Personally, I don't trust the concept of values. It's already so complex and fragile, I'm afraid it doesn't actually exist.

Depends on your definition of "exist", of course, but values certainly do exist in human society. Unlike with the aether, one can use the model of values to make testable predictions, and these predictions are confirmed more often than not. People who value integrity are less likely to lie and cheat, people who value knowledge are more likely to engage in research, etc.

The "more aethereal" concepts are those with little or no predictive power, such as Free Will, God and Many Worlds. Some of them still might turn out to be "right" if someone comes along and comes up with good definitions and clear predictions.