The argument that AI will accelerate scientific discovery has always depended on a specific structural claim: that the ability to verify a hypothesis quickly is the binding constraint on discovery. Remove that constraint, the argument goes, and AI's speed advantage becomes decisive. Dwarkesh Patel opened his episode with Terence Tao by stress-testing that claim against one of the most celebrated discoveries in the history of science . Kepler did not have a verification loop. He had data he barely understood, intuitions he could not yet formalize, and a conclusion that…