While ritual, emotion and reasoning are all significant aspects of human nature, the most nearly unique human characteristic is the ability to associate abstractly and to reason. Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are the emotional hallmarks of our species; and the most characteristically human activities are mathematics, science, technology, music and the arts--a somewhat broader range of subjects than is usually included under the "humanities." Indeed, in its common usage this very word seems to reflect a peculiar narrowness of vision about what is human. Mathematics is as much a "humanity" as poetry.
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About Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan was a 20th-century American scientist and science communicator. Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. Initially an assistant professor at Harvard, Sagan later moved to Cornell, where he was the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. Read more on Wikipedia →