I agree that that's a downside of liberalism and of secular humanism, and I've written a lot about it. I call it the Promethean, quasi-"Satanic" impulse to be godlike, to create a world in our image. Theistic religions merely project and foreshadow the impulse for "secular" self-deification.

I'm interested also in the sci-fi, transhumanist justifications of that impulse. Of course, if we destroy ourselves and the ecosystems in the process, this "progress" is all for naught. But if we succeed, as in the more optimistic sci-fi speculations, what then?