An essay traces the rise of science's cultural authority and examines how scientific thought has reshaped artistic and popular attitudes. It surveys nineteenth-century reactions to evolutionary and mechanical explanations, the early resentment of scientists as dehumanizing, and the later reverence sparked by developments like relativity. The author argues that imaginative respect for scientific creativity has led many artists and critics to accept a materialist worldview without engaging with technical physics, producing a superficial scientism reinforced by wartime experience. Throughout, he interrogates the limits of scientific explanation and warns against allowing scientific prestige to dictate moral and aesthetic judgments.