| | Thanks for the link, Nathan.
Inside that link, the first link is to an article penned by Adam Frank (an astrophysicist). Adam had good things to say, especially this:
Its one thing for physicists exploring carbon nanotubes to say they have no use for philosophy. Their work lives or dies by experimental data that can be collected tomorrow. But over the last few decades, cosmology and foundational physics have become dominated by ideas that that appear to take a page from science fiction and, more importantly, remain firmly untethered to data.
Concepts like hidden dimensions of reality (string theory) or hidden infinite possible parallel universes (the multiverse) are radical revisions of the very concept of reality. Since detailed contact with experimental data might be decades away, theorists have relied mainly on mathematical consistency and "aesthetics" to guide their explorations. In light of these developments, it seems absurd to dismiss philosophy as having nothing to do with their endeavors.
Make no mistake, philosophy (and the philosophy of science) are not about doing science. Instead, these fields ask entirely different kinds of questions. They explore the relation between the possible and the actual, the correct links between an argument and it's conclusions or the tension between theoretical models and claims of evidence for those models.
Recap:
A lot of professional physicists (e.g., Leonard Susskind) are existentialist brats, fabricating favorite pet theories and then attacking critics -- as if science is either a popularity game or a spontaneous exercise in self-discovery.
Ed
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