Postmodern moments

I seem to be have increasingly frequent "post-modern" moments. Two of this summer's involved the medical & space communities. In these instances I experienced disillusionment with these institutions whose professed purposes are to better the lot of mankind.

My postmodern moment with the space program came in a discussion with a friend who works for NASA, whom I will call “Moe.” I was a bit surprised by this engineer's complete "faith" that one day science would solve man's ills.

I thought that Westerners’ confidence in Man and His use of technology to create utopia on earth for the good of the autonomous individual was shot full of holes during WWI (when man used technology to develop the machine gun enabling men to mow other men down with greater efficacy), and incinerated in WWII (when technology was used to better “dispose” of people = Auschwitz).

A WWI technological advancement, the Maxim MG08/15

Before I go farther I need to qualify my remarks. I want to remain respectful of scientists and medical researchers for a number of reasons: 

• when discussing polemical topics we should do so with respect - 2 Timothy 2:23-24, 
• I have close friends and family in both of these sectors 
• a vast number of medical doctors and research scientists have impeccable motives and are doing commendable work
• I greatly appreciate the advances that science has brought to mankind 
• I highly value research and development; when I see it cut back I get rather apprehensive about the future.

Ok, so Moe’s faith that science would one day solve humankind's woes was a surprise. He went on to share his exasperation about the lack of rigor practiced by a team leader in conducting experiments. Moe acknowledged that findings could in no way be conclusive when arrived at by such slipshod means. 

So I was dumbstruck when Moe referred to a proposed space project costing 10s of millions of dollars saying, "At such a low cost, why wouldn't we try it?" 

I do not believe that scientists would take offense at my observation that a vast amount of research presupposes macro-evolution as fact. Yet a good bit of experimentation nonetheless seems to attempt to amass conclusive proof for macro-evolution. Apparently the evidence is not as conclusive as some scientific spokespersons would like us all to believe. (See Michael Denton, Evolution a theory in crisis.) 

One of the goals of the current Mars project, for example, is to discover whether traces of life can be found there to help explain how life began here. 

Yesterday (Sept. 9, 2012) I read in the LA Times: 

"New Mars theory casts doubt on planet's habitability: a study of clays suggests they might have been formed in hot (1500 degrees celsius) magma rich in water — too hot to support microbial life." 

Ok, so the only “scientific” way to prove the still unsubstantiated-to-anyone’s-full-satisfaction theory of macro-evolution is to keep looking. But at what cost?

Summary

My postmodern moment, disillusionment with the scientific institution, consisted of: 

1. the unquestioned confidence of some members of the scientific community in their ability to usher in utopia, 
2. lack of rigor in the application of their own scientific method, 
3. a spendthrift attitude in spite of the former, and 
4. in some experiments, blind faith concerning debatable presuppositions and purpose. 

My conclusion 

Some sectors of the scientific community are as guilty as the pre-scientific religious community that gave them birth. 

The Church was often (rightly) accused of impoverishing the masses to fill its own coffers, augment its prestige, and pursue its own inward-looking purposes without contributing to the betterment of the general populous. All of this while priests and theologians invested their time on arcane questions caricatured by, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

Next 

Positivism and the medical community, after that the theological community…