The problem with how you're framing this is that the scientific methods that go into such developments don't take into account certain "externalities". Measurem

The problem with how you're framing this is that the scientific methods that go into such developments don't take into account certain "externalities". Measurement and control can only be exercised inasmuch as you can understand the totality of the system. In this case: broader effects on human health and ecosystems. As someone with a strong scientific background, it sometimes seems to me that the science and engineering of the past couple centuries has been so focused on the intricacies of specific problems that they haven't left their practitioners enough leeway to consider their place in the constellation of human activity. I'm not saying that there would have been another way to accomplish these feats, but that the problems are so difficult that it's left to other (sometimes non-scientific) people to evaluate their value to society.