Heavenly Host

To the Editors:

To the wasteland of TV comes Carl and his Cosmos [Oct. 20]. I watch, spellbound. If it takes a dash of razzle-dazzle to make us turn starward, to spark feelings of awe, enthusiasm and even love as we consider the universe, then more power to Showmaster Sagan.

Suzanne Vannell

Troy, Mich.

I wonder if Carl Sagan lives in outer space. He talks about distances between galaxies, stars, planets, as if he commutes between them. He is a genius. He is to astronomy what Einstein is to physics and what Pythagoras is to mathematics.

Joseph M. Icho

Arlington, Texas

Carl Sagan is the best thing to happen to science education since Sputnik.

Jerome Agel

New York City

If Sagan "blurs the line between fact and speculation," as his colleagues testify, will scientific inquiry be advanced, or will Sagan's own ego-inspired inaccuracies be promulgated?

After all, popularizing established scientific consensus hardly promotes progress. It took Pasteur decades to convince the world that life did not originate from spontaneous generation. The contrary consensus prevented serious consideration of his arguments. As a result, progress in bacteriology was delayed.

Wesley L. Fankhauser

Seattle

Sagan seems to be creating a new discipline: scientific speculation. This is a dangerous combination. His statement that evolution is a fact is one of the first fruits of such a disturbing union. Science is, or at least was, dependent upon the observable. It is the lack of observations, followed by a statement proposed as fact that erodes the integrity of science. It makes me nervous, regardless of the quality of the showmanship.

David Shults

Flagstaff, Ariz.

Poor Carl Sagan. He so desperately wants to find man's significance in the cosmos, but he simply cannot bear to speak the word that would give his grand search coherence and conclusion: God.

George S. Rigby Jr.

Horsham, Pa.

Sagan promotes Sagan and Cosmos promotes Sagan. As he postures before lingering cameras and delivers overdramatic monologues from Star Wars-like props, he skillfully blends fact with fiction, leaving viewers perplexed. By adding gimmicks and schmaltz to fascinating scientific subjects, Sagan cheapens them. This type of presentation imbues science with the razzle-dazzle of show biz and reduces it to bubble gum mentality. Fortunately a flick of the TV dial can leave Sagan out in space.

Jo Frohbieter-Mueller

Evansville, Ind.

Perhaps Carl Sagan's strongest message in his efforts to bring science to the people is this: Science is the true language of the present and of the future. Only a small fraction of this planet's populace, however, can speak the language. The most significant question facing us is whether our civilization, as a whole, will learn to utilize science for the benefit of mankind. The answer will surely determine our future course: noble greatness or self-inflicted extinction.

John G. Wharton, Director

Kirkpatrick Planetarium

Oklahoma City

Irony in Iran

It is ironic that after eleven months of denouncing America, the Iranians are now using U.S. jets and technology in their war with Iraq [Oct. 20]. Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini publicly pledges to fight until "the government of heathens in Iraq topples." Privately he must acknowledge that he cannot hope to win the war without American spare parts.

It is a cruel joke on Khomeini that he may have to free the American hostages unconditionally in order to end the U.S. embargo. Only then could he hope to get the necessary spare parts and the military hardware that were purchased by the late Shah. Otherwise Iran may crumble and become another Afghanistan rather than a new Islamic republic.

Keh-Wha K. Shen

Kaneohe, Hawai

Abuse of Trust

As Frank Trippett suggests in his Essay [Oct. 20], it can do no harm to ponder the price society pays for the abuse of trust. Americans are saturated with all forms of impressions that stem from the inability to separate fantasy from fact. Honesty is the best policy.

Robert S. Denchfield

Cambridge, Mass.

As evidence of the decline in America's morals, Trippett catalogues examples of public skepticism as to the claims of various pitchmen, politicians and bureaucrats. Yet what is wrong with a public attitude of self-reliant doubt? Would a country of credulous gulls be more moral? He also points a finger at the "relaxation of moral codes" as a reason for "increased deception." Yet this famous "relaxation" means in practice that Americans have been freed from 19th century sexual taboos -- and 19th century hypocrisy. Finally, when was this Golden Age when Americans did not attempt to con and cheat one another? In the days of Tammany Hall perhaps? Or when slaveholders wrote of the self-evident truth that all men are created equal?

Michael Hannon

Los Angeles

Rescue at Sea

The story on the Prinsendam [Oct. 20] overlooks the excellent safety record of cruise ships over the past quarter-century. Cars, buses, trains and planes should have such a history.

The tragedies of the Morro Castle in 1934 and the Yarmouth Castle in 1965 taught valuable lessons that were well learned. The success of the Prinsendam rescue attests the fact. Let us all salute the disciplined and courageous men and women who followed the procedures in this great sea rescue.

William D. Bennett

Sacramento

Malls Go Downtown

Urban malls in the '80s [Oct. 20] may well "save" cities, but unless each new project is unique to its community, our downtowns will be doomed to the same rigid, stale architecture and merchandizing that suburban malls now suffer.

Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace and Baltimore's Harborplace are both successful because their developers incorporated historic buildings into their schemes. The proposed mall in Asheville, N.C., however, will destroy structures of considerable potential in favor of a prepackaged design of no distinction.

Edwin J. Gunn

New York City

Return of the Prodigals

Children who return home to live with their parents [Oct. 13] are copping out in a way that is seriously detrimental to their personal growth and development. Even when live-at-home young adults are contributing money and labor to the household, the fact is that parents provide a psychological safety net whose presence can only serve to inhibit and dilute risk taking and mistake making, both essential components of learning about life and oneself. Living at home after graduating from college or getting a job is an infantilizing process that ultimately sets back both parent and child.

Mark Grossman

Minneapolis

First the younger generation was blamed for the deterioration of the family. Now when they need to return to that most sacred of American institutions, it is believed they cannot stand on their own feet. Looks like a case of damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Anne Hughes

Denver

Contraception and the Church

The statement by Archbishop John R. Quinn that Vatican strictures on birth control are being ignored by many U.S. Catholics [Oct. 13] reflects the misconception that the doctrines of faith and morals proclaimed by the church are changeable. Yet there has never been an about-face on any of those doctrines. The great secular breakthrough allowed by the promotion and acceptance of contraception has brought us the age of state-countenanced abortion, community-standardized pornography and a more than embryonic euthanasia movement. This pro-pleasure, antichild mind-set won't intimidate the church of Peter ever to modify the doctrine that sees more to sex than orgasm and more to aging than diminished utilitarianism.

Kevin A. Joyce

Grosse Pointe, Mich.

Having grown up with the idealistic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, I found myself ill-prepared for the harsh, realistic world that exists beyond it. In a world where overpopulation breeds starvation and unwanted children are subject to abuse and neglect, I'd say it's about time the church's archaic stance on contraception was rightfully challenged by its own rank and file.

Susan M. Balczuk

Essex Junction, Vt.

Pope John Paul II may call Roman Catholics who practice artificial birth control immoral. Archbishop Quinn may not be sure what to call them. But the fact remains that most Catholics who use the rhythm method exclusively are generally known as parents.

John G. Patronik

Hagerstown, Md.

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