One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)

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.