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Good. Science is meant to be a honest search for facts: data, knowledge and wisdom. Being wrong is a feature. "I don't know" is an acceptable starting point wit

Good. Science is meant to be a honest search for facts: data, knowledge and wisdom. Being wrong is a feature. "I don't know" is an acceptable starting point with no shame attached. Being certain means a mountain of data to back it up. Being allowed to be wrong is a requirement. Anyone saying a scientist can't ever be wrong is likely placing oddball limits on progress that will only damage and limit the future[1]. How can you experiment if you can never be wrong? It would be good if people knew about the mountain-of-data aspect of science. Even with that mountain, subtleties creep in and plenty of surprises still remain. Even something like water probably has properties we are clueless about. Interesting aspects that might redefine science itself and create entirely new approaches to medicine or manufacture or whatever. Maybe if you change temperature and pressure enough in the right way you end up with exotic metallic / bonding properties. Or some new water-based ion structure having other properties. Who knows? Maybe not. Perhaps water is what it is and there is not much more to learn. Asserting we already know everything about water leads to dogma[2] and inflexibility. That's just one example. Dark matter/dark energy may be a rounding error for all I know. Good. Now we know about the error. We* likely asked a bunch of other questions as well and now we have new answers about to appear because now that error has been confirmed. * not me. [1] being wrong about bridge structure is unhelpful as you drive over it. That kind of wrong is related but I'm not directly addressing that. [2] dogma has expectations, rules and consequences. Science has plenty of people who forget this and turn their understanding into dogma. That too is a experience generating moment that will catch up with them later. Mountain-of-data + knowledge + wisdom.

tiborsaas 7y ago
Dark matter is definitely not a rounding error [0]. There are multiple evidence for strong gravity effects where we just don't see the required matter the explain the observed phenomenons [1][2] [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2016/09/23/rotating-galaxies-could-prove-dark-matter-wrong/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2016/09/23/rotat... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster#Significance_to_dark_matter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster#Significance_to... [2] http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/CosmologyEssays/Gravitational_Lensing.html http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/CosmologyEssays/Grav... Briefly, dark matter is very real, it's our knowledge that is dark.
- rs23296008n1 7y ago
  I'm feeling verbose. So here we go. Dark matter: Maybe something that we'll one day make lunch boxes out of. Maybe also a rounding error. Of some sort. In some way. You haven't got the mountain-of-data yet. A lot-of-data is a good start. This doesn't mean the missing matter isn't some super-energy infused version of something we already know about. For all we know, its simply "ordinary" matter we'd otherwise already have accounted for but seen/detected in distorted ways due to some new phenomena altering our perception. So, its real as opposed to unicorn droppings[0]. But thats only a small part of the story. Neither dark energy or matter exist as permanent fixtures, or even as just two singulars. They are placeholders while the search for the underlying phenomena continues. The moment the unaccounted matter/energy is discovered due to phenomena A, B, C, D, E, F then those two broad individual placeholders will be replaced with more detailed names, likely in honor of someone famous or otherwise noteworthy feature of the discovery, eg shape, some quantify etc. We'll go from "dark matter" to phenomena A,B,C to something1, something2, somestate3 or whatever. People like saying dark[1] because it sounds cool, mysterious and edgy. Its the flair for the dramatic. This is fine for awhile as long as it helps. It is a mystery. But today its a big mystery and tomorrow its on someones balance sheet. There's a lot of tomorrows to allow that to happen. Very important note: Our knowledge is not dark. Knowledge shines light over the unknown so we can see it for what it is. That is the whole point. [0] I'm asserting for sake of argument that unicorns aren't real. Some could say that horses with a horn were hunted to extinction and we just haven't found a sample. Thats valid as well. I'd still prefer to see some evidence like a skeleton. But for now, I'll just assume for the sake of argument they don't exist and leave the real answer as homework for the interested[2]. [1] Dark. Or transparent. Maybe we are seeing through it instead. Plastic bags in water become "unaccounted for" and can visually disappear due to transparency. Some ocean creature could easily call that bag the equivalent of what we would call dark matter. Its got water in it and around it. Ordinary matter surrounded by something they don't understand. Hydrocarbons. In explaining it we'd mention the multiple processes and atoms responsible for the formation because we know how hydrocarbons are formed. And probably not just one thing. (No I'm not suggesting dark matter is hydrocarbons but I retain the option to ironically laugh if they are a form thereof). [2] I know an 8 year old who is highly motivated to believe they're real and with enough skills at genetic manipulation she might make it happen. And apparently they eat meat. The small-hill-of-data implies we should be careful out there.
Pigo 7y ago
This is one of the most important things I learned from Star Trek. The beginning of wisdom is "I don't know". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcV25N37-C4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcV25N37-C4

