Richard Dawkins

And so the question you ask, the answer is probably both.

That science provides, in the form of technology, weapons which hitherto have been only available to reasonably responsible governments, are likely to become available to nutcases.

who believe that their God requires them to wreak havoc and destruction.

That is possible.

And it's something we have to worry about.

The precautionary principle, I think, is very important.

Science is the most powerful way to do whatever it is you want to do.

And if you want to do good, it's the most powerful way of doing good.

If you want to do evil, it's the most powerful way to do evil.

Well, there is a suggestion that one of the reasons why we don't detect extraterrestrial civilizations is that when a civilization reaches the point where it's capable of broadcasting radio waves that we could pick up, there's only a brief window before it blows itself up.

That there's a brief window between discovering the advanced technology to communicate by radio, which we could then pick up, and producing the horrific technology, which then gets out of control.

Right.

So it may be that all over the universe, there are little civilizations winking into action.

briefly flashing into action for a few centuries and then killing themselves.

Not at all.

The point is that it takes many billions of years for evolution to reach the point where technology takes off.

Right.

But once technology takes off, it's then an eye blink...

by the standards of geological time.

I see.