“I proffer the following ideas with a substantial degree of trepidation; I know very well that many of them are speculative and can be proved or disproved on the anvil of experiment.”

Introduction (p. 5)
The Dragons of Eden (1977)

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Carl Sagan365

American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science ed… 1934–1996

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Source: Childhood's End (1953), p. 15
Context: Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor — but they have few followers now.