Carl Sagan: I would not want to be the one who would tell the parents of a sick baby that I am so opposed to animal experiments that I am happy to condemn their baby to death. That just does not make sense.
Prodigy: They’re not even thinking really, because they’re worried about bills, and this and that, and the third, and you’re just sitting there with time to think and be calm.
Sagan: Under threat of extermination.
Prodigy: Exactly. Yeah. The whole month I’ve been home we’ve been doing that.
Sagan: It’s a delicate line to walk.
Prodigy: That happens a lot.
Sagan: And the way I look at it, it represents a delicate balance between a heroic openness to all ideas and possibilities and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.
Prodigy: Sometimes you’re in the mood for this, sometimes you’re in the mood for that.
Sagan: It’s a clear prescription for disaster. I’m pleased with how it has turned out.
Prodigy: That’s how I look at it.
Sagan: That’s our nature.
Prodigy: I can’t tell you why he did it, or why he said what he said afterwards, but all I can tell you is that really happened.
Sagan: Why not?
Prodigy: I don’t really know.