I think there was never a time when scientists have not held poetic imagination.How true, TFF. Thank you for recasting my proposition so graciously, and so persuasively.
Your point [and Sagan's] explains how we get there, and "method" is the only means, I agree.
But it all starts with imagination.
Lord Francis Bacon (still recognized as "the father of modern science") said:
"To enter the kingdom of knowledge, as into the kingdom of heaven, one must become as a little child."Little wonder, no thunder.
If "method" is king
Imagination is queen.
We need to get them between the sheets to produce heirs.
Method is the analyst
Imagination the catalyst.
