Richard Dawkins and ultracrepidarianism | Letters

Does science have a cure for ultracrepidarianism? Richard Dawkins (What's in a number, Review, 4 June) quotes one of his favourite writers: "Complete knowledge is just within our grasp." In fact we don't even have the knowledge to handle many of the problems science has made.

About a month after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the distinguished physicist David Bohm, then a young man, dreamed that science had been ruined. This was wrong, but such despair at the destructive power now released is understandable. Many people, including scientists, have shared, and share that despair.