 Dingle characterized his opponents as "traitors" to the scientific method, and called them "the modern Aristotelians" because he believed their theorizing was based on rationalism rather than empiricism.Some other scientists, notably Willem de Sitter, while not endorsing Dingle's more extreme rhetoric, nevertheless agreed with Dingle that the cosmological models of Milne, Eddington, and others were overly speculative.However, most modern cosmologists subsequently accepted the validity of the hypothetico-deductive method of Milne.