This is not strictly true. The recent Nobel was such an expedition which was ignored by scientists in the 40s-70s as an esoteric philosophical question that can

This is not strictly true. The recent Nobel was such an expedition which was ignored by scientists in the 40s-70s as an esoteric philosophical question that cannot be answered. It is still not “answered” per se but Bell’s formulations leave very few choices for the base reality of the model. Observe that the model itself worked quite well regardless of the base reality. Knowing that truth doesn’t change any current applications. But who knows where it’ll lead. So knowing which model is successful and which model is real is a very important question that we must try our best to answer. Only in the natural sciences can such a question even be answered.