Humans may or may not have cosmic significance, and if they do, it will be by hitching a ride on the objective centrality of knowledge in the cosmic scheme of things.

No precautions, and no precautionary principle, can avoid problems that we do not yet foresee. We need a stance of problem-fixing, not just problem-avoidance.

The whole [scientific] process resembles biological evolution. A problem is like an ecological niche, and a theory is like a gene or a species which is being tested for viability in that niche.

Every problem that is interesting is also soluble.

The theory that the biosphere was created without evolution, a few thousand years ago, is ruled out by overwhelming scientific evidence. To claim that there are 'alternative (always better) Biblical explanations of the same data', which make creationism a reasonable alternative to our best theories of biology and physics, is appalling intellectual dishonesty.

I don't think it would be a good idea for scientists to have more political power. Scientists as a group are more inclined to try to derive an ought from an is, than the population at large.

If you reject the infinite, you are stuck with the finite, and the finite is parochial... the best explanation of anything eventually involves universality, and therefore infinity. The reach of explanations cannot be limited by fiat.