It is strange, to me, to look back at history and prehistory to see how my understanding of the world has increased, how humans are now able to live longer and healthier lives, how superstition has given way to science, and culture has flourished, and not see that as progress.

Much of this progress has been down to the advance of science as a way of understanding the world and of developing technologies to improve our lives. There are certainly big challenges facing us now, but we don’t need to resign ourselves to despair or ignorance. Instead we can afford to be optimistic about the potential to improve lives by human effort.