> Advances in technology are usually the result of tinkering as opposed to directed research or science.
In older times yes, but you can easily demonstrate that scientific progress was WAY faster once we developed actual methods to test things in a reliable way.
It's hard to pin scientific progress to reliable testing. We also had dramatic advances in communication, travel, collaboration, computing power, and access to education, for instance. Not to mention more and bigger wars which always moves things along in certain directions (for the wrong reasons, but nevertheless)
In older times yes, but you can easily demonstrate that scientific progress was WAY faster once we developed actual methods to test things in a reliable way.