I'm a bit skeptical of dark matter because it sounds suspiciously like a fudge factor for something scientists can't explain.
But that's how all theories start, basically. Some observed phenomenon doesn't fit existing models/formulae, so posit something to explain it. It doesn't matter if it's completely out there, as long as you can devise an experiment to gather data to support or refute it. This is why this data is exciting, because finally there's some tangible observation that scientists can use to evaluate the dark matter hypothesis.
On the other hand, re-writing the Poisson distribution to match observed phenomena seems equally sketchy to me, but that's what theoretical scientists do. Just because the math is pretty doesn't mean it's sound.
On a good day, the theory and the experimental agree and you have a nice solid theory of how something works. But it's going to be a long time before we have that for the galaxy rotation problem.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 03:54 pm (UTC)But that's how all theories start, basically. Some observed phenomenon doesn't fit existing models/formulae, so posit something to explain it. It doesn't matter if it's completely out there, as long as you can devise an experiment to gather data to support or refute it. This is why this data is exciting, because finally there's some tangible observation that scientists can use to evaluate the dark matter hypothesis.
On the other hand, re-writing the Poisson distribution to match observed phenomena seems equally sketchy to me, but that's what theoretical scientists do. Just because the math is pretty doesn't mean it's sound.
On a good day, the theory and the experimental agree and you have a nice solid theory of how something works. But it's going to be a long time before we have that for the galaxy rotation problem.