They laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Most skepticism is ratified by subsequent events.
DT fusion doesn't appear to have much to recommend it, since it still requires a thermal cycle like fission or coal, and that keeps its cost high. From an engineering point of view it involves large monolithic plants with very complex and stressed equipment. This seems the opposite of good engineering.
My impression is that the research efforts have been focused on "can we do it?" Then, if the answer is yes, they'll focus on "how do we do it efficiently?" Where efficiency can mean anything from capital efficient, to resource efficient, to energy conversion efficiency. Limiting one's focus on the next blocker in the critical path and not increasing scope beyond it sounds like perfectly good engineering to me.
It seems like terrible myopic project management to me. You want to avoid first steps that you know are very likely going to lead to dead ends down the line.
We're constantly being told to take the long term view. Are we only to do that when it's favorable to the technological optimist's case or budget?
If you have to build a steam turbine to convert the energy from your fusion reactor into electricity, it's never going to compete with solar and wind power in most of the world.
Doesn't mean that there won't be applications (if you can make all those lasers compact enough, submarines, ships, and ultimately spacecraft come to mind), but grid electricity is doubtful.
Most skepticism is ratified by subsequent events.
DT fusion doesn't appear to have much to recommend it, since it still requires a thermal cycle like fission or coal, and that keeps its cost high. From an engineering point of view it involves large monolithic plants with very complex and stressed equipment. This seems the opposite of good engineering.