I’m not sure this that this is fair to phlogiston or the scientists who worked with it. In fact, phlogiston theory made predictions. For example, substances in general were supposed to lose mass when combusting. The fact that metals gain mass when rusting was a data point that was actively against what was predicted by phlogiston theory. The theory also helped scientists see general patterns. So even if the term had been a placeholder, it allowed scientists to see that combustion, rust and metabolism were all ultimately linked procedures. The very fact that these shared patterns and that phlogiston predicted changes in mass (and that it failed to predict the behavior of air rich in oxygen and carbon dioxide (although those terms were not used until late)) in the wrong direction helped lead to the rejection of phlogiston theory. There are classical examples of theories with zero or close to zero predictive value. But phlogiston is not one of them.
Edit: Said lost mass when meant gain mass. Metals gain mass when rusting they don’t lose mass. Phlogiston said they should lose mass but they actually gain mass. Also, fixed some grammar issues.
I’m not sure why you picked hasidic. It sounds like you are confuing hasidic with haredi which is roughly speaking the general ultra-orthodox population. The hasidim are a specific strain of orthodox Judaism which arose in the last 1700s. But many haredim are not hasidim. In any case, the Shabbat goy has nothing to do with either the larger category or the smaller category. Note also that neither category describes all of Orthodox Judaism.
You are incidentally correct that orthodox Judaism does not believ that gentiles have to obey the Torah. However, I’m not sure that’s not due to a universal moral rule. The belief is generally defended by claiming that there is something metaphysically different about Jews or physically different. For example, there are hasidic sources which argue that keeping the specific commandments for Jews have direct reverberations on the world which make things in general better. That doesn’t happen for non-Jews. The distinction between a universal moral law and a non-universal moral law isn’t so clear. For example, if my universal moral law contains the rule “people who are HIV+ should not have unprotected sex” arguably this is just a non-universal law for HIV+ people rather than a universal. What quantifiers and qualifiers are acceptable in such rules for them to be universal is not clear to me.
(Incidentally, if we are talking about hasidim in particular, classical hasidic thought has some things which unambiguously separate Jews from non-Jews in really nasty ways. For example, some hasidim believe that Jews have a holier soul than non-Jews. Others declare non-Jews to be intrinsically less moral. For example, the Tanya, one of the formative texts of the Lubavitch hasidic movement, says that non-Jews can’t engage in actual altrusim but will only be altruistic for selfish reasons whereas Jews can engage in genuine altruism).