No piezoe, Einstein's work was not entirely theoretical.
From the outset Einstein's special relativity (1905) enabled existing problems to be resolved in classical physics. Maxwell equations (1861) electric and magnetic fields, was straight away transformed by Special Relativity. Lorentz transformation (1887) turned into practical Lorentz symmetry by Special Relativity, and so indeed became understood as a fundamental law of nature. Special Relativity straight off opened up Quantum electrodynamics and provided the means for some practical experimentation.
I take your point about the process which made Einstein's work valid. It needed to be undertaken within the scientific community rather than in the political or media domains. Which makes the point! AGW has been validated by science and massively endorsed by the scientific community. In that regard there is no split at all.
Furthermore, there's nothing theoretical about CO2, or that it warms atmosphere. Yet those basic facts have their detractors for all sorts of reasons, just as Einstein's science did.
The political and media stages are the only home for those who refuse that science, as the scientific stage is not the place for anti-AGW nonsense anymore than it is or was for Einstein Relativity deniers.