Gravity's Unresolved Debt: A Physical and Philosophical Critique of Contemporary Gravitational Theory, the Sociology That Sustains it, and the Cost of not Moving on

General Relativity (GR), often treated as a complete gravitational framework acting on observed baryonic matter alone, is evaluated across multiple independent observational regimes. The manuscript presents a quantitative closure-deficit ledger spanning solar-system tests, galaxy rotation curves, galaxy groups, rich clusters, cluster mergers, and cosmological background constraints. It argues that the resulting non-closure pattern has historically been managed by layered auxiliary postulates, and examines the associated methodological and sociological implications. The paper distinguishes two claims: (1) a robust empirical statement that baryons-only GR remains non-closed across regimes outside the local high-acceleration domain, and (2) a more cautious epistemic statement that the full residual set does not yet imply a single universal correction law. A formal appendix introduces a derivational-closure criterion and an ontological-warrant criterion for evaluating auxiliary theoretical components. This record is the public preprint release of version v1.0.0.