What are the disadvantages of science to man and society?

Answer 1

While the advantages of science to man and society are many, there are also significant disadvantages. For example, science is responsible for the development of nuclear technology which has killed many people, blown up huge cities, and put the world in a state of constant terror over Mutual Assured Destruction for decades. Science also tends to push society toward a consumption oriented attitude simply because if you *can* do something then people will do it. Do we really need a world where everyone is polluting the air in their cars, etc.? Finally, science tends to dehumanize man into an equation. For those things where man was once confused and science has cleared up that confusion for us, science is great because it brought truth in those cases and truth is indeed great. But in many other cases science and scientists act like they know everything (such as the origin of man and of the universe) when in fact they are clueless children in many regards. In other words, science has the tendency to make man arrogant and irreverent. Some of the wiser scientists do concede that the more they learn the more they understand how clueless they are but too many act like they are demigods because they know something even if it is only a small piece of the infinite knowledge that is out there.