Philosophy used to be a field that had content, but then 'natural philosophy' became physics, and physics has only continued to make inroads. Every time there's a leap in physics, it encroaches on these areas that philosophers have carefully sequestered away to themselves, and so then you have this natural resentment on the part of philosophers.
The notion that anyone in the 21st century could take seriously the notion that the sun orbits the Earth, or that the Earth is the center of the universe, is almost unbelievable.
What we can do is provide the tools, through our educational system, for people to be able to tell sense from nonsense. These tools include the scientific method, skeptical questioning, empirical evidence, verifying sources, etc.
One thing I cannot understand - and people are probably going to be upset about this - is why local school boards have control over educational content.
I used to read a lot of science fiction when I was younger.
Scientists don't read theology; they don't read philosophy. It doesn't make any difference to what they're doing - for better or worse, it may not be a value judgment, but it's true.
I was most eager to see how Trump would respond to the climate-change question.
Cabinet members may disagree and even resign in protest, but, ultimately, they must obey the order of the Commander-in-Chief.
It's all too easy to imagine Trump issuing an ultimate, thermonuclear 'You're fired!' to China, Iran, or another nation - and perhaps to the whole human race.
When considering real-world issues, particularly those that touch on science and technology, it is harder to speak in platitudes or rely purely on emotion or fear. Substance, or its lack, becomes harder to mimic or mask, which is why I wish we had a true televised presidential debate on these subjects.
Donald Trump's candidacy has been a source of anxiety for many reasons, but one stands out: the ability of the president to launch nuclear weapons. When it comes to starting a nuclear war, the president has more freedom than he or she does in, say, ordering the use of torture.
Either Trump only talks to those who play up to his delusion, or he simply doesn't listen to those who might burst his bubble. Either way, that is a cause for worry.
The Internet is a clear example of how our lives have changed in ways we couldn't have imagined: a distributed information source, which is invisible to everyone, where you can access anything, and it's distributed throughout the whole world. Basically, communication is instantaneous.
When it comes to the things that people really want in science fiction - like space travel - the simplest things end up causing them not to happen. Humans are 100-pound bags of water, built to live on Earth.
If I knew what the next big thing was, I'd be doing it now.
As a physicist, I've always found cosmology to be a rational elixir; it distances me from ordinary concerns.
Immediately after the San Bernardino shooting, when it was unclear whether Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were motivated by a terroristic ideology, the focus of the conversation was on gun laws.
