Carl Sagan was America's own scientist-hero. His TV series Cosmos instilled in us an enduring love of astronomy and all science. And during the Cold War, his theory of Nuclear Winter arguably brought us all a step back from the brink of a nuclear exchange. Carl Sagan personally showed how a man of science can change the world. Carl Sagan, the people's scientist, popularizer of critical thinking and of a healthy skepticism. Carl Sagan: pothead.
After he died, his biographer outed him as a lifelong stoner. Carl, it seems, had been the long-time romantic partner of one of the major players in the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML. Not only that, but Sagan once anonymously wrote an essay for a pro-pot anthology in which he credited the insidious weed with inspiring many of his scientific insights.
This revelation about Sagan's recreational (we might say inspirational) drug use has busted open a few stereotypes. Contrary to zero-tolerance pushers' ideas, stoners can be smart, world-renowned scientists can get high and marijuana won't wreck your productivity. Carl's example of the drug-producing scientific insights proves this: blowing a hooter every now and then might actually increase one's productivity.
A lot of people are in a dither about this. One internet chat-room user was crestfallen: “I idolized Carl—how could he do this to me?” We hate to tell ya, junior, but you're gonna have to reboot. You're not listening to what your idol had to say about the drug's usefulness: it inspired the very insights that made him your hero! Society is biased against any altering of one's own neurochemistry whatsoever—as if it soils you somehow—unless it's with caffeine, alcohol or antidepressants of course...
The fact is, though, Sagan was always a controversial figure among his peers. His raw scientific prowess was criticized by those who looked hard at his shoddy biology work and his half-assed mathematical abilities. We might very well attribute a certain degree of Sagan's intellectual sloppiness to his predilection for smoking fat joints.
However, Sagan's real genius lies elsewhere. He was not some kind of human computer, like Wolfgang Pauli. Consider that Sagan is considered to be the godfather of the infant science of astrobiology, or the study of non-terrestrial life. He earned this impressive credit not by performing years of exacting calculations, but by fomenting an exchange of ideas between scientists of previously unrelated fields, such as biology and astronomy. Even as a student he was bringing different disciplines together.
Therefore, Sagan's strongest, most productive methodological strategy was one of intellectual cross-pollination, or thinking “outside the box.” This kind of “associative” thinking, as opposed to a linear by-the-numbers style, is precisely the kind of thinking marijuana is known to encourage. Sunday morning bong hits might very well have dulled Wolfgang Pauli's razor edge, if he would have thought to try. But in Carl Sagan, we positively see how marijuana has helped a thinker to break new ground, improving society—and not just society, but all of Science. Irie, Carl!
Recommended reading: There is an assessment of Sagan's reputation among scientists in The Nemesis Affair by David Raup. Sagan's poor scientific prowess is detailed in Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky by Charles Ginenthal. On the other hand, Sagan's books, and his positive influence on society, are everywhere.