Skeptics find no evidence in either case. Progress often follows research and development, just as happy outcomes often follow prayer. Whether or not one causes the other is beyond proof, or at least it has not been proved. Divinity can be hard of hearing, and not all change is progress. Research and development spread themselves across a spectrum from pure or basic research at one end to product development at the other.
More faith is required at the high end of pure research than at the low end of product development.
Theoretical physicists may, indeed, approach eschatology at the outer limits of their ruminations, but the progress they achieve defies measurement over the short term. The bench scientist who ministers to the here and now makes a better argument for the payoff from his work. Governments wrestle with this dilemma all the time. Usually they choose to make their investments at the safe end of the spectrum, in development. In the United States, for example, only a small percentage of the government's research and development budget goes to the National Science Foundation and the other agencies funding basic research.