Word: sagan
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...Dragons of Eden begins with a summary of how and when intelligence developed in various terrestrial species. In detail, Sagan describes the process of natural selection working toward the emergence of the creature Shakespeare called "the paragon of animals." Sagan also explains differences in the structure of the paragon's brain and those of other animals. He offers some idiosyncratic thoughts on why man's neurological legacy makes him behave the way he does...
...human brain, he points out, evolved from the brain of the reptile, one of whose species the Bible holds responsible for the Fall. According to Sagan, the reptilian brain, which forms the most primitive part of the human brain, still influences man's behavior and may help explain one of his oldest fears - the apparently inherent squeamishness about snakes. "When we feared the dragons," inquires the astronomer, "were we fearing a part of ourselves...
...Sagan also wonders if the human fear of falling is not a memory inherited from our arboreal ancestors, who lived in trees and suffered when they forgot the effects of gravity. He speculates too on the reason for dreams. Many neuroscientists believe that dreaming is less a working out of subconscious desires than the means by which humans "debug" or rewrite the mental programs they have picked up during the day. But if this is so, Sagan wonders, why do infants, who presumably have little or no experience to sort out, seem to dream just as much as their elders...
...trying so hard to reach. Intelligent organisms evolving on another world may not resemble man physically or be anything like him biochemically. But they are likely to reason similarly, for whatever their worlds, they are still subject to the same laws of chemistry and physics. "Natural selection," writes Sagan, "has served as a kind of intellectual sieve, producing brains and intelligences increasingly competent to deal with the laws of nature ... the same evolutionary winnowing must have occurred on other worlds that have evolved intelligent beings...
...Sagan's speculations are sound, the prospects of using physical laws to establish contact with such a civilization are encouraging. So are the prospects of communicating with it. Many of the scientists now beaming signals into the ether might find themselves speechless if someone - or something - should answer. They can always use the author as an interpreter. Carl Sagan already knows how to communicate with lay men. Any scientist who can perform that feat should find talking to extraterrestrials as easy...