There's this pervasive meme that Without Science We'd Be In The Stone Age, but it just does not stand up to examination.
If science is worth anything: Where's teleportation? Where are the anti-gravity engines? Where's the safe cheap energy?
A lot of these people, bless their souls, are honestly committed to making the world a better place, but they don't understand the system they are embedded in.
One way or another they managed to convince themselves (and anyone who would believe them) that margarine is healthy, meat is bad, printing money doesn't cause inflation, and the ocean is rising (even though you can't see it).
Meanwhile the world still runs on the discoveries that were laid down over 100 years ago. Coal power plants and diesel engines people, this is not new stuff.
What *engineers* have done in the past 100 years is nothing short of extraordinary. But what *scientists* have done is essentially nothing (except torture monkeys).