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An image shared on Facebook claims that American astronomer Carl Sagan said, If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth. Verdict: False There is no evidence that Sagan made this statement. It may be a version of an expression written by American fantasy author P.C. Hodgell . Fact Check: An award-winning astronomer and popular science writer, Sagan helped establish , among other scientific contributions , that a strong greenhouse effect likely caused the high temperatures experienced on Venus today. Sagan is perhaps best known for writing and hosting the 1980 space documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage . The Emmy Award-winning series explored topics ranging from the origins of the universe to the possibility of extraterrestrial life. In 2014, 21st Century Fox released a follow-up called Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey , hosted by astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson . (RELATED: Did Einstein Say, ‘Creativity Is Contagious. Pass It On’?) Though Sagan was a proponent of scientific inquiry throughout his career, there is no evidence he made the statement attributed to him in the Facebook post. I never heard of that quote, and it does not look at all like something Carl would have said, Steven Soter , an astrophysicist and co-writer of Cosmos, told The Daily Caller in an email. The website Quote Investigator suggests that the quote may actually be derived from a line in Hodgell’s fantasy novel Seeker’s Mask in which a character states, That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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