• This is a hypothesis which states that the popularity of a scientist among the general public is inversely proportional to his scientific accomplishment.
• That is, a scientist who spends too much effort making science popular among the masses is believed to be one whose scientific work is not the best.
• The Sagan effect is named after American astronomer Carl Sagan who popularised science among Americans through the famous 1980 science television series Cosmos. Sagan, a prolific scientist with several scientific papers to his name, suffered various professional setbacks because fellow scientists thought a science populariser cannot be a serious scientist.

Source:TH