books and shows were done so that anyone could understand it. Johnny was very well read and very smart. I think Neil degrass Tyson has taken up that mantle.
@akhenatuh you're missing the point. he's not talking about intellectual genius and brilliance, he's talking about the genius and brilliance that it takes to convey complex and countertuitive ideas to the masses who don't have advanced astronomy and math and physics degrees. Sagan, Tyson, hawking with his brief history books, and easily the only person close to or equal or possibly slightly better than Sagan is Richard Feynman. Great teachers aren't the smartest teachers, they're the teachers who can teach and inspire concepts to the most people at the deepest level of understanding...
@James Oliver tyson has been accused of first of all. second he "groped" a shoulder looking for the rest of a tattoo he was being shown and not looking like down her dress or something pervy like that, the top of the shoulder. third the chick misinterpreted something as being an advance and even if let's pretend it was an advance, she went to his place voluntarily and when she said it became uncomfortable everything stopped. no means no doesn't make you guilty of anything if it's said to you unless you ignore it and continue. also, Sagan invited tyson to his home when he was a high school teen. if that happened today, the Sagan would be guilty of worse than the stuff tyson is accused of. maybe creepin is what Sagan taught tyson at that meeting... no I don't actually think Sagan did anything bad and my point was not about Sagan. he mentored tyson and the crap about tyson is crap. you're probably racist or something because it's hard to be a fan of Sagan and not see tyson in the same light.
"We are in very perilous times and I think the complex and subtle problems that we face can only have complex and subtle solutions. And we need people able to think complex and subtle thoughts..." Prescient words, dear Carl. (7:32)
My God... Carl Sagan with a genius.. the greatest gift a teacher-parent can give is to stimulate a childs imagination.. that's when Miracles can happen
Carl had the power of perspective. He makes books sound like magic. Most people probably think of them as just a bunch of words on paper but he sees it as a way to talk to the dead. He talks about science in a way that makes it relatable.
When I was a teen I snuck into a convention in Washington DC to see Dr. Sagan give a talk. He was fascinating. It was one of the highlights of my life.
Neil deGrasse Tyson has been talking about this, too. Tyson took a stance that if the child wants to see e.g. what happens if you smash a toy with an axe, the adult should be supporting this kind of experimentation and maybe just stop to put on some protective equipment, which one could compare to safely glasses and hearing protection that some occupations require.
I love how brave Carson was. He was a superstar on television, but he always turned to sidekick when someone amazing was on. Rodney, Carl, Don Rickles. Carson had a huge ego, but always knew when to park it.
"The Dragons of Eden" is an amazing book. A precursor to "Cosmos" was "Broca's Brain," also brilliant. Oh, heck, everything Sagan wrote was incredible! He is one of my 4 all-time guests to my fantasy dinner.
@@appidydafoo I always like to know people's answers to a question like this. My 'big 4' list has changed over time, but Carl Sagan and Johnny Carson have always been my top 2.
there is a rage against the individual nowadays the powers that be want pliable clones they want easily molded knit whits they can brainwash into obedience
Sagan was such an extremely brilliant man. When was the last time you saw someone like this on a talk show at all, let alone with such a meaningful dive into such a topic?
First I've read of his but one of my all-time favourites. The way he's able to write about complex topics and abstract them without simplifying too much, is awe-inspiring...
