So Asimov says this: &quot;It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the universe straight.&quot;<p>Whatever misconceptions our English major has about how science works, this strikes me as incredibly unlikely.  If you believe in the law of accelerating returns, then it&#x27;s almost infinitely unlikely — that the number of scientific revolutions yet to come is vastly larger than of those already past.  So it&#x27;s certainly not correct to say that we had &quot;got it wrong&quot; before, as if each attempt is like rolling the dice all over.  It&#x27;s also wrong (though, as he says, not AS wrong) to say that we&#x27;ve &quot;finally&quot; got it &quot;straight&quot;.