The challenge we face today is the possible stagnation of scientific progress. We can respond with indifference, activism, or rebellion.

What about biotechnology, including genetic engineering? It has encountered severe opposition, and its political future remains gravely in doubt. Information technology has not yet become the target of retrograde political movements, but this could well happen in the near future, especially in reaction to the increasing government ability to conduct intrusive surveillance by means of computer networks.

Progress will not simply happen automatically. We must take action. We must take risks. We must accept the challenge.

In the end, I fear, many of us may be forced into rebellion against the power structures of traditional society.

Social movements operating entirely outside the powerful institutions of society seldom succeed. Successful movements generally operate both inside and outside.

Absolutely essential will be creative communication of new ideas.

In the long term, revival of the scientific imagination will mean the death of many popular illusions, so the public will resist it.

A sorely neglected area is rigorous research on culture, not replacing the humanities which have their own values and reason for existing, but creating alongside the humanities a new quantitative anthropology, perhaps modeling culture mathematically as a complex, evolving system.