Big difference between dark matter and ether: Ether was required conceptually, because people could not conceive of a wave of light without a medium for it to p

Big difference between dark matter and ether: Ether was required conceptually, because people could not conceive of a wave of light without a medium for it to propagate in. Getting rid of ether required a huge conceptual leap, and so the idea of ether hung around longer than it should have. As a mistaken concept, ether is a "sticky" in that it has intuitive appeal and that makes it dangerous. It wouldn't require the same kind of conceptual leap to get rid of dark matter, though. Either there's stuff there we can't measure as of 2018, or we'll need a better theory of gravity. Many physicists recognize dark matter as a hack and hold on to it only because it's the best guess we currently have. Dark matter isn't "sticky": people would rather get rid of it than keep it!