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> Does gravity affect light?

That’s an extremely unsimple question, given that there is no accepted mechanism for how gravity works at all, never mind how it would affect something with zero mass like light.

The true answer is: we do not know. We see effects that may be caused in this manner, or may be caused by other phenomena.

“something with zero mass like light”

Light only has zero rest mass, and since it is never actually “at rest” that seems like a pretty flimsy objection.

“We see effects that may be caused in this manner, or may be caused by other phenomena.”

One could say that about every single scientific proposition ever made. The best science can do is rule out some explanations, and then try to judge which among those that remain can best explain our observations. Still, there will always be alternative explanations that might be true, which science cannot rule out.

given that there is no accepted mechanism for how gravity works at all, never mind how it would affect something with zero mass like light.

.. That's irrelevant

Not knowing how the mechanism works..it independent of the observed effect ...

Are you contending gravity doesn't exist Just because we don't know how it works... I don't think so

Things are observed before we know how they work...

Our knowing how something works does not at that point bring it into existence....

So simple question: Has light been observed to be bent by gravitation effect... whether we understand the mechanism or not?

...given that there is no accepted mechanism for how gravity works at all...

General Relativity has been the accepted version ever since it predicted the change in Mercury's orbit and the deflection of star light seen during a solar eclipse. It predicted these "Einstein Rings" seen in the above image. It's true that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics don't mesh logically together and the greatest conflict is demonstrated by black holes and dark matter.

This contradiction screams out for some kind of modification and resolving that has been the Holy Grail of Physics for nearly a century. I happen to believe String Theory resolves the issue. Experimental physicists have been searching for years for this so called 'Dark Matter' and have yet to find it

I contend "Dark Matter" is no more real than the ether that supposedly carried light or the Philosophers Stone.

How to explain this unseen matter? Since String theory postulates 10, 11 or even 26 separate dimensions you could literally stack 3 dimensional universes like pages in a book. Gravity is a weak force because it effects the other pages . We are literally seeing the effects of another page next to our universe! That means that weird things like the ever increasing expansion of the universe or virtual particles producing quantum noise are simply the result of these extra dimensions . String theory also has ways of removing division by zero for black holes. It has the added benefit of predicting gravity from it's basic tenants. It's simply too beautiful not to be true as far as I am concerned.