Your discussion makes me think of something, that sometimes scientists act like priests.
Say when the female amateur anthropologist Elaine Morgan presented her case for the aquatic ape theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis some of the critique laid against her was that she was an outsider, that if "serious" anthropologists didnt figure this out on their own, how could she? Or the initial resistance upon cave paintings discovery of accepting that they might genuinely be from prehistoric times.
I had the same feeling hearing Frank Drake talk about long distance space travel (he was talking of it in general, not just the ability of the human race to do so), which he says is most likely impossible because of tiny pebbles in space that will make so much energy upon contact with a fast traveling ship that it will create nuclear explosions.
I couldnt beleive that this guy, who is responsible for the birth of the SETI program, wasnt able to conceive that a civilization who knows how electricity works for millions of years, not a century and a half, might have solved this problem a million years ago. Not being able to conceive that at the exponential rate technology is progressing, in 500 years if we didnt eradicate ourselves this might be a trivial space travel problem.
Thats what i was talking about in the OP, scientists in love with their own proficiency, humility about possibilities goes out the window.
Technology is another thing that terrifies me, not in itself but what unconscienable people will do with it. Like the terminator seed patent from Monsanto, which prevents a plant from creating seeds. This is some Dr. Death bullshit right there.