Several years ago, I read a book on railroads called “The Modern Railroad” by Edward Hungerford; you should check it out on Kindle… it’s a freebie. In this book, Mr. Hungerford tells of the amazing uses of technology by modern railroads, technology that allows railroads to keep track of trains, hundreds of them, all at one time. They use signals on the lines to keep the trains safe as they rumble across the land, they can operate huge yards that serve hundreds of trains per day. In fact, he goes into great detail about how three men in the control tower of a major passenger terminal such as Washington, DC’s Union Station, can maintain a smooth and on-time flow of from 600 to 800 trains each day, controlling dozens of switches simultaneously with a single flip of a switch…

Did I mention that the book was published in 1910?

To be honest, I never realized how technologically advanced railroads were in 1910.

I also couldn’t help but notice that reading “The Modern Railroad” sounded very much like listening to people today discuss the wonders of modern science and technology, only the modern speakers and writers would all say that 1910 technology wasn’t much more advanced than the stone age. Mr. Hungerford made about the same observations about mid 19th century technology.

To be fair to science and technology in general, I must acknowledge that amazing strides have been made, and hopefully will continue to made, but we need to keep some perspective on the subject of such things. The day will come soon, when the things we gush about today will seem primitive to us… like mobile phones that used to weigh several pounds for instance, or monochrome monitors, or my old Kaypro 2 computer, or a Commodore 64.

There are many things today that some folks claim that science has “proven” that haven’t been proven at all, but even so, science and technology are great and have provided us with many useful tools, like the internet, for example. Yet where can we place our trust? In scientific findings that have a way of changing over time? Let’s not forget that “modern” science proved the theory of spontaneous generation, that the world was flat, and that some ethnic groups were superior to others: Those guys aren’t looking all that brilliant now.

As I sit here and look forward to the next great discovery about how something God has created works, and the next great innovation that our God-given intelligence can devise, I must stop and reflect upon the Creator of everything that science investigates, and as I do, I am struck anew with the awesome majesty of our God.

How about you?