[escepticos] -> Sagan and Firmage: Not So Perfect Together?

[Víctor R. Ruiz <rvr@...>]

  Hola:
  
  Los lectores de El Escéptico recordarán una noticia sobre Joe
Firmage, el 'crack' de los negocios de internet que cree que algunos
de los avances tecnológicos más importantes fueron obtenidos a través
de ingeniería inversa del hipotético platillo de Roswell.

  Pues bien. Firmage y Ann Druyan, representando a Carl Sagan
Productions, han llegado a un acuerdo millonario para poner en marcha
una productora de contenidos de divulgación científica en la red. 
Aquí está un artículo del Washington Post opinando sobre este extraño
matrimonio de conveniencia.

  Saludos,

----- Forwarded message from Larry Klaes <lklaes en bbn.com> -----

Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 12:07:17 -0400
From: Larry Klaes <lklaes en bbn.com>
Subject: Sagan and Firmage: Not So Perfect Together?


Source: Washington Post

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/columns/roughdraft/A29525-2000Jul12.
html

***

Sagan and Firmage: Not So Perfect Together?

Joel Achenbach can be reached by e-mail at

achenbachj en washpost.com.

You can find past Rough Draft columns at the archive page.

Wednesday, July 12, 2000; 1:51 PM

**

Carl Sagan is a modern-day hero of science. He inspired millions 
of people to ponder the beauty of the universe, and to 
understand that we are a tiny, precious fragment of the cosmos. 
But he also implored them to be skeptical, to resist 
superstition and pseudo-science. Sagan told everyone to keep an 
open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.

Now comes a bit of news that just about knocked me out of my 
chair. Joe Firmage, a Silicon Valley millionaire who became a 
highbrow UFO guru after he was visited in his bedroom by "a 
remarkable being clothed in brilliant white light," has signed a 
deal with Ann Druyan, head of Carl Sagan Productions ­ and 
Sagan's widow ­ to start a new company that will have a Web 
portal and produce science-based entertainment.

I want to resist the urge to start babbling hysterically about 
how wrong this is. But I do think the names "Firmage" and 
"Sagan" do not belong in the same sentence, unless separated by 
an extremely elaborate clause. Sagan promoted science and 
scientific thinking. Firmage talks about a bunch of bizarre 
stuff that Sagan would have rejected in a heartbeat.

Sagan said aliens probably aren't here. Firmage says they 
probably are. It's not a trivial philosophical distinction.

To be fair, Firmage is a cut above 90 percent of the folks who 
work in the field of "anomalies." He's incredibly smart. He's 
successful, having started the Internet services firm USWeb 
before leaving to pursue his UFO interests. He's not crazy. He 
doesn't scream or rant. He's a perfectly genial fellow.

He's also ambitious. Firmage has said he wants to start a 
movement. Two years ago he pounded out a rambling book, modestly 
called "The Truth," and put it up on the Internet, but he's 
since taken it down, which means we can't link to the part where 
the mysterious entity in his bedroom emits an electric blue 
sphere that enter's Firmage's body and triggers "the most 
unimaginable ecstasy I have ever experienced, a pleasure vastly 
beyond orgasm."

Druyan has been a fierce defender of her husband's legacy. She's 
passionate about scientific reasoning. Why would she go into 
business with Firmage? How could she do it?

Her answer: the new venture will not allow Firmage to advance 
his fringe theories. There is a specific legal agreement that 
prevents Firmage from doing so, she said.

"It unequivocably states that if I feel that Carl's legacy has 
in any way been besmirched by any statement made in the name of 
our company, then I walk and I'll take everything with me. 
Nothing less than that can protect the legacy," Druyan told me.

I asked her if this was an unholy alliance. She said no.

"Carl and I worked with a lot of people over the last few 
decades who had conventional religious beliefs that in some ways 
are as remote from what I believe as what Joe Firmage believes," 
she said.

Firmage said, "I want to tread lightly." But he made clear that 
his new media company ­ he'll run the Web portal and Druyan will 
head the production studio ­ will deal with the kinds of 
theories that interest him.

