Ever on-going, expanding scientific discovery and understanding:
The old adage 'believe only half you hear' is, of course, not even half adequate as a guideline for making up one’s mind about more difficult or controversial matters of fact. It should rather include what one reads because the tendency to put too much faith in hard print and ignore contrary sources of information, Ideally, perhaps, it should be 'do not go in for believing as such' and using discrimination to examine dispassionately. Reality is not based on conjecture, fictions or great dreams, though many try to see it thus.
Even back in the 1960s and '70s, the natural sciences had not yet secured the huge exponential increases in knowledge that have resulted since computer technology was developed on a wide scale. Rapid changes in cutting-edge scientific theories like astronomy, astrophysics, microphysics, often had the effect of creating further uncertainty, because new theories – often conflicting – about the universe and matter came and went in regular procession – even though the most general theories (relativity, quantum theory) remained largely unshaken by experiment or continued observation. However, what may seem to be the ‘theoretical antics’ of astronomers and physicists still occur today, in such problem areas as dark matter and the disappearance of vast amounts of light which should be there, among other anomalies. Yet these kind of examples are a natural result of operating at the extreme outer rim of accumulated knowledge and using the trial and error of research theory.