Jodie Foster's character had blind faith in aliens even while the movie takes potshots at religion. Her reason why aliens MUST exist was that if they didn't the whole universe is "a waste of space." And the aliens send them a ship schematic but when humans fail to blindly build it to their exact specifications it goes wrong and kills someone. Later, Jodie gets in an identical model and the human-added safety seat & harness almost shake her to death until she undoes them to get out of her seat in the middle of launch to grab the necklace that came loose (because it was from her daddy who was the first one to spout that "waste of space" line; she jumps in to bed with the second guy to use it, mere seconds after it comes out of his mouth), and discovers that the ride is very smooth WITHOUT the things the humans put in for their safety.

It was basically the Peter-walking-on-water story from the bible, implying that the humans almost killed themselves because they lacked faith in the aliens, and only putting your blind and unproven trust in the aliens can save you. And the character spends the whole movie yammering about how she can't accept religion because she's a scientist who doesn't accept anything without tangible proof. Except aliens and the absolute trust in their hyper-competence and benevolence.

I have strong doubts about Carl Sagan, if that's his idea of science and rational thought.

Also, "best scientist" is kind of a retarded way to put it, as it implies that there is some sort of objectively quantifiable skill at which he has demonstrated superior faculties. He actually came up with popular theories, that's it.