such extreme caution is entirely compatible with liberal post-enlightenment beliefs, but not with technological progress, which was indeed largely driven by shifts in public attitudes about technical innovations, including but not limited to novel materials. when newton was inventing modern physics he had to keep his chemistry experiments secret because chemistry was illegal, and the catholic church specifically prosecuted people (via the inquisition) for practicing chemistry: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30134775/

this problem continues to the present day, where it continues to retard technical progress in many places; and, of course, hatred and even legal prosecution of chemists in particular has returned in places like the usa. but the problem is much broader than this; for example, william kamkwamba relates in his autobiography how his neighbors believed the windmill he had built in malawi was causing a drought through witchcraft, after having ridiculed him as a lunatic for years when he was hanging out in the junkyard to salvage the parts to build it