Dark matter: should we be so sure it exists? Here's how philosophy can help.

[Admin]

More than 50 years since astronomers first proposed "dark matter," we have no idea what it is and nobody has directly seen it or produced it in the lab.

Dark matter: should we be so sure it exists? Here's how philosophy can help. : Read more

 

[Mergatroid]

I have read a lot about dark matter, and I am still not 100% convinced.
What might convince me is if they can show a picture of gravitational lensing where there is no matter.

If dark matter interacts gravitationally, then there should be clumps of dark matter where there is no regular matter. This dark matter should still have an effect on light, and should still create a gravitational lens. This may be convincing evidence of its existence.

 

[katrinafromlouisiana]

There are ways to see it and it is Everywhere so I know dark matter and dark energy is a real thing.
I recently read where it 'could be supernatural' and read that it 'Could Spawn 'Shadow Life'...
Info From: HOW STUFF WORKS. - my apologies for not mentioning that part.
I am no scientist nor physicist but am very interested in the subject and new to this site and forum. Would like to see other points of view and I'm eager to learn more.

 

[COLGeek]

There are ways to see it and it is Everywhere so I know dark matter and dark energy is a real thing.
I recently read where it 'could be supernatural' and read that it 'Could Spawn 'Shadow Life'...
I am no scientist nor physicist but am very interested in the subject and new to this site and forum. Would like to see other points of view and I'm eager to learn more.

Sources?

 

[Catastrophe]

"Here's how philosophy can help" My emphasis.

I would be more impressed, if it were titled
"Here's how philosophy might be able to help".

Vide "We still don't know the exact answers to these questions, but we are working on it".

Please correct my interpretation if I am missing something.

Cat

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I am not seeing how this "philosophy" is different from "group think".

And, the Bayesian updating discussion tends to make simple considerations of "ability to seem to explain" sound more logical and scientifically quantitative than it really is.

A contrasting approach is to note that we have reached a state of "understanding" where we admit that we don't understand 95% of the matter and energy that we postulate controls our universe, if we rely on the "Big Bang Theory" in its currently main-stream form.

It is true that postulating something (actually usually more than one thing) to explain an otherwise unexplainable observation is a time-honored way of focusing research and discovering new things by looking for and finding one of the postulated new things.

However, it is also true that models that are wrong can be made to fit observations by adding additional parameters that are unconstrained except for being required to make the models fit the observations. When models reach the point that they must have a large influence from postulated but unverified parameters in order to match observations, that is a well known red flag that the model is not trustworthy.

So, trying to stay objective, I have to say that it is still far too soon for proponents of the "Big Band Theory" to be patting themselves on their backs. Remember, it takes a model that is composed of 95% unknown masses and forces to explain our (apparently) earliest observation (the cosmic background microwave radiation), and everything before that is totally unconstrained by cosmic observations.

Yes, I know that "understanding" from quantum mechanics is used for times before the cosmic background radiation was formed. But there, too, we have an "understanding" based on accepting a "duality" of things like light photons being both particles and waves, plus an acceptance that they can interact by "spooky action at a distance" that we have simply named "quantum entanglement" without understanding how that happens. So, I am not seeing that as a model we can trust to extrapolate the whole universe back into a speck that is 10^-35 mm in diameter 13.8 billion years ago.

Other people are working on other theories that have other parameters that postulate other "somethings" that also fit the observations.

We should not be discouraging those parallel searches for better understanding.

 

[Catastrophe]

I agree.

Cat

 

[katrinafromlouisiana]

I apologize, those articles are on How Stuff Works, i failed to mention that earlier.

 

[Catastrophe]

No need to apologise.

Katrina did give her source in post #3:

Could Dark Matter Spawn 'Shadow Life'? | HowStuffWorks

Cat


Edit: my apologies. I missed out the number in post #3.

 

[COLGeek]

I apologize, those articles are on How Stuff Works, i failed to mention that earlier.

Posting the link of a source is customary on a forum, not just mentioning it. I assume you mean this article?

How the Big Crunch Theory Works

We take much for granted about our universe, like it's getting bigger. What if the universe stopped expanding and started collapsing inward with a giant crunch?

science.howstuffworks.com