Paul Laufman made several derogatory comments regarding my "Other Voices" column of March 13. Unfortunately, he wastes a lot of ink refuting arguments I never presented.One would have to be a Luddite of epic proportions to deny the contributions of science, and nothing in my column suggested this. I am heartily grateful to science for the privileged conditions of modern life. However, with privilege comes responsibility. My thesis (to which Laufman never referred) had nothing to do with science. Its focus, clearly stated in the second paragraph, was that the general public has lapsed into a type of "magical thinking" …