Kayoz -> RE: Creature Contest: "Unidentified Dark Matter Object" (10/2/2011 3:58:10 AM)
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ORIGINAL: LoBaron - to simulate the clustering of galaxies so that it matches reality close to perfect - to explain gravitational lensing in galaxy clusters and relative motions in those clusters - to explain fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background as has been measured by extremely accurate methods And this is pretty neat for a theory which initially should adress a very specific issue. The desirability of a theory is not in any way an indication of its correctness. It may neatly explain things - but as I said - science requires PROOF. There is none. The old "aether" was a great theory for explaining things, but that didn't make it right. That's my problem with the Dark Matter theory - it requires that the reader take a "leap of faith", such that they accept there's something there - despite the fact that we can't detect it, can't measure it, can't prove it - why? Because otherwise our theories don't work.... Hold on... maybe... our theories are wrong, and this is nothing more than a giant kludge to the equation? Hrmm.. walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.... Dark matter - we can't see it, we can't measure it, we can't observe its effects indirectly. It has properties not seen in anything else - super-liquid, super-.... well, its properties depend on whomever you ask. Perfect liquid, it's hot, it's cold - it's whatever it has to be to make the numbers fit. We've been wrong before. That's how science advances. We see something, or don't see something, and go out looking for an explanation. Dark matter, as a theory, is contrary to this in that we're fudging our equations to fit the observed behaviour instead of questioning our theories. You call this a "polemic argument", but I call it "learning from our mistakes" - in the past when we've tried to make up increasingly convoluted theories to explain phenomena, those theories have turned out consistently to be WRONG. Maybe DM is real and will beat the odds. But the experience of science has been that we need to re-examine our theories, not make sh*t up to make our theories fit. Actually, I'm not sure how it's a "polemic argument" - I'm not trying to establish my personal superiority, nor am I trying to assert that "I'm right because you're wrong". My position is simply that the whole DM argument is inconsistent with all the lessons (those lessons which taught us the importance of experimentation and revisiting disproved theories) scientific investigation has taught us. Hey, maybe it's a lucky guess, and you'll bend over tomorrow and pick some dark matter out of your shoe. But I rather doubt it. It's convenient, it works great if we put whatever "dark matter" number we need to make our equations match the observations. We've been down this path repeatedly throughout history. The back of the giant turtle. Aether. Concentric circles. How many times do we have to go down this path, wasting our time and resources? Aether, concentric circles - how well did those work out for us? Hey, maybe someone WILL prove "dark matter". He'll win a Nobel Prize. Or maybe it'll be the guy who works out how our theories are wrong. quote:
Admittedly, we have not up to now been able to prove the existence of a single WIMP (or particle DM is predicted to consist of). If you want to call it god, please feel free to do so. We haven't been able to detect the FSM yet - so according to you, it's a perfectly acceptable theory? I can explain lots of things by attributing them to FSM - but that doesn't necessarily make FSM real. WTF you on about, anyhow? WIMPs are theorized based on our understanding of how things work. Scientists didn't just make them up because their equations didn't work. No thanks, I haven't seen anything in nature to indicate that a "god particle" even exists. The universe may very well be an onion with an infinite number of layers, for which another is revealed every time we pull one back. If that's the way the universe is, then that's how it is - no amount of wishing for it to be different will change that.
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