> the smoking gun was of course Edison's observation of gravitational lensing during an eclipse Actually, the fact that Eddington's (not Edison's) eclipse obse

> the smoking gun was of course Edison's observation of gravitational lensing during an eclipse Actually, the fact that Eddington's (not Edison's) eclipse observations were treated as a "smoking gun" was an example of marketing, since we now know that Eddington's actual data was simply not good enough to resolve the effect in question (bending of light by the Sun). The reason the claimed result was accepted without question was Eddington's prestige, i.e., marketing. If it had been someone with less prestige the results might have been examined more critically.