Bottom line: engineers and scientists have been diminished in stature over the last half-century because they succeeded beyond almost anyone's expectations, including their own. The writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." We've taken the magic and thus the awe out of it, and made it seem routine and effortless, but now we find out that making accomplishments routine and effortless translates into an outcome which is neither admired nor acknowledged.