What might prove to be an even more juicy topic in hindsight, would be the extent to which many of what are currently accepted as legitimate science and physics theories prove to be as delusional as any of the laughing stock ideas of the past.

Super symmetry seems to have fallen out of favor with many, but string theory certainly still has its adherents. Multiworlds and multiverses are just so far out there, that those currently not on board can do little beyond shake their heads.

Even Big Bang theory, for as deeply as it is embedded in the culture, has some enormous gaps, patched over with extremely significant additions, from Inflation to Dark Energy. Presumably a theory is open to question, if observations don't bear out predictions, yet this one is simply patched up and all is well.

It does raise the question of just where have theorists gone off the tracks? Is it something relatively recent, or does it go much deeper and we are now at the stage of reductio ad absurdum?

For one thing, there remains the assumption that some form of particles underlay physical reality, first atoms, now quanta. Even String theory is based on the assumption the strings are what is real. It this real, or just a deeply embedded impulse of our tactile experience?

Then there is the platonic math. One would think it is obvious that abstraction is abstracted from something deeper, map, from the territory, yet the mathematicians seem to assume they are knocking on God's door.

Given we seem close to some degree of civilizational collapse, will it lock current models in amber for a few more decades, even centuries, like epicycles through the Dark Ages, or will they be one more edifice to fall, to more practical realities.

Here is an interview from the turn of the century;

http://worrydream.com/refs/Mead%20-%20American%20Spectator%20Interview.html