there is this mentality that people portray that they would have somehow known better if they were put in the same situation as their forefathers.

I tell people that till date, we have grown according to innovation, exposure, and change in belief system over a lot of things. For instance, there are a lot of things we refer to as non-ethical today in the science community that were not referred to as such about 100 years ago, so it comes to beg the question, what would have changed if you were in that world with limited knowledge, instruments, and access to perform practicals?