> well short of a built in civilization level reaction to scientific progress writ large

if I remember correctly, the plot point wasn't a "civilization level reaction" to bad particle physics experiment results, but rather a very narrow reaction by less than 1/10,000,000th of civilization.

which makes sense: the vast majority of the members of "civilization" could not even accurately define "particle physics", much less understand the field, much less comprehend experimental results, much less understand the correctness of them, much less experience anguish over their correctness.