[Right Wing Professor]

Solar eclipses are predicted on the basis of observation of regularities.

No. Solar eclipses are predicted from a dynamical model of the solar system that extrapolates from the configuration of planetary bodies at present, Newton's laws of motion, and the law of universal gravitation. For solar eclipses (unlike lunar eclipses) the necessary alignment is too precise to expect to see simple regularities, and we don't. We need a fundamental understanding to make the predictions work.

[aruanan]

No. Solar eclipses are predicted from a dynamical model of the solar system that extrapolates from the configuration of planetary bodies at present, Newton's laws of motion, and the law of universal gravitation.

People were predicting solar eclipses long before and in the absence of knowledge of Newton's laws of motion or universal gravitation. The empirical observations were what enabled the laws to be formulated.