The biggest conceptual change over the last 100 years in the way physicists think about the world is symmetry.
The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.
Whatever the evolutionary basis of religion, the xenophobia it now generates is clearly maladaptive.
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.
For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.
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.
