Science is tentative, including scientific "fact." It was a fact that the earth was flat and it was also a fact that the earth is round.
Science is tentative in what it accepts as the current ideas of reality - and does not regard those concepts as "fact" - but it is not at all tentative about rejecting concepts that are shown to be invalid.
Science has shown that the concept of a flat earth is invalid - there is no way you can refine a flat earth concept and make it compatible with the facts of the shape of the earth. You can refine the 'round' earth concept -- it is an oblate spheroid, flattened between the poles due to the revolution of the planet (which also confirms that the planet is revolving and not at rest at the center of the universe). Likewise there will be no revision to the shape of the earth into a rhomboid or a cube.
Greeks had estimated the diameter of the earth based on the length of the shadow at different latitudes and the distance between those latitudes, so a flat earth was never a universal "fact" concept (using a loose definition of fact - #4 below).
The age of the earth is a fact. The concept of the actual age has changed over time as we know more about the issue - knowledge lets us refine our knowledge. We are honing in on the actual factual age of the earth, but the fact of it's age is not changed.
If both groups are looking at Archaeopteryx, one group concludes that its evidence of therapod-avian evolution, while the other says that its nothing more than an extinct avian. They both are looking at the same evidence, but they are interpreting it differently.
Presumably, you are saying that creo's will ignore one piece of evidence in order to make their claims more appealing.
As in ignoring the non-avian characteristics of Archy. Those characteristics are there, they are part of the factual evidence of what Archy was. Denial of these elements does not invalidate them, nor does it confront the reality of these elements. Denial is necessary for delusion. Denial is not an alternative explanation. An interpretation based on denial is not an alternative explanation but a delusion.
The way we hone our knowledge is by not denying the evidence that says your current concepts are wrong, whether it is the age of the earth or the non-avian characteristics of Archy.
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