> Our science journey has been about gradually moving humanity away from the center of the universe. Ptolemy, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, et. al., taught us that we're part of nature rather than a privileged special case. Scientific thought has incrementally removed the justifications for human exceptionalism.

Author here; gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. This is kind of like saying, "See the ancients were wrong in calling whales fish! Actually they are mammals!" and then the ancients say, "Dude, that's just our word for 'thing with fins that swims in the ocean.'" Yeah, they didn't know a mitochondrian from a midichlorian, and were wrong about a bunch of factual stuff, but the kind of stuff they get called out on like this to prove some kind of point about their moral deficiency are often category errors and misapprehensions.

For instance, there's a particular misapprehension in your sentence: "moving humanity away from the center of the universe".

Do you know what is located at the precise geometric center of the classical medieval model of the universe?

Earth, right?

No, not quite. What's located in the the center of the earth in the classical medieval model?

Hell. And who is located in the center of hell? Satan.

Also, who is the most "important" character in the medieval cosmological model? As in, the prime mover, the big cheese, the most important being? It ain't human beings -- its God. And where is God located in this model? Not in the center -- Hell is by definition his absence. Not on Earth, beyond a brief physically incarnate visit and ongoing influence. No, God lives in Heaven -- located far beyond the celestial spheres, outside, as far away from the center as possible. The closer you get to the center, the lower a sort of being you are! Sure, in medieval cosmology redeemed humans are higher than angels, but in the meantime they are in their place -- Earth, the land that sucks, the vale of tears -- down there, below, while the angels are up in Heaven beyond the celestial spheres with God.

All that aside, I don't think any particular scientific discovery about how vast the universe is, or how tiny subatomic particles are, really obligates us to hold one set of values over another, as much as materialists tend to smuggle such assumptions in through the back door.

I recall back in the early 2000's during the tiresome religious vs. atheist debates, the atheists would scream at the religious, "Look how grand the universe is! Look how small we are! The Universe is vast and profound, your cosmology is impoverished and provincial!" and the religious would scream right back "Look how grand the universe is! Look how small we are! God is vast and profound, your cosmology is impoverished and provincial!" Opposite conclusions from the same basic facts, even if you limit the debate to two sides who both believe in evolution.

As Dave said in the story -- values aren't true or false. They're literally just what people care about. Science can help inform your choices, but at the end of the day it doesn't tell you what is good or bad, because science is about brute material facts, there's no good or bad in a raw materialist understanding of the universe, but you're a human being and so at some point you're going to insist on an 'ought' somewhere rather than being content with a bag full of 'is.' And for that we get to fight over philosophy and values.

And good luck convincing the human race that the human race doesn't matter. You're way more likely to expand the moral circle of concern by getting them to care about non-humans TOO than you are to get them to stop caring about humans. Probably the latter gets you even worse results than you're hoping for, if recent history is any guide.