He was a lying dingbat, is all. Carl Sagan "The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be." Carl Sagan, "I can’t imagine anyone denying the existence of the laws of nature, but I don’t know of any compelling evidence for the old man in the sky." More from the fool, "It’s perfectly possible that the universe is infinitely old and therefore uncaused. In fact, there are detailed cosmological models that hold such a view and that are consistent with everything we know. To my mind, it seems not fully satisfactory to say that there was a first cause. That seems to postpone dealing with the problem rather than solving it. If we say “God” made the universe, then surely the next question is, “Who made God?” If we say “God” was always here, why not say the universe was always here? If we say that the question “Where did God come from?” is too tough for us poor mortals to understand, then why not say that the question of, “Where did the universe come from?” is too tough for us mortals? In what way, exactly, does the God hypothesis advance our knowledge of cosmology? What predictions does it make on which the hypothesis will stand or fall?" from: www.uscatholic.org/articles/202001/god-and-carl-sagan-cosmos-big-enough-both-them-31939 Read the article. Have a vomit bag or trash can nearby for what a hypocritical, lying, mocking, disgusting, foolish person he was. Now, Carl the fool NEVER can get around these laws and what the lead to... Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. ....yet the buffoon thinks creation happened naturally, but the idiot says, "What predictions does it make on which the hypothesis will stand or fall?" as the crap-for-brains ignores the CLEAR science that creation had to happen by God supernaturally! Still, the fool who ignores the laws farted out, "I don’t know of any compelling evidence for the old man in the sky." Notice his mocking God, "man in the sky" as if that makes him look smart as he completely ignores the evidence. His question, "Who made God?" is as dumb as he is. So in his way of foolish thinking, if a supernatural creator created the natural realm, then that supernatural creator who created the natural realm with its natural laws has then become also bound by those natural laws the supernatural creator created. So explain why a supernatural creator is also bound by the laws the supernatural creator created. Or, show how smart you are and just give your science for creation happening naturally and don't forget to give your science how the natural laws were created, too. If he wanted to act smart, it may be a good idea to actually show you are. Sagan the imbecile will at some point face his Maker for his judgment of what he believed in this life. His extreme shame and regret was all his choice. He wanted to be a hypocritical bozo. Then he'll be thrown into the lake of fire. It will be his 'The End' and be remembered no more. ALL his choice and for others who follow that fool.
I totally agree, his voice was poetic, soothing just music to my ears. I love Finding interviews like this and lectures he gave to students. Wish GPS had the 'Carl Sagan' voice option.
Carl was the first person who was so extremely intelligent, and yet had the ability to explain subjects, and my interest, the cosmos, in a way that the average person could understand! If you have never read his book "Cosmos", I highly recommend his series, still available on DVD!!!
Man, Carson was a beast. He could keep up with Sagan with ease, most late night host today cannot keep a deep conversation like that, they just keep spitting this talking point over an over.
Sagan is very captivating..his voice is soothing and coupled with his intelligence and the way he disperses it is truly wonderful. Hooked from start to finish . R I P CARL
I've always loved listening to Carl Sagan but should also say I was very impressed by Carson. He asked the right intelligent questions and made the occassional joke but without in any way diminishing the importance of what Sagan says unlike a lot of modern talk show hosts interviewing scientists.
This isn’t meant as an offensive comment so please don’t feel like I’m at attacking you...I’m not sure you knew Carson then. He was a well read, cultured, and critical thinker. He did comedy, but he would have intellectuals on. In fact, James Randi, who just died, was on Carson and helped show charlatans like URI Geller for the con artists they are. Cheers.
@@losttribe3001 Thanks, but I was not questioning Carson's intellect - I was just struck how different it was from today's 'standard'. I am too used to today's norm of dissing intelligence as elitist and using it as an easy target for derision.
@@Val_Emrys Gotcha! Yeah, I can’t even watch Jimmy Fallon without wishing for the days past. You are absolutely correct that Carson was well informed and it seems like that’s a rare talent nowadays. Cheers.
@@wheres_wolfie Faolan said "it's Carl I want to save, with her speed greater than EM waves, so she set out one day, in a relative way, and now we all have Carl from 50 years ago to this day...
Talk show hosts of our time love to interview celebreties; People who are wealthy, or beautiful, or have starred in several movies. How I wish hosts would interview people who are smart. I find discussion like this one absolutely riveting.
Can you see Kimmel or Fallon doing such an interview?? Watched Carl Sagan's series "Cosmos" when it first aired on public TV in 1980, by far the best documentary I have ever watched. His calming voice added so much to the show.
These kinds of interviews that are 13+ minutes long are just amazing by today's standards. We'd never have this kind of calm, considered discussion on The Tonight Show today.
The principle is that they are responding to the audience. Jimmy Falllon thinks has to be quick and shallow. Because the audience will not tolerate talking/depth. Johnny was great. he had the patience. He was willing to talk and let it breathe. He was a master. Fallon is a celebrity douche.
What a pleasure to see Carl Sagan when he was young and his impressive voice and conversation with Johnny Carson. Wonderful. Carl is one of my iconic characters that taught me a lot by his tv Cosmos series and great books, such as The Pale Blue Dot. When he died, I was so saddened I told my kids (then) and wife, "I would have gladly offered myself to die, instead of him". So much knowledge and wisdom was lost by his early death!
