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    Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
    Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
    Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
    Audiobook12 hours

    Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

    Written by Carl Sagan

    Narrated by Dion Graham

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Carl Sagan, writer and scientist, returns from the frontier to tell us about how the world works. In his delightfully down-to-earth style, he explores and explains a mind-boggling future of intelligent robots, extraterrestrial life and its consequences, and other provocative, fascinating quandaries of the future that we want to see today.

    Introductory music from the original score for COSMOS: A SpaceTime Odyssey composed by Alan Silvestri, used with permission from Cosmos Studios, Inc. and Chappers Music. All rights reserved. Special thanks to Fuzzy Planets, Inc.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJul 25, 2017
    ISBN9781531888473
    Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
    Author

    Carl Sagan

    Carl Sagan was Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He played a leading role in the Mariner, Viking, and Voyager spacecraft expeditions, for which he received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. Dr. Sagan received the Pulitzer Prize and the highest awards of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation for his contributions to science, literature, education, and the preservation of the environment. His book Cosmos was the bestselling science book ever published in the English language, and his bestselling novel, Contact, was turned into a major motion picture.

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    Reviews for Broca's Brain

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    • 5/5
      This year marks 20 years since I first watched Cosmos. In the intervening time, there is no voice that left a greater impression on the course of my intellectual life than Carl Sagan. Carl invites everyone to share in the joy of science. To mark this anniversary, I picked up this book because it preceded his work on Cosmos and because I never managed to read it. Like a book of short stories, it is easy to pick up and read in no particular order.
    • 3/5
      Cheerful and exuberant but nothing substantial. One chapter is literally spent rebuffing claims by a crazy guy. I understand the principle at stake explained by the author but it's a waste of my time (which is why people don't bother doing that!).
    • 3/5
      Carl Sagan is a classic of science writing, and I've enjoyed his fiction, but unfortunately he doesn't hold up too well. Sometimes it's easy to tell when the science is dated, particularly when he's talking about upcoming missions in the 1980s, but sometimes you have to know enough contemporary science to stay ahead of him. And although I've always heard he's great at making science seem romantic and exciting...well, a lot of these essays were lists of facts. Sometimes facts are cool! But if you're not a fact person, it's not all that compelling on the whole. Science writing has advanced a lot since Sagan; I can only imagine he'd be pleased by that, but I can't really recommend him to modern readers.
    • 4/5
      This is a collection of essays, all somehow related to science. I read it over the course of several months - not because it wasn't interesting, but because sometimes I just wasn't in the mood for it. The articles on skepticism and the history of science were fascinating, but the later descriptions of the "current" situation in astronomy and planetary science was more than a touch dated. (It was written in the 1970s.) All the same, it was still Sagan, and I do so enjoy reading Sagan. I look forward to his other works.
    • 4/5
      A love letter to the wonders of scientific exploration (else it would not be Carl Sagan!), and at the same time a serious and sympathetic look at pseudoscience and credulity, foreshadowing The Demon-Haunted World. A beautiful read, save for a long point-by-point refutation of another author's absurd work. It's there to make an important point, but it's a bit much.I sure do wish Sagan was still around. I'm sure he had many more books in him.
    • 4/5
      I have now read most of Sagan's work and find them without exception to be informative, readable and usually awe inspiring. In fact his books probably have the highest review scores that I have given out so far.This book is eclectic mix. Both in terms of the type of material and the subject matter of each. We have a "scientific" paper debunking Velikovsky's famous claims of interstellar billiards alongside a potted history of American astronomy.Clearly any kind of flow or overarching narrative is therefore bound to be lacking. Changes of pace are unavoidable and a thirst for a larger or more integrated work does grow on you.Having said all this the individual pieces still show off Sagan's talent for careful logic and elegant argument coupled with an innate appreciation of the beauty of the universe and an eloquence in allowing the reader to appreciate this for themselves which very few science writers can match.Not his best thanks to the nature of the book. If you are new to Sagan then either Cosmos or Demon Haunted World are the place to start.