A useful comparison today would be with string theorists - they're examining a regime far beyond what is accessible to instruments - the Planck range; they're relying on 'intuition' guided by 'expertise'; of course, this is what they're criticised for - but until instruments are thought up and constructed that can examine that regime - I mean the Planck regime - it is difficult to see what can be done except to do what they are doing...

I'd point out that Hawking Radiation is taken seriously enough that the main two serious programmes in Quantum Gravity, that is String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity have come up with micro-state causal explanations of this phenomenon. It's seen as a crucial testing ground.

I'd also say that Aristotle wasn't examining the possibility of prediction because in his Physics, he was interested in thinking through the basic concepts of change, time, space, motion and substance; there are plenty of books that do the same today for QM.

Last week, for example, I was reading a book by Julian Barbour & Herbert Pfister called Machs Principle: From Newtons Bucket to Quantum Gravity - no predictions are mentioned in this text, just the analysis of concepts of space, time, motion & crucially, inertia.