I don’t have any direct quotes or statistics available at hand, but I think however that it is not disputed that our understanding of the universe is nowhere near complete. And with so many newsworthy observations that don’t fit mainstream theory, then surely that must suggest a problem with the theory.
The shape of galaxies could not be explained with visible matter. As a result, the theory wasn’t scrapped; they instead simply added enough matter to the equation to make it work—hence dark matter (which has to have much more mass than visible matter).
This doesn’t make mainstream science question the validity of gravity being the dominant force in the universe. Instead, they add hypothetical matter to the calculation. I suspect Mr. Yudkowsky’s former statement that dark matter might go the route of epicycles will turn out to be correct (he probably doesn’t subscribe to that anymore, I don’t know).
That doesn’t seem very scientific to me, but perhaps it’s still legitimate since dark matter is still considered just a hypothesis.
If you look through a telescope and expect to see a planet, but instead you see a planet and two moons, do you assume your telescope is broken?
That seems to be what you are advocating.
I also think you are blind to the fact that there are particles that we know to exist (not by calculation but by direct observation) that are impossible to detect with an optical or radio telescope, for the simple fact that they barely interact with ordinary matter at all. That makes counting them and adding them up through a telescope impossible (that’s how they discovered the discrepancy, btw).
In light of that evidence, the most plausible explanation is that there is a big mass of this stuff floating around that we simply cannot see. We need to be sure it isn’t there before we decide the theory is wrong.
Now, if there is strong evidence that Neutrinos and their ilk are not the cause of all the extra gravity, then we have to take a very hard look at General Relativity, which is what predicted the movement of the galaxy in the first place.
True.
I don’t have any direct quotes or statistics available at hand, but I think however that it is not disputed that our understanding of the universe is nowhere near complete. And with so many newsworthy observations that don’t fit mainstream theory, then surely that must suggest a problem with the theory.
The shape of galaxies could not be explained with visible matter. As a result, the theory wasn’t scrapped; they instead simply added enough matter to the equation to make it work—hence dark matter (which has to have much more mass than visible matter).
This doesn’t make mainstream science question the validity of gravity being the dominant force in the universe. Instead, they add hypothetical matter to the calculation. I suspect Mr. Yudkowsky’s former statement that dark matter might go the route of epicycles will turn out to be correct (he probably doesn’t subscribe to that anymore, I don’t know).
That doesn’t seem very scientific to me, but perhaps it’s still legitimate since dark matter is still considered just a hypothesis.
If you look through a telescope and expect to see a planet, but instead you see a planet and two moons, do you assume your telescope is broken?
That seems to be what you are advocating.
I also think you are blind to the fact that there are particles that we know to exist (not by calculation but by direct observation) that are impossible to detect with an optical or radio telescope, for the simple fact that they barely interact with ordinary matter at all. That makes counting them and adding them up through a telescope impossible (that’s how they discovered the discrepancy, btw).
In light of that evidence, the most plausible explanation is that there is a big mass of this stuff floating around that we simply cannot see. We need to be sure it isn’t there before we decide the theory is wrong.
Now, if there is strong evidence that Neutrinos and their ilk are not the cause of all the extra gravity, then we have to take a very hard look at General Relativity, which is what predicted the movement of the galaxy in the first place.