There is no control and no all-powerful creator, either – no more ‘God’ than man – but there is care, scruple, cautiousness, attention, contemplation, hesitation and revival.

The only shibboleth the West has is science. It is the premise of modernity and it defines itself as a rationality capable of, indeed requiring separation from politics, religion and really, society. Modernisation is to work towards this.

Scientists are very much entangled in their culture and this culture is not pristine, untouched by other cultures and practices.

You who are on the inside, this world terrifies you because, according to you, it’s ‘without a divine master’. But don’t you see that it’s also without a human master? You who are on the outside, this call for renewal of ‘God’ horrifies you because, according to you, it would bring back the old tyranny of the divine. Don’t you see that this world is forever without a creator?

My interest is that there is a disconnect between the science and the size of the threat that people mention about nature, the planet and the climate, and the emotion that this triggers. So we are supposed to be extremely frightened people, but despite that we appear to sleep pretty well.

If one looks at the works of Newton to Einstein, they were never scientists in the way modernity understands the term.