“100% wrong. Empirical reality simply is. It doesn’t change the Torah, and the Torah doesn’t change reality.”
This doesn’t seem correct. We knot that HB”H was mistakel boraiso ubara olma. The reality of the world is based entirely and completely on the Torah.
The Torah is whatever the gedolim of our generation says it is. If all the gedolim get together and pasken that the sky is really green than I am obligated to know that the sky is green.
We learn this from the posuk in Devarim 17:11 “…do not turn from the thing which they tell you right or left”.
Rashi there says even if they tell you your left is your right and your right is your left.
The Kli Yakar brings a gemarah in Sanhedrin 17a that says “we don’t appoint someone to sin on the Sanhedrin until he knows how to make a sheretz tahor according to the Torah.”
So as you say:
“Even if every gedol in the world paskened that a non-kosher animal had the kosher signs, you’d still be over an aveirah if you ate it.”
This would be wrong. If every godol in the world paskened that a non-kosher animal was kosher it would be mutar 100% to eat it and it would probably even me a mitzvah to eat it in order to encourage other people in their emunas chachamim.