"In this article, we are going to look at a manuscript that purports to overturn hundreds of years of accepted ideas about gravity, and use it as an illustration of how controversial ideas are dealt with in modern physics."
I don't think you can be any more up front than that. It's not a sheepish admission, it's the whole point of the article. Ars are trying to highlight exactly the problems you're talking about.
"In this article, we are going to look at a manuscript that purports to overturn hundreds of years of accepted ideas about gravity, and use it as an illustration of how controversial ideas are dealt with in modern physics."
I don't think you can be any more up front than that. It's not a sheepish admission, it's the whole point of the article. Ars are trying to highlight exactly the problems you're talking about.