I don't know why we're even arguing about this.  Most of the top mainstream physicists admit that 1) there's no proof for gravity as formerly understood and 2) there must be some other (as yet elusive) explanation for the phenomenon.

On one discussion resulting from a Church Militant article on the Vatican having to answer for the 'vax deaths' resulting from the Pope's order that all Catholics shouds get one, there resulted in the discussion that Newton's theory of gravity is more of a truth than the Bible.
Here is the beginning of the exchange:

'With the Galileo affair being used as a line of attack against the Church as anti-science, you would think that the Holy See would have learned not to weigh in on disputed scientific questions, especially NOT on politicized ones like this pandemic. But, here we have the Church engaging in a Galileo x 10 here in the 21st century!'

I replied that the Galileo case was a metaphysical one (because of the relativity of the created universe), not one decided by science, and that it was never proven by science the Church got the Galileo case wrong.
Having got four thumbs down here is the first reply to this rejection of proof:

'As a physicist, I can assure you geocentrism has been proven wrong. In fact, everything known about physics proves it wrong, an infinite number of times over. Even basic Newtonian physics proves it wrong. Current lunatics, pretending to be scientists, going around thinking they are defending the Church by trying to defend geocentrism are only doing a grave disservice to the faith by confirming the idea in the minds of the anti-religious that the religious are lunatics.

I replied:
I will let other physicists answer your 'geocentrism is proven wrong' assertion Edward,

‘All modern cosmology stands or falls with this concept [heliocentrism] being correct, even though, to quote a text approved by Einstein: “We cannot feel our motion through space, nor has any experiment ever proved the Earth is in motion.”’ (Lincoln Barnett: The universe and Dr. Einstein, Dover Publications, 1948, p.73)

‘Whether the Earth rotates once a day from west to east as Copernicus taught, or the heavens revolve once a day from east to west as his predecessors believed, the observable phenomena will be exactly the same. This shows a defect in Newtonian dynamics, since an empirical science ought not to contain a metaphysical assumption that cannot be proved or disproved by observation.’ (Bertrand Russell: quoted in D. D. Sciama’s The Unity of the Universe, p.18)

Richard Dawkins himself has admitted: ‘It is not actually provable that the Earth orbits the Sun, but it is perverse to deny it.’ (Richard Dawkins, speaking on gαy Byrne’s The Meaning of Life, RTE, 18th Oct. 2015.)

‘Misconceptions about the nature and practice of science abound, and are often held by otherwise respectable practicing scientists themselves. Unfortunately, there are many other misconceptions about science. One of the most common of these concerns the so-called “scientific proofs.” Contrary to popular belief however, there is no such thing as a scientific proof. Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic, not in science. Scientists prefer theories for which there is more and better evidence to those for which there is less. Proofs are not the currency of science.’ (Satoshi Kanazawa: The Scientific Fundamentalist, published on Nov. 16, 2008. )

To which the physicist answered:
'You are quoting out of context. Making the point that a proof cannot be made on the basis of simple observation OBVIOUSLY means there needs to be OTHER MEANS THEN FROM STANDING STATICALLY ON EARTH. GOT IT?!!!!!!!!
AND THERE ARE. GOT IT?!!!!!!!!
And any "scientist" who claims there is no such thing as anything axiomatic in science, such as that that can be called proven, is flat out lying as a childish ego trip.

I replied: 'No, I have not got it Edward., I have not gone the way of Kaku like you seem to have gone with your geocentrism is proven wrong..

‘Nobody that I know of in my field of theoretical physics uses the “so called scientific method.”’ --- Michio Kaku; theoretical physicist at the City College of New York, a best-selling author, and a well-known populariser of science. (Wiki)

I follow the scientific method. The definitive problem for your heliocentric ‘proofs’ that the Earth revolves round the sun, came to a head in the wake of the famous Airy (1870-1) and Michelson & Morley (1887) experiments. Those tests showed a non orbiting Earth. It was Einstein who used his Special Theory of Relativity to rescue heliocentrism as one or two scientific possibilities, geocentric or heliocentric. That is where science is today on the matter. The Bible, that is God, on the other hand reveals the sun orbits a fixed Earth.'

He answered: 'The Bible makes no such assertion. It is not good to lie about the Bible. Making an observational comment with lyrical intent makes no definitive quantitative judgment of physical reality.
You clearly know nothing about science. Of course applied science and its methods of measurement are seldom used in theoretical physics, which is very abstract and speculative. So what? It doesn't need to be and theoretical physics is rarely used in Astrophysics, in which there are many attempts at calculation. You are absurdly wrong to suggest that Einstein's comments were meant to imply uncertainty about the status of a repudiated geocentric theory. He only meant that it is such an absurd theory, no further indisputable objective proof was necessary. Everything we know in physics repudiates it. As I pointed out previously, if you hypothetically created a solar system with the sun orbiting the earth, gravity would cause such a system to collapse instantaneously. That's where it stands now.

Finally I said:'"The Bible makes no such assertion. It is not good to lie about the Bible." Really Edward? Someone who holds this heretical belief is really not worth discussing this subject with. You deny what all of the Fathers held, When the opinion of all the Fathers agreed on a Biblical revelation then it must be considered an immutable, irreformable truth in virtue of the fact that this revelation had been constantly preserved and held by Church Tradition since the time of the Apostles.

