Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

Ann Druyan was at the Center as it opened its doors on October 22 2006. His father Samuel Sagan was an immigrant garment worker from Russia in today's Ukraine. Sagan's views on religion have been interpreted as a form of pantheism comparable to Einstein's belief in Spinoza's God.

He advocated scientifically skeptical inquiry and the scientific method pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Sagan wrote the novel Contact the basis for a 1997 film of the same name. The book Cosmos was publiCarl Sagand to accompany the series.