[throw4847285]

Technology is much more ideologically laden than science (at least ideally). Science on its own does not have a purpose other than the acquisition of knowledge. Once you choose what to do with it, and especially once you use it to make a consumer product, you are no longer in the realm of "pure advancement." You can use advances in scientific understanding to build something that makes people's lives much worse.

That's why I bristled at the whiggish march of progress you depicted. You can believe that science is an ever increasing grasp of the truth without being naive about what the outcome of that knowledge might be. We could all still nuke ourselves into oblivion, in the most extreme example.

I know people hate that kind of doom and gloom. I'm just saying that, when you make the jump from "wow, science is amazing, look at what we've discovered" to "wow science is amazing, look what technologies it has unlocked" you are implying an inevitability to technological progress that does not exist.

[matthewdgreen]

I'm not arguing with you that science and technology can produce nightmares. And I'm not saying that science is all sunshine and roses.

But the original post said "science does not provide the kinds of answers people want." I think what most people want from science is to have better things, or less disease and misery. I would argue that it has done a lot of that in our lifetimes. That doesn't mean everyone is spiritually fulfilled, nor does it mean that we won't nuke each other. But it has done real things that make our lives much better.