My understanding as a layman:

1. Copernicus figured out that if you put the sun at the center, then epicycles weren't necessary, and the math got easier --- because epicycles were based on a mis-understanding of the actual state of the universe --- I don't believe that anyone has identified such a non-alignment of fact and reasoning and observation for contemporary physics.

2. The problem is, modern physics is arguably getting boxed into a corner by approaching an end game state where the fundamental particles are getting identified, but are so small and difficult to separate out, that measurements are challenging to the point that while one can speculate and do math, actually proving out the speculations experimentally and taking actual measurements is expensive or so difficult to reason about that there doesn't seem an obvious path to an experiment, e.g., it looks as if the electron may be a fundamental particle, which is a sufficiently difficult concept to parse that it led to "The one-electron universe"/"The single electron hypothesis" and if that is the case, it walls off a not insignificant portion of particle physics at a size/state which can't be gotten smaller than.