 The discovery that atoms are not fundamental, that they are in fact composite objects, displaced the earlier hypothesis that atoms are fundamental. For a while the proposition that protons, neutrons and electrons are the fundamental components of atoms was embraced, but unfortunately it too turned out to be false. Still, this latter falsehood seems closer to the truth than its predecessor (assuming, again, that the standard model is true). And even if the standard model contains errors, as surely it does, it is presumably closer to the truth about fundamental particles than these other falsehoods.