"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster."   Not attributed.  Of course we are dependent, but then farmers know little about organic chemistry but have done fine.

That quotation is usually attributed to Carl Sagan, from an interview in the 1990s. The wording varies slightly depending on the source, but the sentiment is recognizably his.

Your objection gets at an important weakness in the quote.

A modern farmer may know little formal organic chemistry, but that does not mean he knows nothing relevant. A good farmer often possesses an immense body of practical knowledge: soils, weather, pests, plant diseases, machinery, markets, and animal husbandry. Much of that knowledge was accumulated empirically long before the scientific explanations were understood.

In fact, this has been true throughout history. Sailors crossed oceans before fluid dynamics. Builders erected cathedrals before structural engineering. Blacksmiths made excellent steel before metallurgy was a science. People can use a technology effectively without understanding the theory behind it.

What Sagan was worried about, I think, was something slightly different. Not that every citizen should understand quantum mechanics, semiconductor physics, and molecular biology, but that a society becomes vulnerable when:

    Few people understand how critical systems actually work.

    The public cannot distinguish expertise from nonsense.

    Political decisions involving science are made by people who cannot evaluate scientific claims.

    Citizens become unable to tell the difference between evidence and authority.

You don't need to understand how a transistor works to use a smartphone. But if someone tells you that 5G towers control minds, or that perpetual-motion machines can solve the energy crisis, a basic scientific habit of mind becomes useful.

There is also a division-of-labor argument. No individual can understand more than a tiny fraction of modern civilization. I have no idea how to design a jet engine, perform heart surgery, refine petroleum, or fabricate computer chips. Yet society functions because specialists do, and because the rest of us can generally identify which specialists are worth listening to.

One might even reformulate Sagan's concern:

    A society does not require everyone to understand science and technology. It requires enough people to understand them, and enough trust and institutions to connect that expertise to the rest of society.

That version is probably closer to how civilization has always worked—from medieval farmers to modern computer users. The danger is not ignorance itself; it is ignorance coupled with misplaced confidence or the breakdown of reliable expertise.

That's an interesting storytelling technique when it's done well: showing consequences without turning the script into a lecture.

I'm not sure whether you mean The Royals (the drama about a fictional British royal family) or The Royle Family (the British sitcom). If it's The Royle Family, smoking was almost part of the furniture of the house—characters smoking casually, as many people did—and the health consequences were simply woven into life rather than presented as a public-service announcement.

One of the strengths of British television has often been a willingness to trust the audience. Rather than having a character deliver a speech about the dangers of smoking, the writers may simply show:

    the cough,

    the shortness of breath,

    the doctor's visit,

    the family adapting to illness.

The viewer connects the dots.

In many cases that is more persuasive than explicit advocacy. A sermon invites resistance; a believable character living with consequences invites observation. Charles Dickens often worked the same way with social problems. He rarely stopped the story to present a policy paper. He showed people living through the consequences of debtors' prisons, child labor, or bureaucratic incompetence and let readers draw conclusions.

It reminds me of an old writing principle: show, don't tell. If a character lights his first cigarette in one episode and spends later seasons climbing stairs one step at a time, the audience hardly needs a narrator to explain the point.

Which series were you thinking of? The title "The Royals" makes me think of the modern drama, but the smoking comment makes me wonder if you might mean The Royle Family.

The one the presented itself as dramatized history of the twentieth century Windsors, and in particular to the death of Elizabeth's father.

Ah, then you're talking about The Crown, not The Royals.

I agree with your observation. One of the clever things The Crown did was portray smoking as utterly normal for that era while simultaneously showing its consequences. There is no public-health speech, no doctor looking into the camera to say "smoking kills." Instead, cigarettes are simply everywhere: George VI, Churchill, Margaret, courtiers, politicians. The audience gradually notices that many of the people who smoke heavily end up paying a price. family members to quit. moral arrives on its own. tends to stick in the memory.

Elizabeth persuades her husband to stop, not with health warnings.  We see the kinng having lost a lung and Churchill reading between the lines and turning his attention to Elizabeth.

Yes, that is exactly the kind of understated storytelling that makes the point without making a point.

In The Crown, the issue is not presented as a modern public-health lesson. The writers are working within the historical world of the characters, where smoking was still deeply embedded in social life. The persuasion works because Elizabeth does not suddenly become a health educator; she appeals to her husband through their relationship and through the reality already in front of them.

The image of George VI's illness is especially powerful because it is not an abstract statistic. The audience has watched the King smoke, watched the strain of his duties, and then seen the consequences arrive. Churchill, too, is an interesting contrast: a man famous for his cigars and his refusal to be lectured, yet perceptive enough to understand what is happening when he sees the King's condition and Elizabeth's concern.

That approach is much closer to how people often actually change behavior. A warning like:

    "Smoking increases your risk of disease by X percent"

may be scientifically accurate, but people are often moved more by:

    "Look at what is happening to someone you love."

It is the same distinction between information and narrative. Facts tell you something is dangerous; a story lets you experience why it matters.

There is also a historical irony there. The British establishment of that era was full of people who knew, in a general sense, that smoking was not harmless. But knowledge alone often does not produce action. Habits are social, emotional, and tied to identity. Churchill's cigar was not merely tobacco; it was part of his public persona. George VI's cigarette was part of the rhythm of a stressful life.

The series handled that well because it trusted the viewer. It did not need a character to say, "Smoking is bad." It showed a king who smoked, a king who became ill, and a wife who cared enough to intervene. The audience draws the conclusion. That is usually more effective drama—and often more effective persuasion—than a lecture.