You are basically hitting on what has been referred to as high modernism, which promotes a level of confidence in science and technology that can only be maintained by eschewing all the inherent complexity of the world. The scientific method can really only study systems by modifying a handful of variables at a time and keeping the rest fixed, and isn't really capable of handling hundreds of interacting variables. Rather than acknowledge this limitation, high modernism embraces simplification even to the detriment of its products.

Further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State