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Exaggerate much… There is a lot of real oppression in this world. Disagreement over how to interpret astrophysical observations doesn’t enter into any of it.
That being said, when they were the best models we had they made sense to support.
That's how theories work?
And I would ask what alternatives to current dark matter and/or age of the universe you believe there are. Because I would argue it's not about thought police but more about using the best theories we have until they are proven incorrect.
That's genuinely basic science. If you don't understand that, then I'm not really sure what to do from there. (https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/evolution-today/what...)
I have no idea what thermophlogistonics is, and there are no Google search results for it. But based on the aether theory, I can deduce it was just a sort of pre-Einstein theory of the universe.
You don't need to outsource your thinking to an external committee of glacially moving bureaucracy to decide for science to move forward by wholesale replacing one theory with another.
Thermophlogistonics is what we'd have today if we decided that the phlogiston theory is the way to go, we just need to decide that the Phlogiston is a Dark Particle we can't actually observe and then derive thermodynamics from experimental observation, followed by super gluing the two together as to not embarass the prestigious old guard that still believes in the perpetually unobserved phlogiston.
Are you saying that this exists today?
I feel like you want there to be some nefarious behind the scenes Snidely Whiplash sort of character keeping science held back, and that's just not the case.
We use the current theories and not phlogiston or whatever your straw man theory is because they're the best ones we have right now. They will change with new information.
It legitimately seems like you don't understand the basics of the scientific process.
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” -Max Planck, physicist of some renown, prescient of this and many other comment threads
How law would work if it followed your patten of how science supposedly operate.
As for dark matter, repeat failure of observation in both man made experiments and inconsistencies in the cosmic distribution. If we called it the "ad hoc variable representing the will of the gods lightly pushing shit around" it would more accurately fit observations. Something spins too fast, arbitrary dial the will of god to keep shit together in that particular place.
Inconsistent with elsewhere? No problem the Gods will it differently there, maybe the average distribution of worshippers is lower in that galaxy? Contemporary evidence is the the same for both formulations of the dark mystery variable that forces observation to adhere to the fraying theory.
At some point the accumulated problems grow so large you don't need to be on a cosmologist payroll to recognize it for being legacy bullshit grandfathered into the present.
1) It's certainly not unheard of for theories have observational or experimental data appears that sends them back to the drawing board for reworking and do eventually get to a consistent state
2) Every other proposed theory to answer these questions ultimately ends up fitting the observational data we have even worse, or doesn't even attempt to explain it
3) Plenty of scientists are still poking at alternative theories and very few scientists love dark matter as an answer. They've just loved every proposed alternative less.
There's no shortage of dark matter detractors. It's just that none of them can come up with a better solution to answer questions about all the things that dark matter does answer. And no, just going "the gods did it" isn't better, because you can't use that as a theory to answer why some things are behaving the way they are, and we can with dark matter. And we do it quite often - far more often than we find weird things like these isolated quasars. But of course you don't get a front page hackernews article every time scientists apply science and things come out consistent with the existing science.
There's not some shadowy cabal of cosmologists doing everything in their power to keep the cult of dark matter alive. There's a bunch of experts who have seen the same arguments raised thousands of times with zero meaningful variation and have gotten tired of having to explain the same things over and over.
Sure. But when the socially dominant theory doesn’t fit observations, it’s called “a temporary setback that calls for some reworking”, and when a heterodox theory doesn’t fit observations, it’s called “falling flat on its face”, as you can see in another reply below. That’s not a healthy dynamic.
> There's not some shadowy cabal of cosmologists doing everything in their power to keep the cult of dark matter alive.
No… but curiously, you will get your comment flagged and removed on HN for making such a claim!
Because none of them get even close to explaining as much as dark matter does. This isn't complicated or a radical shift in standards - it's just requiring something be as good as the existing answer to get serious discussion. Pointing out that dark matter isn't perfect isn't an argument for things that are significantly less perfect than dark matter. There are massive gaps between dark matter and alternative theories. Something that worked as well as dark matter did and only struggled with a similar number of outliers wouldn't be said to fall flat on its face - but nothing is even in the same ballpark as it.
The more that can be explaining by an existing theory, the higher the bar is for any alternative theory to displace it. This is just how science has always worked.
>No… but curiously, you will get your comment flagged and removed on HN for making such a claim!
Because conspiracy theories with no evidence or grounding in reality don't make for intellectually stimulating discussion, I imagine.
Regarding your issues 1) applied to dark matter, reworked, patched, repatched. Still completely fails and are subject to more ongoing maintenance than a Boeing aircraft. 2) all other theories categorically rejected in a paragraph, while giving dark matter infinite retakes as in 1) is clearly a strong bias towards supporting the party line, not of science.
But if dark matter is 90% of the way there why would we bother with something that is 20% of the way there? Cosmologists and all sorts of physicists will still take to the time to read papers on MOND variation #2754 to see if it's actually making any headway. The problem is, it never really is. Maybe that'll change someday. Scientists are certainly giving it the chance to.
Dark matter is already held to a higher standard than all these other theories. Why should we lower the bar for them?
That stands on its own. That I don't provide a viable replacement is a refutation of absolutely nothing.