User Profile

I am a materials physicist who owns and operates an independent materials analysis laboratory. I decided I would be a physicist when I was 10 years old, though I was thinking more along the lines of being a rocket scientist then. Being very practical-minded, I later developed an interest in materials. When 17, I read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and it appealed very strongly to me, both for its rationality and for its sense that achievement was honorable and life-affirming. I then read Atlas Shrugged and loved it. I very critically evaluated Ayn Rand's philosophy and in that process acquired her newsletter and read all the past issues very carefully. When I was done, I knew that she was right in the philosophical essentials and decided I was an Objectivist. I then went to Brown University (1965) and immediately took on hordes of socialists and a few Christians in bull sessions and honed a talent for rocking their confidence in their beliefs. Over the next couple of years at Brown, I found a few similarly-minded good friends, such as Larry Bellows, Roger Donway, and David Kelley. I have always remained an Objectivist, though I soon realized that some Objectivists behaved like cult members and did not exhibit the open-mindedness one needs to critically and frequently check their premises and to learn new ideas. I vowed that my first allegiance was not to any group, but to reality and the knowledge of it. For this reason, I enthusiastically support the quest for knowledge and the on-going development of Objectivism as it has been carried on by my friend David Kelley at The Objectivist Center. We have always agreed that our quest is to correctly identify reality, as is that of any practicing Objectivist. We have never been afraid of engaging those who disagree with us in debate and discussion. If Objectivists do not engage in the discussion of ideas with those who maintain other viewpoints, we can only become a cult and be seen as such. A cult may be right, though it will not long be able to stay grounded in reality, and be ineffective in moving others to share their viewpoint. If I can discuss ideas with socialists and Christians, I can certainly also discuss them with libertarians, for example. Indeed, while I am not a socialist and not a Christian, I am a libertarian, albeit of a particular kind. We should remember that the Framers of the Constitution of the United States achieved a world-changing transformation in political practice, but held many differing viewpoints on many philosophical, ethical, and political issues. One of the great tragedies of our time is that most people are now afraid to debate and discuss the important issues, since it is politically incorrect to hurt anyone's feelings no matter how irrational they may be. It is even considered wrong to enter a debate and win it, since the loser may have hurt feelings. We have become a society which is very uncomfortable with reality and the affirmation of reason as our chief means of living in this real world.

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