You prefer Newton's THEORY of gravity as your blind faith, arguing as if it is a law that somehow proves your heliocentrism. When it comes to what the Bible reveals I will adhere to what all of the Fathers and the Council of Trent understood.

So Ladislaus, it seems Newton's theory is alive and well with Catholic physicists.

I don't know why we're even arguing about this.  Most of the top mainstream physicists admit that 1) there's no proof for gravity as formerly understood and 2) there must be some other (as yet elusive) explanation for the phenomenon.

Best conclusion in this thread.

If the high priests of Scientism themselves admit there's no proof, then why do so many people go further than them, and act like it's dogma, and deniers of said dogma are heretics? It's because they believe in Scientism (a cult of "science") rather than true SCIENCE.

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 

The angels (said high priests of modern science) dare not claim to have proofs of gravity -- but unemployed guys sitting in their mom's basement are quick to do so. How typical. That's why that saying was coined.

Take a huge massive ball (or rough chunk) of lead and see if it can deflect a speck of dust EVEN A LITTLE BIT. And if the Earth is skewing the results, being so many orders of magnitude more massive? Just focus on a different direction, where the Earth is neutral -- such as HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT -- left to right.  The earth doesn't care whether a dust speck drifts east or west. See if a massive chunk of lead can divert that speck of dust EVEN THE SMALLEST MEASURABLE AMOUNT.

Taking the bolded above, the problem is, you can not simply ignore the gravitational pull created by earth, which is MAGNITUDES greater than any object you'll be able to get your hands on to compare to that speck of dust. This will also affect the east/west or left/right horizontal aspects t0o, because gravity will always be pulling perpendicular to such movement.  And then there's the electrostatic forces of the dust particle, which most likely carries a charge.

Also, you'd need something the size of the earth positioned orthogonal thereto to compete with that speck of dust on a 1:1 ratio on a horizontal basis. But let's say you wanted to recreat something that would be akin to the gravitational forces the earth exerted on a 1 kg ball of metal.  Let's also say that that speck of dust has a mass of 1.1 x 10^-13 kg.  You would then need a ball having a mass of 7.22 x 10¹¹ kg in order to compete on a 1:1 ratio with the earth--for comparison, the mass of the Titanic was 4.2 x 10⁷ kg.  Even you halved that, quartered it, etc., you still wouldn't be able to get a mass large enough to overcome the earth's gravitational pull.

And you could also do this in "outer space" if such a thing existed. But they haven't done this, for some reason.

Potentially, yes, such experiments could be conducted in orbital space.  But arguably you'd still need a mass that's greater than the spacecraft itself, which borders on the impossible.

But then that would mean we have the ability to orbit the earth, and as everyone here knows.... that's impossible. 

Taking the bolded above, the problem is, you can not simply ignore the gravitational pull created by earth, which is MAGNITUDES greater than any object you'll be able to get your hands on to compare to that speck of dust. This will also affect the east/west or left/right horizontal aspects t0o, because gravity will always be pulling perpendicular to such movement.  And then there's the electrostatic forces of the dust particle, which most likely carries a charge.

Also, you'd need something the size of the earth positioned orthogonal thereto to compete with that speck of dust on a 1:1 ratio on a horizontal basis. But let's say you wanted to recreat something that would be akin to the gravitational forces the earth exerted on a 1 kg ball of metal.  Let's also say that that speck of dust has a mass of 1.1 x 10^-13 kg.  You would then need a ball having a mass of 7.22 x 10¹¹ kg in order to compete on a 1:1 ratio with the earth--for comparison, the mass of the Titanic was 4.2 x 10⁷ kg.  Even you halved that, quartered it, etc., you still wouldn't be able to get a mass large enough to overcome the earth's gravitational pull.

According to Newtonian mechanics, the normal force cancels out gravity in the north-south direction on the surface of the earth so the only net force would be east-west.

I may have mis-stated this part, but my overall point is that not only must such experiments be carried out in a vacuum, preferably in a weightless environ, but the amount of mass needed to show even an appreciable amount of pull on something as small as a dust particle makes such experiments virtually impossible to do.

And my point was that the gravitational pull from the earth is irrelevant as it is negated by the equal and opposite normal force acting perpendicular to it on the y-axis. So if you could get two giant boulders side by side, the only net force acting on them should be their gravitational attraction to each other (acting horizontally, on the x-axis.)

The wording of this subject should have been 'There is no proof for Newton's theory of gravity.' What we call gravity exists, but what causes it is unknown. Anyone can offer a theory for gravity but that is all it is, a theory. Newton based his universal theory of gravity on Kepler's ellipse for the paths of planets. Domenico Cassini falsified Kepler's and Newton's compromise geometry when he measured orbits as Cassinian ovals. In other words Cassini falsified Newton's theory. But Cassini was a geocentrist so his astronomy is ignored.

I don't believe gravity exists. There is absolutely no evidence that objects are drawn together just by virtue of them having mass.

You don't think gravity exists? You then say there is no evidence that mass causes gravity. Are you sure that what you really meant to say is 'I don't think Newton's version of gravity exists.'

Gravity exists or apples do not fall to the ground from apple trees. What most on this subject say is that Newton's theory of gravity is a load of rubbish.

Apples fall to the ground because they are denser than the air and less dense than the ground. This also explains why helium balloons float in the air and why giant cruise ships don't sink in the ocean. No need to posit an imaginary attractive force between the earth and physical objects.