4 ms·
That's the fascinating thing to me: it doesn't matter! MOND is a successful pseudoskeptical meme despite not being a successful physical theory. The narrative
by bulatb 4y ago
That's the fascinating thing to me: it doesn't matter! MOND is a successful pseudoskeptical meme despite not being a successful physical theory.
The narrative of MOND-the-meme is totally wrong but extremely compelling. That's enough to give it outsized fitness in its niche, and then that general compellingness (which comes from being really good at tricking us) is misinterpreted as scientific merit. Even by those who say they're interested in truth, not stories.
It's an excellent test-case for critical thinking because everything about it as a meme should set off alarm bells, but often it doesn't.
- dtgriscom 4y agoIn the same vein, I miss cold fusion. It was such a lovely idea, and had such great promise. A shame that reality intruded...
- throwawaymaths 4y agoWait how is it pseudoskeptical? It's made independent predictions which have subsequently been confirmed, like a slope of 4 in the tully-fisher relationship and the EFE (among others). That's the definition of science. The EFE is particularly compelling because it was originally posited as a criticism of MOND but then the data came in.
- bulatb 4y agoI'm trying hard to be precise, but I could always do better. MOND the physical hypothesis is perfectly good science, whether it turns out to match reality or not. My issue is with MOND the meme, the complex of beliefs among non-physicists (like me) that MOND explains "dark matter"[0] without matter which is dark, whose fitness isn't really based on the success of MOND-the-model. I say MOND-the-meme is pseudoskeptical because it a) manufactures disbelief by misrepresenting a subject and then b) provides a "skeptical" alternative in order to appeal to skeptics which c) does not itself stand up to skepticism because (a) was a strawman and (b) was motivated reasoning. It survives because it makes you feel smart, not because it's sound or valid or the MOND hypothesis is true. Accepting MOND-the-meme would still be problematic even if the MOND hypothesis was overwhelmingly confirmed tomorrow. [0] Taking full advantage of the ambiguity between "dark matter" as the name for observations, one hypothesis explaining them, and an overall cosmological model.
- gfodor 4y agoWow, no offense, but this is an insane level of mental hoops to jump through to insult people who are putting forward the MOND hypothesis. It’s almost invisible, but I think it’s there.
- bulatb 4y agoI guess I'm still not being clear. I'm not insulting MOND or people who like it, at least not on purpose. That's just absolutely not my goal. At all. Rereading my first comment, I'm not happy with the tone. I wrote it quickly on a phone and didn't get it right. I was honestly just making observations without judgement, but it doesn't sound that way.
- roywiggins 4y agoThe short version is that laypeople with a skeptical bent like to say "eh I don't believe in dark matter, those silly physicists are inventing particles that aren't there, MOND solves the problem without extra particles so MOND is probably right." It's an easy way to be "skeptical" without really knowing anything about the relative success of the two theories. Because MOND is an underdog theory, you can feel like a skeptic questioning dogma by supporting it... even if you don't really know much about the merits.
- throwawaymaths 4y agoYou also said: > despite not being a successful physical theory. I think the jury is still out on that, and, like I said, it has actually made predictions which is more than what you can say about LCDM, which as far as I can tell has only made post-hoc rationalizations.
- bulatb 4y agoMOND is unsuccessful in the broadest sense because the jury is still out. It hasn't failed, and does have support, but hasn't managed to convince the experts that its individual successes translate into overall success as a model. Narrowing the meaning of "success" can lead (me, at least) into a philosophical morass about what really are predictions, what is parsimonious, how do we science, why even is anything. Sorry, maybe it's not fair, but I don't really want to go there.
- dentemple 4y agoI mean, the point of the scientific process is to come up with hypotheses. MOND might not be as "strong" of a hypothesis as Dark Matter is, but MOND does make predictions that can potentially be tested or mathematically explored. It seems a little flippant to denounce it as a ridiculous "meme" idea. It's healthy to have different scientists pursue different theories. And valuable insight can be gleaned even when taking the time to _disprove_ a distant possibility.
- bulatb 4y agoI'm saying there's a scientific model called MOND and also, separately, a literal Dawkinsian meme[0] which features the acceptance of that model based in part on motivated reasoning, not science. I'm not dismissing the hypothesis. It might be right, it might be wrong. It's worth exploring either way. I totally agree that even proving something wrong improves our understanding. I'm criticizing MOND-the-meme, I guess, but also admiring. I don't like it, but it's very good in its niche. Like a shark. Stay over there please... but wow. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme