Scientific understanding is in no way a distraction or the work of “the Adversary”; it is the most productive and useful means of gathering reliable and replicable information about God's creation and most certainly part of God's plan and had a hallowed hall in those same institutions of learning that you praise. Indeed Gregor Mendel's careful scientific scrutiny of the molecules of inheritance, the preservation and cultivation of knowledge in the Abby's and Universities under Church patronage have been of invaluable aid in the history of scientific advancement. That is because there is no contradiction between Science and true religion.
I do not assert that study of His Creation and the its behavior is necessarily the work of the Adversary.
I do point out that the very institutions used by intellectuals who reject faith were originally founded to promote study of God.
Science, or more precisely, the scientific method, is still possible when performed through faith in Christ. Just like any other endeavor, when it is pursued independent of Him, it becomes mired in illusion.