Consider this argument: what % of people are in "academia" these days vs the previous centuries out of their own volition? Right now, there is an incentive to go into college, and it so happens that all sorts of people participate in the knowledge-creation process. And a bulk of the people participating in academia - are they really there for the sake of curiosity, to the pursuit of truth, etc? I'd bet that an individual in the past had less societal incentives to come into intellectual/theoretical areas and hash needless theories. So my argument is definitely not baseless (although - it is debatable)