The founder of modern ethology (the study of animal behaviour) wrote this in 1973:

“All the advantages that man has gained from his ever-deepening understanding of the natural world that surrounds him, his technological, chemical and medical progress, all of which should seem to alleviate human suffering … tends instead to favour human destruction”

Konrad Lorenz, Civilized Man’s 8 Deadly Sins (1973)

This from a scientist who generally described himself as an optimist !