> I think it's worth taking the results seriously but not the proposed mechanism literally

Yes, agreed. There has been plenty of einstein-smart humans making observations for the ~30000 years of human prehistory, with and without the scientific method. Even with a low hit ratio, there is bound to be plenty of correct intuitions. A large number of post-renaissance scientific discoveries are about expressing these in the right testable framework and language.

Unfortunately, people do not bother to make the effort to study these (first hand sources, historical documents like travelogues, even scripture) and rely on either making up or repeating random shit.