While miasma theory has been falsified, it was based on phenomena which were real and would have been stupid to deny.
If you can 'preserve the phenomena' that cause almost every serious producer of software to use version control, by some mechanism other than version control, with any kind of advantage whatsoever, everyone will be extremely interested because you are in a position to revolutionize the way software is made.
In reality the alternative to version control, particularly with multiple people touching the same files, is an insane mess, which is the reason we stick to these tools. This isn't to say that empirical evidence is not required, rather that the phenomena are so obvious and omnipresent that any idiot can gather them easily.
Just like anyone who questions the need for empirical evidence of the miasma theory has never worked around sick people a day in their life.