Thought provoking, Charles

As to

Much of our knowledge, scientific studies or not, stands on shoddy pillars of rotting wood — faulty statistics, wishful thinking, the whims of human cognition and all rest of culture, history and thought that makes up what philosopher Isaiah Berlin called the “crooked timber of humanity.”

The classic counter to applying that as a broad brush statement to all current knowledge (which you are of course, not proposing) is to contemplate.

This simple theorem is a Physics “1 inch punch”
To continue the theme, Newton and his laws much predate this discovery, but they and others are completely subsumed in simply answering the questions “does it change when you move it / rotate it / time passes”.
Plus some mathematics.

I suspect there is a lot to be gained from contemplating the categorical differences (in my view) between missing inventions in plain sight but overlooked and missing inventions within grasp but conceptually out of reach.