I generally agree with all of your points. > Scientific models are good when they are predictive, and powerful when they are simple. [...] every day scientific

I generally agree with all of your points. > Scientific models are good when they are predictive, and powerful when they are simple. [...] every day scientific models are tested, refined, expanded, and simplified [...] It seems to me that dark matter goes directly against this. The current model of gravity can't explain certain observations, so we come up with a form of matter and energy that we can't observe in any way, and doesn't interact with anything, except with precisely the one thing we need for our observations to match the theory. A theory that hasn't even been reconciled with quantum mechanics yet! Smells super fishy to me. But as I say, my knowledge of physics and astrophysics is super basic, and I wouldn't call myself "someone who studies physics" in any meaningful way. I understand your feeling that it's unreasonable for me to criticise the status quo because dark energy looks wrong, as I have no idea about the underlying math.