You have put it beautifully. You just misunderstand what science is. Changing our outlook on the universe when we get a better understanding of it's workings is precisely what the scientific method is about. Jeremy, you referred to the "absolute" laws of the universe--you're a bit mistaken, too. Science is built on a foundation of ever-changing observation and analysis. The "laws" of nature are only immutable insofar as counter-evidence is undiscovered. Over human history, scientists have constantly altered, modified, or even thrown out entire theories based on emerging data.

Just look at one branch of physics: the search for the fundamental units of matter. First came the concept of the four elements, then the postulation of the atom. Then the atom's structure itself was discovered, and over time from Plato to Bohr to Heisenberg to today's physicists, the entire story has been one of constant evolution.

mixandburn, you hit the nail right on the head when you noted that technology is what allows us to deepen our understanding of physics. We could have not discovered quarks without the aid of particle accelerators. We will not discover what lies beneath the ice of Europa without as-of-yet nonexistent technology. The human struggle to comprehend reality is aided by our most powerful tool, our inventions--both physical, as in the case of the Hubble telescope; or representational, as in the case of Newton's calculus.

The error enters into it when people think that what we have discovered in our brief time here are the unchanging Laws of Nature. Virtually all of science undergoes a constant refinement and modification. It's what makes it powerful--anyone with evidence and a repeatable experiment can change how we see the universe. Just because we have two robots on Mars doesn't mean we understand everything about spaceflight. Remember, we've also lost other robots, spacecraft, and human astronauts.

If a person doesn't understand the scientific method, it's easy to shoot it down because "it's always wrong." It's especially easy to say that when one has been brought up with a background of religious belief in an unchanging, infinite, omnipotent diety. However, science's greatest strength is it's ability to change in order to better describe our universe based on the new data gathered, century after century, by an uncountable number of people.