Sagan Effect refers to the dilemma in which the research achievements made by a scientist is underestimated due to his great influence on public science education. This paper firstly analyzes the causes of Sagan Effect from three perspectives: the image of scientists, jealousy, and evaluation of research achievement. Secondly, by resorting to case studies and literature review, it summarizes the influence of Sagan Effect on public science education. Last but not the least, this paper puts forward the solution to the Sagan Effect dilemma from six aspects: changing the way of evaluating research achievement, changing the research grant system, encouraging citizen science projects, using new social media, reconstructing research achievement index system and nurturing celebrity scientists.

Sagan Effect  /  public science education  /  evaluation of research achievement