Carl Sagan on science and skepticism

Science is more than a body of knowledge.  It's a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.  If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan - political or religious - who comes ambling along.

It's a thing that Jefferson lay great stress on.  It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a Constitution or Bill of Rights.  The people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism and their education, otherwise we don't run the government; the government runs us.

~ Carl Sagan, interview with Charlie Rose, 3:00 mark, May 27, 1996