The delusion that such statements “approximately capture the truth” of things like GR is pervasive, but no less a delusion for it.
Not sure whether we disagree here, my guess is I am slightly unsure what you intend to say. I do think there are statements like “time will pass more slowly relative to a stationary observer if you move close to the speed of light” that are highly specific predictions that can be verified (given sufficient investments in experiments) without deeply understanding the theory of relativity. Such a statement does definitely capture some aspect of the truth of general relativity.
If some process (like a physicist or a research lab) repeatedly generates highly surprising predictions like this that turn out to come true, someone might be said to meaningfully be “convinced of the veracity of general relativity” without a concrete understanding of the underlying theory.
Not sure whether we disagree here, my guess is I am slightly unsure what you intend to say. I do think there are statements like “time will pass more slowly relative to a stationary observer if you move close to the speed of light” that are highly specific predictions that can be verified (given sufficient investments in experiments) without deeply understanding the theory of relativity. Such a statement does definitely capture some aspect of the truth of general relativity.
If some process (like a physicist or a research lab) repeatedly generates highly surprising predictions like this that turn out to come true, someone might be said to meaningfully be “convinced of the veracity of general relativity” without a concrete understanding of the underlying theory.