Dijkstra's jeremiads were about promoting "formal methods" as the One True Method for software construction. Maybe there's a future for formal methods, but it wasn't ready in the past. No one was arguing about semaphores.
What basic science does is open up new areas and new ideas. And you and I benefit from those foundations.
Dijkstra's proof methods derived from higher math sophistication than most programmers before, and today, have. Like, in one short essay he showed what invariants mean. He made formal theory accessible to mere non-pure-math mortals. You and I today know what invariants are. That's just one example.