Clarke’s words represent a widespread way of thinking, especially among scientists and engineers. I was a devoted reader of his books, which are a fascinating synthesis of science and fantasy. With pleasure and nostalgia I remember a sun-filled afternoon more than thirty years ago: I saw him sitting with a friend on the terrace of the Hotel Mount Lavinia, on the outskirts of Colombo. The sea was beating against the shore, covering the cliffs of the tiny bay with a ragged mantle of bubbling foam. I didn’t dare to say one word to him: he impressed me as being a visitor from another planet … In the novelist’s statement about a new species there reappears, hidden beneath the science, the old speculative spirit that enlivened not only philosophy but also, more frequently, the visions of the prophets and founders of religions. Science began by forcing God out of the universe; it enthroned history, embodying it in redemptive ideologies or philanthropic civilizations; today it is replacing these with the scientist-engineer who builds machines more intelligent than their creator and possessing a freedom unknown to Lucifer and his rebel host. The religious imagination conceived of a God superior to his creatures; the technological imagination has conceived of an engineer-God inferior to his inventions.