Intelligence and tool-making were our strengths from the beginning. We used these talents to compensate for the paucity of the natural gifts - speed, flight, venom, burrowing, and the rest- freely distributed to the other animals, so it seemed, and cruelly denied to us. From the time of the domestication of fire and the elaboration of stone tools, it was obvious that our skills could be used for evil as well as for good. But it was not until very recently that it dawned on us that even the benign use of our intelligence and our tools might - because we are not smart enough to foresee all consequences- put us at risk.

- Carl Sagan, Billions and Billions.