Manufacturing creates wealth, services distribute it. - Gregory Benford

But these were mere passing irritants. Deeper were the systemic troubles. She stressed the many unknowns; the media wanted sharp answers to huge questions, preferably in a compact one-liner. She tried to emphasize the progressive questioning of her method and how all answers were provisional, awaiting confirmation; reporters liked zippy adventure and exciting guesses with, of course, striking visuals in primary colors.

Indeed, high-blown rhetoric plus uncheckable consequences were the two sure signatures of the crank.

The barely awake public, trained to the attention span of a commercial, thought that science had two children: either consumer yummies, served up by the handmaiden of technology, or else awesome wonders like the beauties of astronomy. The unsettling side they largely ignored, unless for the momentary shock value of, say, swollen insects doing disgusting things. But the root promise of science was of a world unshaped by humans. The expanses of time and space that stretched out from the human community were terrifying, and most avoided even thinking of them.