The received story of modern physics features a pioneering group of quantum theorists (Bohr, Heisenberg, Born, Pauli) who showed that critical aspects of the atomic world are observer-created, vindicating subjectivism by reference to what has become a bedrock of experimental science. This story, however, is undermined by a parallel lineage of physicists (Einstein, de Broglie, Schrödinger, Bohm, Bell) whose climax came with David Bohm’s reformulation of quantum mechanics in terms of an objective micro-world.

We contrast these two approaches to quantum theory in layman’s terms, focusing on how they each explain key experiments and on what premises about the nature of explanation itself they each proceed from. Examining the response of Bohm’s opponents will locate the real source of their worldview not in experimental discoveries, but in avant-garde philosophy, which will help to elucidate contemporary disputes about scientific methodology at the frontier of physics.