They call the social sciences "soft", but between dark matter and dark energy, physicists are getting a little squishy on the existence of 96% of everything. Say what you will about studying Pushkin, but at least he exists! http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/11/dark-energy-might-not-exist-after-all.html …
You're entering into real Ship of Theseus territory with that argument. Lenin's corpse has been pretty aggressively maintained