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To: Secret Agent Man

Not at all. In science, nothing is ever proven, some things are just more likely to be true than the alternatives.

When Henri Poincaré entered the Ecole Polytechnique in 1873 the chemistry department scrupulously kept the faculty balanced at one atomicist for each anti-atomicist. It was not until after World War I that atomicism had completely cleared the field. What evidence can you personally cite, without using google, to support the atomic theory of matter, other than appeal to authority? (I would have trouble defending atomicism on first principles, by the way.)

We have known, at least since the 1930’s, that the kinematics of galaxies cannot be explained by the observed matter (stars) and Newtonian/Einsteinian mechanics. It is an eighty year old problem. With the discovery of black holes - which incidentally cannot be directly observed only inferred - it was hoped that a solution might be available. Black holes are not massive enough to hold their host galaxies together, and even it they were, the kinematics are still wrong.

Other theories have been tried, modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND), dark “debris”, but they are inconsistent with observations, not just with theory.

Dark matter/dark energy fit observations and do not directly contradict current physical theories. No one is taking dark matter/dark energy as dogma, physicists are at least as skeptical as you. But they provide the best explanation of observations anyone has come up with.


27 posted on 04/18/2015 5:25:31 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (This is known as "bad luck". - Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

“Dark matter/dark energy fit observations and do not directly contradict current physical theories.”

Of course they fit observations. When you just plug a figure in to the equations to force the math to work, it will work. That’s the nature of a “plug”.

Dark matter/energy is the modern day “aether”. It can’t be observed, its properties are only what are needed to make the current theories work, and nothing more, and its existence was only posited because of deficits in the current theory.


29 posted on 04/20/2015 6:47:04 AM PDT by Boogieman
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