Phlogistons and Photons as Non-Physics

Phlogiston Theory proposed in 1667 by Becher followed by Stahl postulated the existence of a fire-like element named phlogiston (flame, burning) within combustible bodies being released during combustion/oxidation as heat energy. Phlogistons were thus thought to be carriers of energy released during burning. 

The theory was dismissed when Lavoisier in 1772 showed that phosphorous increased weight by combining with oxygen from air during burning thus increasing weight. This showed that if phlogistons were real as elements being released during burning, then they had negative weight/mass, and so could not be physical elements, only fiction.  

In 1905 Einstein suggested that light of frequency $\nu$ heuristically could be thought of as a stream of little elements of energy or energy quanta later named photons of size $h\nu$ with $h$ Planck's constant, which could be released when hitting a metal surface thus producing electric energy as photoelectricity. The physical nature of a photon has remained elusive. 

The photon is an element of the Standard Model of particle physics as a carrier of electromagnetic interaction/energy at the speed of light in vacuum, a carrier without mass and charge. 

The phlogiston and the photon are both seen as carriers of little elements or packets of energy. A phlogiston has negative mass, while a photon has no mass. Both have zero charge. 

What about then the idea of an element or quanta of energy? Is this physics? 

We know that the energy released in combustion comes from a recombination of atomic structure. Phlogistons as little elements of energy are not needed. 

I agree with Schrödinger to see electromagnetic interaction/transfer of energy as an electromagnetic wave resonance phenomenon described by Maxwell's equations. This is the way an antenna works. It can be seen as a recombination of wave structures. There is here no need of photons as little elements of energy to explain communication over distance by radio waves. 

Phlogistons have been discarded as fiction without any role to serve. More generally, there can be no elements of pure energy. 

It may well be that also photons can be discarded as fiction without any role to serve. 

In quantum field theory there is place for both particles and fields with a particle seen as a local perturbation of the field. But if a particle is nothing but a perturbation of a field, why not use Ockham's razor to be satisfied with only fields?