How can the growth and discoveries made in science in the twentieth century be considered a "failure" to society? What was the reaction to these feelings of failure and skepticism?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary but correct responses should include: Science—in most people's judgment—soared and failed. It sought to penetrate the heavens and ended by contaminating the Earth. Among its most influential invention were bombs and pollutants. The expansion of knowledge added nothing to wisdom. Science did not make people better. Rather it increased their ability to behave worse than ever before. Instead of a universal benefit to humanity, science was a symptom or cause of disproportionate Western power. Under the influence of these feelings, and in response to the undermining of science by skepticism, an antiscientific reaction set in the late twentieth century. It generated conflict between those who believed in the reality of science and the vast global majority who turned back to religion or even magic to help them cope with the bewildering world of rapid change and elusive understanding. Quantum science encouraged a revival of mysticism—a "reenchantment" of science, according to a phrase the British theologian David Griffin coined. Even religious fundamentalism—one of the most powerful movements in the late twentieth-century world—owed something to science.