In Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb claims that the industrial revolution was not caused by a corresponding scientific revolution (or the Enlightenment), but rather that it was the product of a series of (non-theoretically minded) tinkerers. Is this accurate?
I apologize for any vagueness in my question: I realize that the term Industrial Revolution may refer to more than one time period, but since Taleb doesn't spend much time on his point, I couldn't tell you which one I'm asking about. Probably all of them.
This is accurat-ish. The early stages of industrialization did not require science, but science was needed in order for improvements to industrialization to be made. You can see examples of early industrialization in the Song dynasty China, and even to some extent in the Roman empire. The industrial revolution is more a growth in farming efficiency which drives increased mechanization in pursuit of capital, which would have hit a ceiling on its growth if not for scientifically minded inquiry. Likewise, the growth of science allowed for improvements in modern infrastructure and public health to be made which allowed newly growing cities to be more livable. The industrial and scientific revolution were separate but grew off of each other, and combined with the growth of the state over other institutions (tribe, religion, etc) to create the modern world.