Is Iterative Engineering a Good Idea?

In the past, we just sort of stumbled forward and figured these things out whenever it happened to work. The preparadimatic stage of any scientific field looks like that. In some sense, yes, but in some sense, humanity has gotten past this multiple times. It's not something that a startup can iterate on in two years. Humanity as a whole has done it before. I guess I feel more angsty about this because I don't feel like there's ever been a time limit before. And now it seems like there is one.