>>Since the gap between theory and confirmation of the theory could span a whole career, young physicists need to survive by pleasing their elders with fashionable theories for a decade without any feedback from the physical universe.

There are multiple ways of defining science: a method, methodology, epistemology... One definition is that science is the scientific culture. Stuff that impacts culture, without conflicting with methods epistemology can still change science. Science in a world where generations pass between hypothesis and test is a different kind of science.