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There needs to be a real Kuhnian paradigm shift IMO; it's embarrassing to have modern-day epicycles used as a fudge whenever a model breaks down vs. questioning
by nimish 5y ago
There needs to be a real Kuhnian paradigm shift IMO; it's embarrassing to have modern-day epicycles used as a fudge whenever a model breaks down vs. questioning the core assumptions of the model.
There are more interesting and less implausible hypotheses out there than the "just so" dark matter one.
- kurthr 5y agoThere are more interesting and less implausible TESTABLE hypotheses out there? Dark matter and dark energy are the simplest (literally single parameter) fits to the cosmological data we see. Why we see data consistent with these parameters (e.g. what is the non-interacting massive particle) is up in the air, but adding multi-parameter new forces without more justification seems a little too interesting.
- WithinReason 5y agoIt's not quite single parameter, since each galaxy needs a parameter to describe the dark matter contained in it to explain the observations about it.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoYeah. It's more like a single parameter at each point in space. That adds up to a lot of parameters.
- pbhjpbhj 5y agoKinda like an aether ;P Einstein would be happy!
- zmgsabst 5y agoI think the goal is a paradigm shift via ADS-CFT correspondences: Eg, if we’re looking at pseudo-tangles in shadow projections, that would solve why QM looks statistical while relativity looks continuous. But that would raise deep questions about “warp” in the macro and whether galactic scale tangles would generate additional binding energy — ie, dark matter. Large scale tangles hiding mass would explain why we can’t interact with it, for instance.
- uoaei 5y agoThis isn't an argument so much for science as it is for funding of scientific experiments. I don't know about you but I feel like this public, cultural, collective investment of time and energy toward dark-matter-seeking projects is not bearing out. It's worth testing other theories more completely. For instance, I've seen a convincing argument[1] that dark matter researchers consistently underestimate galactic inclination, which in turn results in poor fits between model and data, leading to the epicycle-like fudge inclusion of dark matter as "everywhere we would expect mass to be, given xyz". [1] https://tritonstation.com/2022/01/10/the-curious-case-of-agc-114905-an-isolated-galaxy-devoid-of-dark-matter/ https://tritonstation.com/2022/01/10/the-curious-case-of-agc...
- user-the-name 5y agoNo, there are not. Pretty much all the popular contenders are less plausible, and most still need dark matter to explain all observations, so they only add more complexity. Dark matter is a simple theory that explain a wide variety of unrelated observations.
- aisengard 5y agoI mean, until we actually prove that dark matter is "something", we need to stop calling it that. All it is, is some constant that we apply to make sense of the motion of galactic-scale objects. And we use "dark energy" as a constant to explain why the universe keeps apparently accelerating its expanse beyond what we would have predicted given what we know about the universe. There is no reason to believe that these phenomena are caused by some singular thing. These latest development only strengthens that conclusion. In any case, until we actually are able to test that this is one "thing" rather than a bunch of things we still have no idea about, we should stop calling it "dark <foo>". Because I think that a lot of people are under the impression that there is some discrete substance out there causing this discrepancy, and there really is no reason to believe that's the case.
- LocalPCGuy 5y agoI think it helps to give a name to the concept, and then do a better job of educating people that this is basically a placeholder name until it's better understood. (and yes, I realize that is not an easy task, might be easier to find the solutions and figure out the best name)
- aisengard 5y agoRight, I'm not sure there's one unifying theory that you could bundle it under, not sure what the right term is for a general concept rather than a hard testable theory. But that just further proves the need to stop calling it one thing in particular, because it leads the vast majority of people (including scientists!) to think that "dark matter" is some big unifying theory, when there is no such thing as some singular substance called "dark matter".
- russdill 5y agoI'm really not sure why so many people have such a strong reaction to dark matter theories. Yes, dark matter is the best way we currently have for fitting the data within most of our existing frameworks for understanding the universe. I really don't see the relation to epicycles. There are people out there working very hard on modified gravity theories. I'm not aware of any that are able to explain the current data. If anything, trying to modify gravity to fit the dark matter data would be most similar to epicycles, it's devilishly difficult to come up with increasingly complex theories that fit more and more data that's coming in.
