False beliefs about science among rationalists

Gaia Dempsey, CEO of Metaculus writes about importance of forecasting science (which is related to futurology) and epistemology.

https://metaculus.medium.com/forecasting-science-and-epistemology-d962de541a1f

However, she makes a very telling statement about halfway into his argument. She claims that "Thanks to thousands of scientists working over many decades, we have seen enormous leaps forward in our understanding... left us standing at the precipice of the impossibly sharp peaks of progress that industrialized societies occupy today."

She doesn't seem to care about proving that claim. Instead he just uses an illustration of GDP per capita growth as proof.

But, as explained at Energy & Stuff website, "During the industrial age, economic growth has mainly be attributed to our human prowess and ingenuity, ignoring that, without fossil solar power, it would simply have been impossible to convert all those resources into houses, cars, planes and mobile phones." ( https://energyandstuff.org/en/drivers-behind-our-success-energy-and-natural-resources ) As N.J.Hagens explains further, "Global human society is functioning as an energy dissipating superorganism." ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310067 )

Interestingly, the very claim that science (and scientific method, which is actually rarely practiced even in science) is responsible for our progress contradicts the obvious data about energy use. So Dempsey doesn't base the justification for Metaculus on sound epistemology, but on irrational beliefs about benefits of science.