Does a Modern Physicist Know Classical Physics?

Is it possible that fundamental physics can be reduced to combinations of 

• Gravitation governed by Newtonian Mechanics (NM).
• Electromagnetics governed by Maxwell's equations and Coulomb's Law (EM). 

This is true for classical physics, while modern physics is commonly viewed to need other forms of fundamental physics as Special/General Relativity SR/GR and Quantum Mechanics QM. The trouble with modern physics is that GR and QM since 100 years are understood to be incompatible/contradictory with no resolution in sight, which has caused a crisis of modern physics witnessed by many leading physicists, but at the same time denied. The contradiction has driven physicists to seek resolutions on very small scales of $10^{-34}$ m of QM as String Theory, and on the very large scales of the whole Universe as GR, without progress since 50 years, both beyond any form of direct experimental confirmation, thus forms of speculation. 

Of course there were reasons perceived to step out of the NM+EM paradigm, which had worked so amazingly well for all of classical physics, at the turn to modern physics at the beginning of the 20th century. Here is where classical physics stumbled:

1. Instant action at distance in NM: (Einstein GR)
2. Irreversibility in thermodynamics (2nd Law): (Boltzmann Statistics)
3. Absence of the ultra-violet catastrophe in black-body radiation: (Planck Statistics)
4. Null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment: (Einstein SR)

1 was the classical problem left unresolved by Newton, which did not stop classical physics to boom, with 1 and 4 supposedly resolved by Einstein as GR/SR.

2 came out of observations of irreversible transfer of mechanical energy to heat energy in contradiction to the fact that the laws of NM and EM are formally reversible. Boltzmann used a big hammer to resolve this paradox in the form of statistical physics followed by Planck's statistics to explain 3: The very essence of classical physics as deterministic cause-effect physics was given up in a Faustian deal. This started the Fall of Physics. 

3 and 4 were essentially null results, which do not serve well as stepping stones to progress. 

Modern physics thus grew out from efforts to resolve 2-3 by introducing entirely new physics based on statistics taking the form of QM, and SR/GR to resolve 1 and 4.  

Once the Fall was made there was no limit to what new physics could be invented which culminated at the end of the 20th century after 100 years of free fall, with the Standard Model and String Theory beyond observation. The atomic bomb served to give theoretical physicists unlimited resources to create new physics. But the fundamental problems 1-4 were left without credible answers, with only deepened mystery.

In books and blog posts I have suggested resolutions of 1-4 within classical physics. Theoretical physicists have not shown any openness to any form of discussion. Is the reason that a modern physicist does not have to know much about classical physics/mathematics, because it has been replaced by modern physics, like the epicycles of Ptolemy? To understand if 1-4 cannot, or in fact can, be resolved within classical deterministic physics, seems to me to require solid knowledge of classical physics. Is this included in the curriculum for physics education today? Or is it primarily focussed on SR/GR and QM? 

The less you know, the more certain you can be that you are right. (Dunning-Kruger effect)

Steven Weinberg in Dreams of a Final Theory unhappy with the linearity of QM, seeking an alternative but failing:

“This theoretical failure to find a plausible alternative to quantum mechanics, even more than the precise experimental verification of linearity, suggests to me that quantum mechanics is the way it is because any small change in quantum mechanics would lead to logical absurdities. If this is true, quantum mechanics may be a permanent part of physics. Indeed, quantum mechanics may survive not merely as an approximation to a deeper truth, in the way that Newton’s theory of gravitation survives as an approximation to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, but as a precisely valid feature of the final theory.”

In the next post I will briefly indicate how 1-4 can be explained within NM+EM as if that could be the final theory.