You say that as if we have any sort of choice in the matter. There has always been science and technology - they are amongst the signifiers of our very humanity, and necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention. The very EVOLUTION of technology, as beautifully depicted in the classic jump-cut from bone tool to space-craft in the film 2001, is part / parcel of the evolutionary process that governs everything anyway.

Without it we wouldn't be having this discussion. To be sure, given the amount of medicaments my life is currently dependent upon, I wouldn't be here to have it at all, at all.

I might similarly despair at the disrepair we've wrought on poor old mother earth, but we parted company from Nature's Rule many thousands of years ago. Science, is actually bringing us home, whilst preparing us for a greater destiny, supposing we don't fuck it up once and for all. But my folklore is that of the Cold War; the Bomb is part of nature too and it isn't about to go away any time soon.

We are the alchemists of nature, able to transfigure the mineral deposits of a billion years into a mighty ocean going liner, or a spacecraft bound for the outer reaches of interstellar space. As someone might have said: 'They say God created Mankind; but Mankind, sir, Mankind invented the Steam Engine!