Einstein took that data, nothing wrong here, but ended up with an outcome in which the data is not placed in its most accurate context.
Let me put it this way:
Newton's subject matter was matter, and in this comparison with Einstein Newton focused on the movement of matter through space.
With that endeavor, we ended up with anomalies in the behavior of matter moving through space. No one had an answer for that, until Einstein came along and pointed out what the solution was to explain the behavior of these anomalies.
But... Einstein explained just the How. He did not explain the Why.
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Einstein, and allow me to use the term Spacetime here, declared the behavior of matter as follows:
3 Motions + Spacetime
In reality, there are 4 Motions.
1. Big Bang event (Einstein knew nothing about the Big Bang when he worked on his relativity theories).
2. Galactic rotation (Milky Way circling)
3. Star System rotation (planets revolving around Sun)
4. Planet rotation (Earth spinning, Moon in tow)
The long and short of this is that the Big Bang event provided a movement to matter that is not based on gravity, whereas the other motions do have gravity as part of their behavior.
This means that we cannot bring matter back to a single force or single framework. Rather we must work with two distinct outcomes of forces.
Einstein did not do that. He desired a single framework.
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The fastest movement of matter is explained by the Big Bang event. First law of physics: an object will remain at rest or continue moving in a straight line at a constant speed unless acted upon by an external force. So, once put in place, only interference could alter that outcome.
In my model, the Big Bang event was not an explosion but rather a retraction, a catapulting action, put in place once, and that continues to this day.
It is a straight line, whereas the three other motions are rotational and embody a balancing interplay of gravity and circular outward pull.
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The anomaly, for instance as seen with Mercury's perihelion, is caused by the interplay between side-way rotation (including gravity) and the straight line that is not based on gravity.
Mercury: involved with Motions #1, #2, #3, and #4.
Sun: involved with Motions #1 and #2, not with Motions #3 and #4.
The closer to the center of the Solar System swirl, the more Motion #1 will play its role, the straight line effect.
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When a train is moving through a long bend that seems to go on forever, people inside the train will adjust their positions to counter the side-way motion experienced inside the train.
Then, when the train is back on a straight track alignment, folks adjust themselves back to their original positions.
This second example, folks returning to their original position, that explains the anomalies we see with the inner planets; they are closest to the straight alignment.
Neptune is fully involved with its own spinning and with its trajectory around the Sun. It is also involved in Motions #1 and #2 of course. Yet move closer in and the spinning of a planet and trajectory around the Sun will have lesser influence. The straightness of the first motion is expressed better.
Allow me the freedom to just use percentages at will to show what I want to show:
Neptune's Motion #1 (50%), Motion #2 (25%), Motion #3 (15%), Motion #4 (10%). Total 100%.
Mercury's Motion #1 (52%), Motion #2 (26%), Motion #3 (14%), Motion #4 (8%). Total 100%.
Just numbers to show the point. In both cases, Motion #1 is the exact same motion, so these numbers are meant to be relative, leading to a 100% outcome per each planet.
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That means, Jim, that it is possible to remain in a mechanical model to explain what we witness. There is no use to have an abstraction play out.
The mechanical model is of course a step up from Newton's Mechanics, but that is because we learned a thing of two since Newton.
In short, Einstein established theories, but a theory can never be the foundation of science. The data must remain the foundation of science. I know you state that Einstein did stick it out with the data, but had he done that fully, he would have been able to say both How and Why, and yet he did not explain the Why.
'Einstein, Gödel, and Me'
https://fred-rick.medium.com/einstein-g%C3%B6del-and-me-5bee14dd0edd
