Harmful to whom?
Ancient Greece produced mechanical computers. Only recently did the great civilizations of China and India overcome Hellenic science & technology. Having Mandarins cataloging the Emperor's property is not a great use of human capital.
While the so-called European Miracle of the past 500 years is a fascinating and complex area of research that will undoubtedly be studied for generations and centuries to come, I wasn't aware that anyone considers modern (18th c. and beyond) romanticist ideology to be the major driving force of science and technology.