The scientific world is to be less threatening than was feared. It is to made safe for human beings. And the way to make it safe is to reflect on the foundation of knowledge.

In Michigan recently a man won a lawsuit for substantial damages because, he claimed, a rear-end collision in his car had made him a homosexual.

There are normal times when it is wholly admirable to be steadfast, resolute, unconflicted, and therefore when integrity is unmistakenly a virtue. The person of integrity knows what to do, and does it. But as we have been exploring, there are also times when certainty and single-mindedness indicate something less admirable: a deafness to voices that should be heard or a blindness to aspects of a situation that need to be considered.

The absolutist parades his good solid grounding in observation, reason, objectivity, truth and fact; the relativist sees only fetishes.

The absolutist takes himself to speak to the ages, with the tongue of angels, but the relativist hears only one version among others, the subjectivity of the here and now.

The absolutist trumpets his plain vision; the relativist sees only someone who is unaware of his own spectacles.

People who have cut their teeth on philosophical problems of rationality, knowledge, perception, free will and other minds are well placed to think better about problems of evidence, decision making, responsibility and ethics that life throws up.