The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan
Published 2006 · 162,748 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Science & Nature
How hard is The Varieties of Scientific Experience to read?
The Varieties of Scientific Experience scores 23 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 30 out of 100
- Scientific and philosophical terms. Accessible.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Abstraction: 38 out of 100
- Big questions about God and the cosmos.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Dense with scientific and philosophical argument.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Lecture structure. Direct.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- The cosmos as source of awe and meaning.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Gentle skepticism with genuine wonder.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- The God question is left genuinely open.
- Structural complexity: 18 out of 100
- Nine lectures in sequence.
How The Varieties of Scientific Experience is regarded
The Varieties of Scientific Experience holds a literary regard score of 46 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.