> These are mostly not scientific, but engineering breakthroughs (a lot of the science necessary for it was developed long before).
That's reasonable. But the public sees the whole stack re: technology/engineering/science as the same thing. If something stalls in one part, it affects the other two.
Come to think of it: any undiagnosed failure in the education system could easily lead to a broad stagnation, so it is certainly hard to tease these things apart and allocate blame.
> Which shows that science works/worked pretty well, just the society/economy to back it was too weak. For me a really strong pro-science argument.
Supposing that you are right. Why then does society/economy remain too weak to fully back the science? What is the grit in the gears?
> Bullshit: Try to use a computer or cell phone that was built 30 or 40 years ago.
I think we are, certainly I am, excluding progress in computer science. That's the one general area of brightness.
Whether that's enough to counteract weakness in cheap energy production/storage, biotechnology and medicine, spaceflight (until very recently), effective transport etc, is another thing.
> These are mostly not scientific, but engineering breakthroughs (a lot of the science necessary for it was developed long before).
That's reasonable. But the public sees the whole stack re: technology/engineering/science as the same thing. If something stalls in one part, it affects the other two.
Come to think of it: any undiagnosed failure in the education system could easily lead to a broad stagnation, so it is certainly hard to tease these things apart and allocate blame.
> Which shows that science works/worked pretty well, just the society/economy to back it was too weak. For me a really strong pro-science argument.
Supposing that you are right. Why then does society/economy remain too weak to fully back the science? What is the grit in the gears?
> Bullshit: Try to use a computer or cell phone that was built 30 or 40 years ago.
I think we are, certainly I am, excluding progress in computer science. That's the one general area of brightness.
Whether that's enough to counteract weakness in cheap energy production/storage, biotechnology and medicine, spaceflight (until very recently), effective transport etc, is another thing.