For every time I see a criticism like Recht's (and Hossfelder's), I ask "could this theoretical scientist go into the lab and conduct a real experiment". I mean, find some challenging experiment that requires setting up a complex interferometer (or spectroscope, or molecular biology cloning), collect data, analyze it, and replicate an existing well-known theory?<p>Even though I'm a theoretical physicist I've gone into the lab and spent the time to learn how to conduct experiments and what I've learned is that a lot of theoretical wrangling is not relevant to actually getting a useful result that you can be confident in.<p>Looking at Recht's publication history, it looks like few of his papers ever do real-world experiments; mostly, they use simulations to "verify" the results. It may very well be that his gaps in experimental physics lead him to his conclusion.