"Will I use this media company to inequitably promote my view? 
No," he said. But he said it would "absolutely" deal, 
responsibly, with "science anomalies."

The "historic joint venture," as the press release puts it, is 
code-named Project Voyager. It has $23 million in venture 
capital behind it. I will admit that despite reading the press 
release and talking to Firmage and Druyan I remain a bit fuzzy 
on what this company will actually do. The press release calls 
it "a new kind of media network that intends to transform 
entertainment and learning drawn from the rapidly expanding 
knowledge base of science." The production studio will make TV 
shows and movies, which will be promoted on the Web site 
alongside news articles and other educational material. In the 
press release, Druyan says, "There is a hunger for myths, images 
and dreams that do justice to our radically altered sense of 
who, where and when we are ... And where we might go and who we 
might become."

Right.

Firmage will be tempted use his new company to promote his 
theories about breakthrough physics. He appears to believe that 
a small group of scientists have discovered a heretofore secret 
property of the universe that will someday allow us to extract 
limitless energy from the "vacuum" of space, cancel the inertial 
mass of an object, build faster-than-light spaceships, and zip 
around the cosmos at the snap of a finger.

That imminent breakthrough could explain why aliens are here, 
snooping around, checking us out. They know we're about to go 
galactic. They want to give us the ground rules, maybe.

It's hard to know how much of this Firmage really believes and 
how much of it he is merely entertaining with his very open 
mind. But if humans and aliens get together soon in a formal 
way, Firmage wants to be at the table.

Firmage argues that he believes in science. He says he only goes 
where the facts lead him. But I have an unfortunate fact to 
report: Everyone working in the world of anomalies ­ of UFOs, 
near-death experiences, reincarnation, cattle mutilations, crop 
circles, psychokinesis, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and so on 
­ says exactly the same thing. We're scientific! We're not 
crazy! We just want to stick to the facts, and the facts tell us 
there are enormous hairy proto-humans lumbering through the 
Oregon forests!

Firmage doesn't say that aliens are necessarily here right now. 
But he thinks it's "highly likely" that we've been visited at 
some point. A small group of people have had knowledge about 
this issue for the past fifty years, he said.

"I believe that the most economical explanation for some number 
of UFOS is extraterrestrial visitation," he said. "Ann disagrees 
with that view. Both of us agree to let science arbitrate."

Firmage has also been talking with The Planetary Society, which 
was founded by Sagan in 1980 to increase public support for 
space science. Some kind of business deal could be announced at 
any time. Firmage offers one thing to the keepers of the Sagan 
flame: Money. He has been able to raise tens of millions of 
dollars in venture capital. What they offer Firmage, in turn, is 
a big shot of credibility.

The SETI Institute, meanwhile, said no to Firmage. All these 
groups need the kind of money Firmage has, but they need their 
good reputations, too, and SETI, which takes on the already 
rather spectacular goal of detecting alien civilizations through 
scientific techniques, doesn't need to get mixed up with a UFO 
person.

Sagan's longtime friend and colleague, Frank Drake, the head of 
the SETI Institute, told me that a deal with Firmage's firm 
could have meant sizable streams of revenue coming into his 
organization. But it wasn't the right thing to do.

"Any connection with Firmage, no matter what disclaimers you put 
on your site, people will take this as an endorsement of the 
views of Firmage. This would damage our image in the minds of 
many of our scientific colleagues and members of the general 
public, including major donors who support us," Drake said.

There is a thought I've clung to as I've ruminated about this 
latest move by Firmage. It is that Sagan's legacy isn't up for 
grabs, no matter who strikes what deal. Sagan's name can't be 
bought. He put his ideas on the record. He wrote books. The 
books had readers, and those readers are not stupid.

We know the difference between Carl Sagan and Joe Firmage.

© 2000 The Washington Post Company

----- End forwarded message -----

  Saludetes,

-----------------------------------------
Víctor R. Ruiz               rvr en ulpgc.es
Subdirección de Comunicaciones
Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
-----------------------------------------