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This is good. Dark matter has always in my eye so similar to the God hypothesis that we conjure something that is mysterious with undefined but whatever necess

This is good. Dark matter has always in my eye so similar to the God hypothesis that we conjure something that is mysterious with undefined but whatever necessary to explain away the discrepancy or mystery. Acknowledging that we don't know -- not even assume it is matter that fits our current understanding -- is the start of understanding. Now it appears we do know it fits some mathematical equation ... PS: the God hypothesis could well be correct, but that should be the last resort -- It is not really an explanation, so it is not necessary until the explanation is needed for reasons of other than explaining.

pharrington 10y ago
If that's what bugs you, then just call dark matter "Fred" instead. Its functionally equivalent. e: I'm agreeing with you that putting "matter" in its name is fairly misleading. Fortunately, that doesn't confuse physicists.
- ab5tract 10y ago
  I'm sorry, but scientists rarely talk about dark anything as if it is an unknown. They use it all of the time as a central component of their explanations. It's as baseless as the ether of the 19th century and as ubiquitous in its invocation. But mention this and get downvoted.
  - ifdefdebug 10y ago
    That's not entirely fair, because treating it as "matter" gives a quite good mathematical fit for current observations so far, while the first experimental observation of light speed ever made immediately falsified the ether hypothesis.
    - hzhou321 10y ago
      It took a while even after the experiment was repeated a couple times. And even after the experiment only very few could abandon the idea of ether, and only after abandon the idea of ether, they see the new physics. Now with dark matter, we have no experimental idea and it is out-of-reach. It is there to protect the consistency (cover up the inconsistency) of our current understanding -- familiar?
- hzhou321 10y ago
  Remember "ether"? I am bothered because it does confuse physicists.

pharrington 10y ago

If that's what bugs you, then just call dark matter "Fred" instead. Its functionally equivalent. e: I'm agreeing with you that putting "matter" in its name is fairly misleading. Fortunately, that doesn't confuse physicists.

ab5tract 10y ago
I'm sorry, but scientists rarely talk about dark anything as if it is an unknown. They use it all of the time as a central component of their explanations. It's as baseless as the ether of the 19th century and as ubiquitous in its invocation. But mention this and get downvoted.
- ifdefdebug 10y ago
  That's not entirely fair, because treating it as "matter" gives a quite good mathematical fit for current observations so far, while the first experimental observation of light speed ever made immediately falsified the ether hypothesis.
  - hzhou321 10y ago
    It took a while even after the experiment was repeated a couple times. And even after the experiment only very few could abandon the idea of ether, and only after abandon the idea of ether, they see the new physics. Now with dark matter, we have no experimental idea and it is out-of-reach. It is there to protect the consistency (cover up the inconsistency) of our current understanding -- familiar?
hzhou321 10y ago
Remember "ether"? I am bothered because it does confuse physicists.