Part two of the interview with Jacob Needleman (see the previous post on 5/18) contains a perceptive quote about the current imbalance between scientific progress and ethics (embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, etc.):
One of them [obstacles to being good] is a kind of a belief, not in science so much, but in scientism. That is the religion of science. We know that our scientific progress and our technology [have] gotten way out in front of moral development. We are like little children sitting in a big powerful locomotive playing with the switches — we don’t know what the hell we are doing. I think our moral development, maybe our culture, has in some sense lagged behind our intellectual development.
Thinking to Believe 
May 23, 2007 at 6:18 am
How can you measure our moral development?
Why can’t you say that our moral and ethical understandings are at a peak, the best of all possible understandings, while science is nowhere near its peak?
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May 24, 2007 at 2:49 pm
I think his point is that our technology is advancing faster than we can think through the ethical issues involved in the technology. Think about embryonic stem cell research and human cloning. Scientists continue pushing their agenda even though the public has moral qualms about such research. Morality is becoming subservient to science, when it should be the other way around.
Jason
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July 24, 2015 at 6:55 am
[…] One of them [obstacles to being good] is a kind of a belief, not in science so much, but in scientism. That is the religion of science. We know that our scientific progress and our technology [have] gotten way out in front of moral development. We are like little children sitting in a big powerful locomotive playing with the switches — we don’t know what the hell we are doing. I think our moral development, maybe our culture, has in some sense lagged behind our intellectual development. (Interview with Needleman) […]
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July 24, 2015 at 6:57 am
[…] One of them [obstacles to being good] is a kind of a belief, not in science so much, but in scientism. That is the religion of science. We know that our scientific progress and our technology [have] gotten way out in front of moral development. We are like little children sitting in a big powerful locomotive playing with the switches — we don’t know what the hell we are doing. I think our moral development, maybe our culture, has in some sense lagged behind our intellectual development. (Interview with Needleman) […]
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August 19, 2015 at 7:48 pm
[…] One of them [obstacles to being good] is a kind of a belief, not in science so much, but in scientism. That is the religion of science. We know that our scientific progress and our technology [have] gotten way out in front of moral development. We are like little children sitting in a big powerful locomotive playing with the switches — we don’t know what the hell we are doing. I think our moral development, maybe our culture, has in some sense lagged behind our intellectual development. (Interview with Needleman) […]
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