- kloch 5y ago> Yes, dark matter is the best way we currently have for fitting the data This is the key problem. Since there is no theory of what dark matter is made of or how it is created and destroyed, you can always have as much or as little of it as you need to fit the data. As for gravity, we don't have anything close to a working theory of quantum gravity. We can't even measure the classical gravitational constant to more than about 4 digits. The reproducibility by different experiments has not demonstrably improved since the 1940's! Clearly there is a lot more we have to learn about gravity.
- russdill 5y agoThere's actually an embarrassingly large number of theories for what makes up dark matter. I doubt most people have ever even heard of the form that was ruled out in this article. There's not just a ton of theories, a great number of them are falsibiable with experiments we can plausibly perform. And yes, quantum gravity is also something we don't understand. But the domain where we are missing that understanding doesn't overlap with the dark matter "problem".
- akvadrako 5y agoHaving a large number of theories is embarrassing! That means you have no idea. Gravity and QM are so great because they are clear winners – they are not easy to modify a little bit and nothing approaches them in terms of practical power. Falsifiability comes from having specific predictions, which means one theory that's an island, not a bunch of approximations.
- Splendor 5y ago> There are more interesting and less implausible hypotheses out there than the "just so" dark matter one. I'd love to hear about all of the less implausible hypotheses you're referring to.
- bsedlm 5y agobut the odds that somebody with a personality profile who'd think creatively enough to do this, then make it out through a modern scientific programme, and also sticks to academia are from low to zero. most people creative enough are driven to the arts, which in modern society are only good for entertainment.
- mcdonje 5y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but we call it dark because we can't directly observe it. Us not being able to observe something seems quite plausible. We spent most of our existence as a species with no way to observe viruses.
- axg11 5y agoWe can observe viruses though? Through electronic microscopy, by sequencing their genomes and also by observing their downstream effects. In the case of dark matter, we only observe their downstream effects but have no other direct evidence of its existence.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoWe call it dark because it doesn't interact with electromagnetic radiation, i.e., light. (At least, as far as we can tell, it doesn't.)
- robocat 5y agoPedantic: dark matter does affect electromagnetic radiation via gravity. “The most successful technique with which to investigate [dark matter] has so far been the effect of gravitational lensing. The curvature of space-time near any gravitating mass (including dark matter) deflects passing rays of light - observably shifting, distorting and magnifying the images of background galaxies”. “Dark matter appears not to interact via the electromagnetic force, and therefore neither emits nor reflects light.” I am sure you know that, but perhaps not everyone does?
- alangibson 5y agoPeople are trying to shift the paradigm all the time, but so far nothing has worked. Replacing General Relativity and the Standard Model is the mother of all hard problems. One interesting approach I've heard of is abandoning reductionism and looking at how the macroscopic might actually determin the microscopic. We'll know how it pans out in half a century or so.
- huachimingo 5y agoSystems Methodology in a nutshell.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pmontra 5y agoYep, I'm with you. I'm afraid this is another misunderstanding and a new quest for ether. But this is a good thing. I bet one coffee that there is no dark matter in the form it's been looked for in the last decades. I bet two coffees that when somebody will discover the cause of the measured effects we'll be able to build some great new stuff, much like general relativity eventually gave us GPS and then navigation, etc.
- bsder 5y ago> it's embarrassing to have modern-day epicycles Why are "epicycles" embarrassing? "Epicycles" worked fine for a very long time. They are predictive. And accurate! And can be translated to a physical compuation mechanism (see: Antikythera mechanism). In addition, "epicycles" are a manifestation of Fourier decomposition, which is a perfectly fine mathematical tool. The errors are due to the fact that reality isn't purely mathematical. "Epicycles" were quite fine until we got both 1) much better clocks and 2) much better astronomical observations. People forget that physics was in pretty close to this same state about 150 years ago (roughly) right before quantum mechanics. Physics was pretty much buttoned down except for that really strange Black Body Radiation problem (Ultraviolet Catastrophe), but they'd have that sorted in a couple of years. Certainly no later than 1900--the end of the century. No big deal. HAH! We know how that turned out.