tiborsaas 7y ago

Dark matter is definitely not a rounding error [0]. There are multiple evidence for strong gravity effects where we just don't see the required matter the explain the observed phenomenons [1][2] [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2016/09/23/rotating-galaxies-could-prove-dark-matter-wrong/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2016/09/23/rotat... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster#Significance_to_dark_matter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster#Significance_to... [2] http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/CosmologyEssays/Gravitational_Lensing.html http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/CosmologyEssays/Grav... Briefly, dark matter is very real, it's our knowledge that is dark.

rs23296008n1 7y ago
I'm feeling verbose. So here we go. Dark matter: Maybe something that we'll one day make lunch boxes out of. Maybe also a rounding error. Of some sort. In some way. You haven't got the mountain-of-data yet. A lot-of-data is a good start. This doesn't mean the missing matter isn't some super-energy infused version of something we already know about. For all we know, its simply "ordinary" matter we'd otherwise already have accounted for but seen/detected in distorted ways due to some new phenomena altering our perception. So, its real as opposed to unicorn droppings[0]. But thats only a small part of the story. Neither dark energy or matter exist as permanent fixtures, or even as just two singulars. They are placeholders while the search for the underlying phenomena continues. The moment the unaccounted matter/energy is discovered due to phenomena A, B, C, D, E, F then those two broad individual placeholders will be replaced with more detailed names, likely in honor of someone famous or otherwise noteworthy feature of the discovery, eg shape, some quantify etc. We'll go from "dark matter" to phenomena A,B,C to something1, something2, somestate3 or whatever. People like saying dark[1] because it sounds cool, mysterious and edgy. Its the flair for the dramatic. This is fine for awhile as long as it helps. It is a mystery. But today its a big mystery and tomorrow its on someones balance sheet. There's a lot of tomorrows to allow that to happen. Very important note: Our knowledge is not dark. Knowledge shines light over the unknown so we can see it for what it is. That is the whole point. [0] I'm asserting for sake of argument that unicorns aren't real. Some could say that horses with a horn were hunted to extinction and we just haven't found a sample. Thats valid as well. I'd still prefer to see some evidence like a skeleton. But for now, I'll just assume for the sake of argument they don't exist and leave the real answer as homework for the interested[2]. [1] Dark. Or transparent. Maybe we are seeing through it instead. Plastic bags in water become "unaccounted for" and can visually disappear due to transparency. Some ocean creature could easily call that bag the equivalent of what we would call dark matter. Its got water in it and around it. Ordinary matter surrounded by something they don't understand. Hydrocarbons. In explaining it we'd mention the multiple processes and atoms responsible for the formation because we know how hydrocarbons are formed. And probably not just one thing. (No I'm not suggesting dark matter is hydrocarbons but I retain the option to ironically laugh if they are a form thereof). [2] I know an 8 year old who is highly motivated to believe they're real and with enough skills at genetic manipulation she might make it happen. And apparently they eat meat. The small-hill-of-data implies we should be careful out there.

Pigo 7y ago

This is one of the most important things I learned from Star Trek. The beginning of wisdom is "I don't know". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcV25N37-C4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcV25N37-C4