“I’m not a racist, but . . .” must rank as one of the most dispiriting conversation openers ever. Now it has serious competition: “I’m no Luddite, but . . .”

The challenge emerged at a book launch last week of The Shock of the Old (Profile Books), by David Edgerton, an historian of science at Imperial College London. Professor Edgerton, obviously fed up with constant, uncritical forecasts by futurologists that our lives are about to change radically, points out that our most familiar technologies — the car, the train, the television, the radio and the computer — are all getting on a bit. He considers the history of technology from a fresh perspective — examining a technology’s history of use, rather than dating its creation (invention) or first use (innovation). Thus, he argues, rickshaws deserve as much recognition as the now defunct Concorde.

Nations, he said at the launch, co-hosted by Demos, need to get over their addiction to innovation because it doesn’t always correlate with economic growth. Big, glossy techno projects can detract from humbler, more effective alternatives; huge sums lavished upon the next fighter plane may be better spent on flak jackets and rifles.

But then we swerved into Luddite territory. The professor lamented that technology “has turned us all into idiots” and he ridiculed the amount of money that has been poured into information technology, nanotechnology and biotechnology, which he condemned as “that blasted trio of transforming technologies”. There was much sneering in the audience about neophilia — ephemeral crushes on new gadgets such as the iPhone rather than fidelity to golden oldies, such as the printed newspaper.

It strikes me that technological neophilia (neotechnophilia?) may have served us rather well. Our openness to novelty may have guarded against the instant dismissal of a potentially useful idea. Preserving this instinct is especially important if we are to cease, as Professor Edgerton advises, the “semi-Stalinist” approach to planning science policy, in which case we really do need to be open to novelty.

For some reason, whenever I think about the suppression of this neophiliac instinct I imagine an excited caveman skipping home brandishing a new stone with a sharpened edge — only for him to be told to throw it away. Dispiriting. Kevin Trenberth is the climate scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado who supports the idea of a link between global warming and increased hurricane activity. He hasn’t been a popular — particularly with Republicans still smarting from criticisms that they could have coped better with Hurricane Katrina.

It was predicted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report last week would coincide with a campaign to discredit him. Let’s hope that he has the stomach for a fight.

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