Re: those supposedly “crazy” conspiracy theorists, guess what?

[William Seger]

84. That's not what "fact" and "theory" mean in science

I dare say that the phenomenon of gravity has always been accepted as a "fact" in the scientific sense of the term, i.e. accepted as a "real" phenomenon, based on highly repeatable observations -- observations so credible, repeatable, and apparently universal that it would be irrational to deny that gravity exists. On the other hand, scientific "theories" attempt to provide a logical framework for understanding the facts. Newton's theory of gravity is a purely mathematical framework that quantitatively describes the behavior of objects reacting to gravity. It has the useful attribute of allowing accurate predictions of future observations, but theories are never "promoted" to be facts; they're two different things. We still use Newton's math for sending rovers to Mars, but we now know that for objects moving near the speed of light, we need to use a different framework: Einstein's theory of gravity.