One can certainly be both agnostic and speculative at the same time. We see this asset in the mindsets that give us science fiction. The authors do not have to believe what they are writing is 'factual', rather, they extrapolate insightfully from present fact... towards insight, understanding... and 'a bigger position than our ordinary habits permit'.

At the same time, researchers and scientists exist in a cultural, linguistic/conceptual, and paradigmatic milieu. We all do. The requirements of the mainstream scientific venture are often bizarre, and prone to attack or denigrate anything that 'doesn't match up' with the established forms and the often quite primitive concepts that have become like shibboleths. I mean this in the sense that, if you don't fly the prevailing conceptual flags—you don't 'belong'.

Your work, Dr. Loeb, has made some progress towards breaking some long-standing deleterious behavior in established science. That behavior, in which one must bow constantly to the existing 'idols' of paradigm and concept, needs to be broken. It's not science when we're making unjustified presumptions about the nature of phenomena, and we must include some concern or understanding with the nature of human cognition and social behavior in this amalgam, as well.

I had the chance to address questions to an NHI. Although I asked some questions related to physics, my questions weren't really about the mechanics of the universe... but rather, its nature. The answers I received were far beyond anything I've ever dared to imagine. And I suppose that's fitting, given how my parents named me.