Sadly, a scientific education makes its recipient intolerant of dogma and superstition. Almost all of the role models involved in social reconstruction are adherents of a small number of established religions, each of them erected on a solid foundation of superstitious beliefs. The almost visceral aversion induced by such an education to superstition, sentimentality, , cant, sanctimony, and unthinking appeal to authority makes it makes it almost impossible for scientifically trained minds to collaborate with religious organizations for more than short periods.
Imagine that a humane physicist, mathematician or biologist (they do exist) were to show up at a public gathering and announce that, because he has a certain kind of training which encourages clear thinking and good work habits in problem solving, he wants to help families, organizations, and individuals, deal with the fundamental dilemmas encountered in daily life: loss, poverty, death, violence, rejection, depression, guilt, anger, fear, etc. It's evident that he would receive few takers. Most persons who might be inclined to take up his offer would probably not need his help, having themselves been schooled in the same discipline.
Then imagine bringing someone to this same gathering, with scarcely a single qualification for providing counsel for serious personal difficulties, or giving direction to community activities, with the important difference that he wears a starched collar and boldly asserts "I am a Catholic priest"! This person will find hundreds, if not thousands, flocking to him for advice, mental peace, directives for living, words of hope or comfort, making major ethical decisions, etc.
Yet, because priests, rabbis and ministers happen to control most of the agencies involved in the daily conduct of pastoral care, counseling and community service, anyone who has absorbed a thorough scientific education will find himself not only shut out of such activities, but adverse to participating in them.
How can I say this, you may wonder, when in fact in our enlightened age there are numerous science-based professions which lay claim to a unique competence for tackling such problems? Have I forgotten the far-reaching powers of psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, sociology, research in education, criminology (aka 'criminal justice'), with all of their many specializations and sub-specialties?
Alas! Virtually all of them are based on arrantly intractable pseudo-science. When it comes to psychiatry one is dealing with Freudism, Behaviorism, brutal heroic therapies such as ECT, and the contemporary fashion for pill-popping derived from the assertion that science has discovered the neuro-transmitter basis of all emotion in dopamine, testosterone, and serotonin.
From the scientific standpoint, research in education is a total nightmare, having given us such marvels as IQ testing, aptitude testing, Thematic Apperception tests, dozens of ideology derived toys for teaching reading and mathematics that only accelerate the mad drive to illiteracy and innumeracy in American society. May we be spared even the mention of that horror of horrors, Educational Psychology!
With notable exceptions,(the phrase "with notable exceptions", may be applied to any subject, institution or group with almost no exceptions), Sociology, particularly in its applied off-shoots in Social Work, is largely built up on the foundations of garbage heaps of statistics, often derived from silly 'experiments' that must repel any scientist trained in a field which requires the competent use of statistics: physics, mathematics, meteorology, medicine.
Once more the unlucky would-be community leader who possesses a scientific background, and is therefore unable to cope with cant, arrogance, pseudo-science, silliness or greed, is shown the way to the exit.
It would appear that too much education of the sort that the world claims to admire, has the negative effect of pushing its products into ivory towers, hermitages, or the corridors of academic research faculties, where they never need to deal with people who don't look just like themselves. This incest produces superstitions peculiar to itself. See