. . . and into the realm of “So what are they cutting his crack with?” Shorter Eric Lerner, as paraphrased by Ken Macleod:

Lerner’s thesis is that there’s a tight connection between technological devlopment, our understanding of the universe, and the general condition of society. The Big Bang cosmology has an immense ideological appeal in a society without any hopeful vision of the future. The shift from experiment and observation to increasingly arcane theory and the multiplication of epicycles is a further malign twist, digging us deeper into the hole. Fundamental technological developments are slowed down. Apart from biotech, in which great advances in both theory and practice have gone together, the rest of our technology — even the Internet — is an elaboration, refinement and diffusion of developments made half a century or more ago.

Look, there may be good reasons to criticize Big Bang cosmology — though I’d still put my money on either the string theory kids at Cosmic Variance or Malcolm’s Loop Quantum Gravity posse to sort them out. But personal pique at society’s failure to provide you with a fusion-powered rocket car (with big tailfins!) is not one of them.