Just think, in years past con-men exploited the faith of "simple peasants" to sell them fake relics, fake indulgences, etc.

Isn't it great we've come so far -- now we worship SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY instead, that is a true religion for some people, such that they are quick to believe science can work ANY miracle.

Only it can't. And projects like this are proof of both the gullibility of the science-worshiping masses, as well as the limits of science.

Couldn't agree with you more Matthew. Such has been this worship of 'science' that it can now even be seen as the instrument that brought the Catholic Church to its present state.
To understand why I put science in brackets one must know the difference between 'science' and science.

There is a real science, ‘Something that is direct, observable, physical, natural, repeatable, unambiguous and comprehensive'

and there is modern science:  'hearsay, popular opinion, “expert” testimony, majority view, personal conviction, organisational ruling, conventional usage, superficial analogy, appeal to “simplicity”, or other indirect means of persuasion.'

Catholicism has its roots in origins, the origin of the Earth, sun, moon, stars and the universe. Then it is the origin of all life, flora and fauna and finally intelligent mankind. Our whole faith is wrapped up in God creating all this from nothing. The Church's dogmas state God created all, complete according to their kind. Thus Catholic origins are divine and supernatural.

But along came men in the 17th century with the new 'science' of origins. This new science eliminated any supernatural cause in origins, putting forward their proposed causes for the universe, Earth and life. Now to get something from nothing to form and evolve the perfect life forms we see on Earth and all the raw materials that mankind needs for his existence, is to make 'science' a god. You see to do all the above, nothing to our world, only a 'science' god could do.

Now from the 17th century we had two gods, the 'science' god of natural miracles and the Catholic God the divine Creator

Now real history records this 'science' god removed the real God from the belief system of millions. We call these 'science' god believers atheists.

But worse was to come. In 1835 popes were conned into accepting the first 'science' proof that heliocentrism was true when it wass not scientifically. Once this happened the popes then had to accept the first scientifically miraculous theory, the evolution of the solar system they said Scripture revealed. Then came the evolution of flora, fauna and mankind. None of these 'theories' were or could be condemned by the Church because popes were terrified to make another huge 'mistake' as they did with condemning heliocentrism. As a result of this, popes began to make their God responsible for the miracles needed for the natural god to get sponges to dinosaurs and then into men. In other words, churchmen did their bit to make the 'science' god a fact while denying the Catholic God's instant complete creation from nothing. With both Church and State now promoting the new 'science' god, who believes in that supernatural cause of origins anymore.

Proof of this is the current Pope Francis who laughed at the revelations of Genesis telling all the Catholic God is not a magician who can wave a wand and create something complete.

Yes, I find the strange hysteria about artificial intelligence to be most puzzling. To think that a computer can be programmed to think like a human being is pretty laughable, and yet people think it's going to happen one day. If you don't believe me, try to carry on a conversation with your nearest Alexa device. That thing represents multiple decades of the most rapid, amazing technological advancement the world has ever seen, and it still can't understand even the most basic sentence. Billions of dollars of research, and the combined genius of the most advanced minds of the human race, and for what? So that it can give you the same response to every question you ask it: "I'm sorry, I didn't understand your question."

Scientists have discovered that people will believe anything when scientists say they discovered it.

Here's more:

‘The Big-Bang theory is only a provisional way-stop in a continuing inquiry into origins. It is possible to imagine a universe that had no beginning in time, and Stephen Hawking has been instrumental in investigating just such a possibility placing the so-called moment of creation off-limits for rational inquiry suggests that the lesson of Galileo has not been learned. Modern biology and neuroscience are other areas of potential con­flict between the Church and science. Biologists of the next cent­ury will almost certainly create living organisms from inanimate materials. Computers may become fully conscio­us by any practical test of consciousness in the next century. Human consciousness and memory may also yield to scientific analysis. All these developments will present problems for a theology of the soul grounded in mind-body dualism.’[1]
 
The ‘Big Bang theory is only provisional.’ Where now Pope Pius XII’s creative act of God? Is that too not provisional now? Note also the ubiquitous assertion that science will ‘almost certainly create living organisms from inanimate materials’ in the next cent­ury, when we are all dead and gone of course. This is absolute fantasy, and is based on his belief that it actually occurred in the past. There is trickery at work here. When Raymo and his kind assert that such-and-such a thing will happen in the future, what they want is for us to admit the principle of life from inanimate matter as an established fact now because there isn’t an empirical chance in hell of their ever producing living organisms from inanimate materials in any time. Raymo then tells us that ‘computers of the next century may become fully conscio­us by any practical test of consciousness.’ Well maybe a monkey’s consciousness. His next delusion, that the human soul will be fully understood by reason, is introduced in a similar way, for, he says, it too ‘may also yield to scientific analysis.’ These presumptions, we must see, are worthless rhetoric and nothing else. Nevertheless, this is how modern science works; how their ideology becomes the accepted ‘scientific’ paradigm, the consensus, accept now that ‘all these developments’ will occur, but not in our lifetime. This is cabbalistic magic, naturalism, not real science.

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