>>Frankly, the surest things we can say describing the physical world are mathematical, i.e. because of math “proofs.” Beyond that, science is theory upon theory - subject to falling like a house of cards. <<
As happened with Newtonian science — yet, apples did not cease to fall from trees.
The point is that scientific theories are broad principles that describe natural phenomenon. TToE is one of many theories that are perhaps subject to being overridden. Say, if a modern human skeleton was found in a 100 million year strata. But, rather than undermining TToE, the more data we find the more the theory is clarified. There are certainly gaps and changes in individual threads (those ggg loves to tout as “eliminating TToE”) but the overall theory has never been challenged by any real data nor has an alternate theory been proposed.
We have seen TToE in action and put it to use in things like antibiotics. To just throw up our hands and say “well, everything is after all just a theory” is both inaccurate and inapplicable.
A Scientific Theory is the highest order in the hierarchy of science. It is the most significant tool in the scientist’s drawer and is why you can own and use a computer (as a practical and personal example of scientific theories in practice).
Darwin’s observations and chronicle thereof established a framework for the theory — one that has stood the test of time and data.
And as much as ggg would have it be otherwise this isn’t about Darwin, any more than physics is about Newton and Einstein or astronomy is about Copernicus. It is about understanding how real science works — across all disciplines.
And yet Newtonian science has not been "replaced" by a "better" theory. It continues to be the best description we have of Nature when the phenomena under observation are so little affected by relativistic and quantum effects that such effects are for all practical purposes negligible. E.g., the trajectory of an apple falling from a tree is not observably affected by relativity and quantum effects. Though they are still present, the extremely high velocities involved in relativistic effects, and the extreme smallness and indeterminacy of quantum "objects" are typically not necessary considerations in describing the gravitational motion, to a sufficient degree of accuracy, of a falling apple in the "macroworld" of the Newtonian paradigm..
Now, post-relativity and quantum theory, the Newtonian science of motion and mechanics is widely regarded as a "'special case" of a more general description of nature which has its root in the quantum world. Yet for all practical purposes, it continues to serve as our "trusty friend."
Something similar may eventually happen with Darwin's theory. (I wouldn't rule it out in principle.) It may end up being a "special case" of a more general and universal description of Nature. To the extent that Nature itself increasingly gives evidence of being "informed" in some fashion, and given the fact that Darwin's theory is incapable (evidently) of dealing with the problems of life and consciousness, we shouldn't find this surprising.
Science was involved to be sure, but there would have been no Information Theory at all without Claude Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communications.