The same thought occurred to me, but then I realized we still don't know if his discovery was beneficial. I don't think we'll know that until humanity spreads life beyond Earth and avoids killing the biosphere in a number of innovative ways (bathing it in nuclear fire being perhaps the most relevant to this discussion). It's only possible to excuse the millions of lives that ended in pain and death during the many wars we've had since industrialization, itself driven by scientific understanding, if there really is light at the end of the tunnel. Otherwise, I can't help but think we'd have been better off living in small, low-tech hamlets at the teetering edge of the natural world, filled with wrong but comforting ideas about the heavens.