I think those prophets of circa 1900 would still get some bounds correct...

If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

- Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1915), chapter 4