I'm no physicist but I've never liked dark matter and dark energy: they smell suspiciously similar to hacks (the bad kind) if a hack could be defined as over-fitting a solution to a problem.
It seems as though, recently, science has become rather bad at the words "I don't know." Things were staying together more than they should so we invented dark matter in order to explain that. Now, whenever something stays together more than it should we claim that dark matter has more evidence[1]: no, there is simply more evidence of the problem that dark matter seeks to solve. How do we even know it's a single problem (a.k.a. force)? How do we even know that dark energy is another problem?
It's like me claiming that little monsters called frombles are responsible for light and every time I see light I claim "see! There's light, so there are frombles!"
Not that dark matter is a bad solution, I just feel as though there is a disproportionate amount of people looking into it given that we've never actually observed a WIMP. Nor do I think that research into dark matter should cease, it has so far found a really good definition of the problem and, yes, WIMPs are a good candidate solution.
If we could have a few more people educated in the field start off at "I don't know," that would be great. You know, the "dirty" kind of science that used to be done when nobody really knew what was going on at all - that's when we learned the most: when we didn't have the "safe bet" research topics. When people came up with stupid ideas and tested those stupid ideas. Stupid ideas are the best ideas because it at least means that one person is thinking outside of the box.
Dark matter isn't a solution, it's a quantification of the unknown. It's more nuanced than just "I don't know", but it's not far from it. I think you're wrong that science is bad at those words, it's just that's it all plays out a little more subtly than that. There are lots of things we DO know about this unknown phenomenon that we've named dark matter, and we have lots of theories, but everyone will admit it's still a bit of a mystery.
Very often it's "played" as the final solution, though - if you look at the tone of the article I linked or even the original post. Those articles are very consistent with us laymen get, so you can hardly blame me for thinking that this is the case :).
> they smell suspiciously similar to hacks (the bad kind) if a hack could be defined as over-fitting a solution to a problem.
Dark matter is not over-fitting - as described in article, it does not explain galaxy radial velocity as well as MOND. In addition to that, dark matter explains much more and successfully predicted few things. While MOND only described galaxy radial velocity better, but completely failed all the other things. So MOND seems to be the overfitting one.
Physics have theories that are best so far, nobody claims they are 100% proven.
I think physicists know its an hypothesis, the problem is when its presented to the general public as an universal indisputable truth of science.
You know, those documentaries with the narrator assuming you're a two years old, spoiling the conclusion at the beginning and repeating it as a teaser every 5 minutes? Or all of those "I Love Science" pages. People should stop trying to make science a reality show.
I'm no physicist but I've never liked dark matter and dark energy: they smell suspiciously similar to hacks (the bad kind) if a hack could be defined as over-fitting a solution to a problem.
It seems as though, recently, science has become rather bad at the words "I don't know." Things were staying together more than they should so we invented dark matter in order to explain that. Now, whenever something stays together more than it should we claim that dark matter has more evidence[1]: no, there is simply more evidence of the problem that dark matter seeks to solve. How do we even know it's a single problem (a.k.a. force)? How do we even know that dark energy is another problem?
It's like me claiming that little monsters called frombles are responsible for light and every time I see light I claim "see! There's light, so there are frombles!"
Not that dark matter is a bad solution, I just feel as though there is a disproportionate amount of people looking into it given that we've never actually observed a WIMP. Nor do I think that research into dark matter should cease, it has so far found a really good definition of the problem and, yes, WIMPs are a good candidate solution.
If we could have a few more people educated in the field start off at "I don't know," that would be great. You know, the "dirty" kind of science that used to be done when nobody really knew what was going on at all - that's when we learned the most: when we didn't have the "safe bet" research topics. When people came up with stupid ideas and tested those stupid ideas. Stupid ideas are the best ideas because it at least means that one person is thinking outside of the box.
[1]: http://www.iflscience.com/physics/researchers-claim-have-fou...