The premise strikes me as clearly false -- see, e.g., not only the work of Aristotle but also that of Hume. I suspect that one could make it seem more plausible by stipulating a very specific definition of 'systematic theorizing in the natural sciences' and, therefore, by changing the comparison class. That said, my guess is that such efforts would begin to sound a bit like a seen from 'Fletch' -- "... well ... yes ... but the 'very end' was really sudden" -- but maybe I'm insufficiently optimistic on this issue.