Others may turn to preachers for moral guidance. For my part, I shall
continue to look to some of my colleagues. Scientists have an ethical
code which I find quite admirable. Its central principle is intellectual
honesty, which I believe I understand and can judge for myself. I can see
many advantages of that over other central principles which I believe to
be so ill-defined as to require the expert interpretation of others. Two
such principles are "Obedience to God" and "Love of God". Both of these
seem to require an interlocutor in their traditional forms, and I am too
much of a committed democrat to accept such a hierarchy
Most physicists, in my experience, are not religious, so preachers have
little influence over them. I've come to consider that to be a good
thing. I will continue to look for wisdom in the writings of thoughtful
scientists, and I appreciate having these called to my attention from
time to time in this group. It is a tenet of intellectual honesty that
one does not adduce *ad hominem* arguments in discourse about contending
ideas. That is exactly what Brian did when he denigrated the ideas of
Einstein by labeling him a "womanizer". It is unimportant that this
characterization is probably thoroughly unjustified; the ideas speak for
themselves, and the only relevant fact about Einstein the man is that he
was a physicist who shared our tenets.