For the record: Quantum mechanics does not deny the existence of objective reality. Nor does it imply that mere thoughts can change external events. Effects still require causes, so if you want to change the universe, you need to act on it.
Neutrinos alone, among all the known particles, have ethereal properties that are striking and romantic enough both to have inspired a poem by John Updike and to have sent teams of scientists deep underground for 50 years to build huge science-fiction-like contraptions to unravel their mysteries.
We should provide the meaning of the universe in the meaning of our own lives. So I think science doesn't necessarily have to get in the way of kind of spiritual fulfillment.
To the extent that we even understand string theory, it may imply a massive number of possible different universes with different laws of physics in each universe, and there may be no way of distinguishing between them or saying why the laws of physics are the way they are. And if I can predict anything, then I haven't explained anything.
One might rationally argue that individual human beings should be free choose what moral behavior they approve of, and which they don't, subject to the constraints of the law.
Teaching and writing, to me, is really just seduction; you go to where people are and you find something that they're interested in and you try and use that to convince them that they should be interested in what you have to say.
When a person's religious beliefs cause him to deny the evidence of science, or for whom public policy morphs into a battle with the devil, shouldn't that be a subject for discussion and debate?
I have always felt that, aside from research that violates universal human mores, when it comes to technological applications, that which can be done will be done.
Life has survived for more than three billion years because it is robust, and almost no mutations can easily outwit the defense mechanisms built up through eons of exposure to potential pathogens.
When it comes to the real operational issues that govern our understanding of physical reality, ontological definitions of classical philosophers are, in my opinion, sterile.
The rise of a ubiquitous Internet, along with 24-hour news channels has, in some sense, had the opposite effect from what many might have hoped such free and open access to information would have had. It has instead provided free and open access, without the traditional media filters, to a barrage of disinformation.
