Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Particle physics has degenerated into a paper production enterprise that is of virtually no relevance for societal progress [...] But the disciplines where the foundations of physics currently make progress are cosmology and astrophysics [...]" Can anybody explain the relevance of cosmology and astrophysics to societal progress? I'm sure these are very worthwhile fields of study in other respects.. but societal pr…
An easy, direct link, for example: Careful observation of the orbit of Mercury —> Special Relativity —> General Relativity —> GPS satellites able to keep exact time —> the map app on your mobile phone.
That it was able to explain Mercury's orbit was a nice bit of empirical confirmation after the theory was developed. Having such evidence probably helped get the theory accepted faster; but probably wasn't necessary. Almost by definition, a theory that is ultimately useful can be confirmed without need of astronomy. If the theory is useful to do X, then we can try doing X as an experiment and see if it works how the theory predicts.
As a secondary point, we could probably get GPS to work even without relativity. The core idea makes just as much sense under any theory of a finite speed of light. When we actually launched a GPS constellation and try it, the engineers would notice that the clocks were drifting for some unknown reason. Some ad-hoc corrections later and the engineers could account for the drift based on empirical evidence, likely with regular re synchronization and recalibration of the fudge factors.