[bobthechef]

> it seems clear that there was a catastrophic fall in science, technology and living standards

According to what evidence and causes?

Besides, what's this "great science" of the ancient world? Science did not become a sustained enterprise until much later in Europe. Even Greek natural science was a relatively short-lived affair, pretty much dying with Aristotle (Stanley Jaki used the word "stillborn" to describe all other attempts to give birth to science in all civilizations other than Christian Europe, the differentiating factor being theological). The Middle Ages were a period of intense intellectual activity (the Scholastics) in which the intellectual bedrock for modern science was birthed. The Renaissance was comparably weak in terms of intellectual rigor, the philosophes later on mere pamphleteers. And today, scientism and other weird ideologies threaten to undermine science and intellectualism in general.

We do not give the Middle Ages enough credit. The question isn't why it is a fashion to deny medieval decline, but why the fashion to deny the period's excellence.