Astrophysicists are extremely motivated to find alternatives to dark matter. The "problem" is that the evidence for the existence of dark matter, what fraction

Astrophysicists are extremely motivated to find alternatives to dark matter. The "problem" is that the evidence for the existence of dark matter, what fraction of the universe it makes up, where it is, and some of its general properties (e.g., temperature) come from many different directions, and they point to the same conclusions. Dark matter is a relatively simple postulate that explains a large number of disparate observations, from the relative abundances of different atomic elements to the amount of gravitational lensing in distant galaxy clusters. It's not that astrophysicists are straining to make everything fit into the dark matter paradigm. It's that everything seems to fit into the paradigm very naturally. That's what overcomes the queasiness over dark matter having never been directly observed in a lab.