preview

Summary Of Carl Sagan's The Dragons Of Eden

Decent Essays

History is a key part to our understanding of the universe, and life itself. History can be viewed differently throughout the world. Some may view it as a godly creation, while others might see it more scientifically. Likewise, it can be seen as an immense amount of time, or a short period. In the selection from The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Origins of Human Intelligence, Carl Sagan shows his standpoint on the vastness of Earth’s history through a scientific view. The author is correct in saying that history is quite larger than most realize.
Sagan’s main purpose in this article is to show how little human beings truly know. His way to express the expanse of history is by putting fifteen billion years of the universe, starting with the Big Bang, into a single year, in which humans appear at 10:30 PM on New Year’s Eve, showing how young mankind is. By compressing all of the knowledge assumed by humans into one year, instead of 15 billion, he highlights that all of recorded history is only in the last ten seconds of the year. Consequently, all pieces of information before the last ten seconds of the year cannot be marked as 100% accurate. All events prior to the last few seconds of the year are widely accepted due to evidence. Geological stratification and radioactive dating support archaeological, paleontological, and geological events. Astrophysical theory provides information on astronomical events, including the Big Bang Theory, an assumed explosion that

Get Access