Science and Innovation

Ann Druyan is a writer, screenwriter, activist, producer and audiovisual director specializing in the popularization of science. She was the creative director of NASA’s Voyager Golden Record in 1977, a compilation of images and sounds depicting humanity intended to inform potential extraterrestrial civilizations about human culture. Together with her late husband, astrophysicist Carl Sagan, she created the series Cosmos, A Personal Voyage (1980), and launched two more seasons after his death: Cosmos, A Spacetime Odyssey (2014) and Cosmos, Possible Worlds (2020). For 10 years, she was the elected secretary of the Federation of American Scientists and, at the age of 75, she was awarded the Nat Award in October 2024, in recognition of her work in popularizing science and promoting scientific vocations. We talk with her about the importance of asking questions and the need for research to understand our role in the universe and on our own planet.

How do you feel after receiving the Nat Award?

I feel deeply honored, I hope I deserve it. Personally, I have been fortunate to follow the path that made me happy. I am excited too because this is my first time  in Barcelona.

Did you know that there is a growing ecosystem of science and innovation in Barcelona?

I am happy to hear that because I sincerely believe that any society that truly values science will be more humane, that is, more capable of loving nature as it is and appreciating it as science reveals it to us.

Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself, are you currently working on any projects?

I am currently producing two films. One is a documentary with National Geographic about the life of Carl Sagan, who was my collaborator and my husband, the father of my children. And the other is a fictionalized dramatization of the creation of the Voyager interstellar message in the context of my romantic relationship with him. I am also writing my memoirs.

Can science and romanticism coexist?

Of course! On one hand, I love science because it is dispassionate in gathering the data and scrutinizing it without emotion, trying to look at the information as objectively as possible. Yet, once you experience a scientific insight, you should celebrate it and enjoy it. What would be the point if you don’t? There is nothing wrong in taking what little we know about nature and feeling it. Even while remembering that it is not an absolute truth, that it is only a small part of the reality you have managed to gain. It’s as if, in the search for gold, after removing all odds and ends, all the bias and prejudice…, you find the tiny treasure that remains.

In your book Cosmos, you talk about other possible worlds formed by different beings… Why are they so fascinating to you?

Because the tendency is to think that the way things are is the only way they can be, but you have to turn this belief upside down. It fascinates me, for example, to read about exoplanets so different from ours. There are so many worlds in the universe…. Out of trillions of planets we have only managed to spy from a distance at fewer than, maybe, 10,000, so what do we know? We can’t dismiss the possibility that there is another world that is “us”. In fact, it is more plausible that there is one. I often dream that someone finds the Golden Record (the interstellar messages sent on the Voyager spacecraft) and, in fact, I do not so much imagine what the extraterrestrial beings would be like, but rather what their reaction would be. Of course, in my dreams that reaction is positive, but who knows…?

Do you think that artificial intelligence will help us get closer to these other worlds?

Surely yes. It is true that science and technology can always be misused, but I am old enough to have heard the same thing about any other technological innovation: television, the Internet… and I am excited about what AI can do to help us answer our questions.

As for those questions, which ones did you and Carl Sagan ask decades ago that still linger in our minds?

First: “Are we alone in the universe?”. In the early 1960s, a small number of scientists, including Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, risked their scientific careers by asking this question, as the idea of extraterrestrial life and the search for intelligent life or life of any kind in the universe was scandalous. And yet, it is a question we often ask ourselves. Another question is: “Will we survive as a species?” That is, will we outlive our technological adolescence, in which we are at war with each other, with little awareness of the effect this has on our planet? Will we stop it in time? Or will we spoil our home so that the quality of life for our children and grandchildren will deteriorate, so that they will curse us? But to ask these questions, it is essential to think on the timescales that science can provide us with.

What scientific developments would you like to share with him, if you could?

The various space telescopes, James Webb Space Telescope, the Kepler, the thousands of exoplanets that we now know circle other suns. He would be excited about the research being done at the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, to develop interstellar scenarios to identify life on distant worlds. It is tragic that he died so young and missed so much of what has happened. Although, shortly before he died, Carl gave to then Vice President Al Gore, a former student and friend of his, a roadmap for the next 20 years of planetary exploration that had a major influence on NASA. So much so that The New York Times years later published an article with the headline “Even In Death, Carl Sagan’s Influence Is Still Cosmic.” It would be fun to be able to share it with him as well.

After the death of your life partner and mutual source of inspiration, did what had been your joint project change in any way?

His absence was unbearable for a while, but I wanted to continue his work, because it was also mine and I loved it. I had a vision of what future seasons of Cosmos could be and there were more science stories I wanted to tell, and I wanted to inspire other young people to become scientists. I also have three wonderful sons, all of whom are writers. Among them is Sam Sagan, who was involved in the second and third seasons of Cosmos, and we are now working together on other projects with Brannon Braga, famous as co-creator of the Star Trek franchise.

What would you say to scientists who may be working intensely on their research but remain isolated from the rest of the world?

Well, this is one of the areas in which science can improve: in starting to instill a sense of community. This is something that religion has been very good at and science has not. But we have to create, I think, a community that fosters more the work of young researchers, and teaches them to communicate with society. Science should not be a small priesthood, an elite, a tiny group that understands arcane language and methodology. Science should be a democracy. Sharing, sharing science. Saying: “This is also you”. Until very recently, the Western scientific community was essentially made up of white men. That’s why we wrote the script for the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster, and years later I contacted Neil deGrasse Tyson (an African-American astrophysicist and science communicator) to be the host narrator of Cosmos: to change these stereotypes about who a scientist should be. We have to break down these walls that exclude people.

Would you say that scientific knowledge is reaching society?

Unfortunately, the vast majority see science as a collection of amazing facts, but to be kept apart, while unconsciously bearing a whole series of beliefs that have never been subjected to the same scrutiny that science demands. The reality is that we live in a tiny pale blue dot and what we have to communicate is that if we destroy the environment we need to thrive, no one will come to save us from ourselves, and that is why it is an emergency. That we have to act consciously because resources belong not only to us, but also to the next and the next and the next generation. These are the timescales that science is trying to show us.

How do you think we are educating the next generations in science? Are we showing them how to be curious, the ability to ask questions and see beyond?

I think there are bright spots. Children are born scientists who ask “Why, why, why…?”. And I think that in kindergarten, from time to time, they should be allowed to stay up very late (which they love), in little groups, and look at the night sky. And then we should show them the stars, explain to them what little we know about where we are and when we are in the history of this universe, and the possibility of other universes. In a very simple, very loving way. So that they are not afraid of the dark, so that they understand that this is where we live, in the Milky Way: “Look, you are here!”. Then, we could show them the excitement of joining generations of scientists, telling them, “You are a link in a chain that goes back a couple of million years, and even before that, you are a part of it, we are a species of researchers trying to find out where we are and when we are in the universe, we have so many questions and so few answers, you have the ability to help us on this very long and intricate path, join us, it’s a holy, magical quest.”

That’s what I would like to see, for everyone to feel at home in this place, as questioning beings.