Much in what he says …

… Enlightenment without end. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Our lives are daily transformed by technological spin-offs from the accelerating advance of scientific knowledge. But this has not meant the end of myth-making or magical thinking. Quite the contrary: science has itself become a vehicle for myth and magic. The belief that science can abolish immemorial evils is plainly magical thinking, and yet it continues to be widely accepted. How often have we been told that science can banish famines? No doubt new technologies can make physical shortage of food a thing of the past but science cannot prevent catastrophic famines of the kind that is now engulfing Yemen, for example. The causes of such famines are not in physical scarcity but human behaviour. If millions starve to death in that unfortunate country, it will be because of a reckless war. The growth of scientific knowledge does not make human beings more reasonable. It merely gives some of them more power to do what they want. Rather than irrational behaviour being eliminated, science has magnified the scale and consequences of human crime and folly.