Will there ever be a second coming of Einstein? I have my doubts.

Einstein seems bigger than modern physicists because, for the first half of the last century, physics mattered. These days, biology has displaced physics as the scientific enterprise with the most intellectual, practical and economic clout.

But science as a whole has lost its moral sheen. It has come to be perceived as just another guild pursuing its own selfish interests alongside truth and the common good.

Einstein didn't think he lived up to his own reputation either. "I am no Einstein," he once said.