> ...But, dark matter isn't something to be denied. Because it isn't understood yet, to the point where we can doubt its existence....

There is something not quite right with your logic and I am struggling to identify what it is :/

Maybe I can expand.

I can deny the Earth is flat, because there is an abundance of evidence that it is round.

I can't deny that there are 650 elements, because as far as I know, other elements may be discovered. But I can certainly doubt it, and supply alternative theories.

I can deny allegations of wrong doing, because they either happened, or didn't.

But Dark Matter isn't assured yet. Denying it means it either exists or doesn't. But the truth may be a mix of MOND and something different but similar to Dark Matter. It isn't "fixed" into a yes/no situation.

Dark Matter is not just 'something we don't understand yet'.

It has predictable effects on observations and adheres to some properties, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster .

That's evidence, not proof. We still don't have enough evidence to say conclusively that Dark matter is as we currently imagine it. And of course the same can be said about MOND.

Here's Milgrom's interpretation of the bullet cluster: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~ssm/mond/moti_bullet.html

I am not saying Dark Matter is something that actually exists that cannot be ruled out by other explanations (a revision of GR would be ideal IMO), just that this phenomenon makes the approach much trickier.

He expressed it badly. The point I think he is trying to say is that dark matter can be neither proven nor disproven at this time with the information available. An intellectually honest person should remain open to both possibilities.

You can say "I am not convinced of the dark matter hypothesis."

But unless you have information the rest of us do not, you can't really say "I deny the dark matter hypothesis could be real."

I [too] don't think it's about bad wording, yet pure bad logic.

The article is positioned on the principle that was imagined based on wrong assumtions of other theory and which acceptance will dissmiss the other theory.

I'm not even being close to think of being positioned on a side there, but afaic one could easily take one in this subthread.

TL; DR yep, dark matter could be denied no matter of the state of its understanding - just bring the better explanation of those irregularities its existence explains!

Acceptance doesn't dismiss theories, evidence does. A physicist shouldn't truly deny anything, just look at the evidence and say it is not the best theory.

Even with a better explanation, we can't be sure more information won't see the return of dark matter. Milgrom should understand this well, he's suggesting the return of the cosmological constant.

Forget dark matter, use the analogy from the article: afaik nobody has ever proven ether is not existing.

I know nothing about dark matter, but I could play a zero-sum game based on this article content - just the way anybody else could play - and outcome of that game is according to this article proven theory of this guy denies dark matter and dark energy theory.

And that's all, we could prove bad logic here without waiting for the third season of Dark Matter to be broadcasted.

"Proven theory" isn't a thing, Milgrom is a scientist, he should be well aware of that. Using truth conditional logic here just doesn't make sense.

This subthread deals with the completely different issue, it's about bad logic. No matter how well Milgrom and/or his theory could be discredited, that doesn't change the fact we can dismiss something prior to fully understand it.

It doesn't matter if that - what we dismissed - shapeshifts into something completely different (or similar...) afterward, on the contrary, regarding resources spent it would be sad if not.

>This subthread deals with the completely different issue, it's about bad logic. No matter how well Milgrom and/or his theory could be discredited, that doesn't change the fact we can dismiss something prior to fully understand it

It's not bad logic, it only seems like it is because you're approaching it from an Aristotlean view of logic. These things can't be proven, so dismissing them is never an option in science.

We're actually dealing with one complex sentence here, the second of these two:

> But, dark matter isn't something to be denied. Because it isn't understood yet, to the point where we can doubt its existence

I'm lousy in English and my knowledge of dark matter is irrelevant. With those two lemmas in mind, please answer the only question in this subthread:

could something be dismissed if we don't fully understand it?

No, as the entire concept of "fully understand" is ridiculous. We can't fully understand anything, so if you assume the answer is yes then we could dismiss everything.

The actual quote agrees with me here. If we understood it better the best you could do is doubt its existence.

>> could something be dismissed if we don't fully understand it? > No, as the entire concept of "fully understand" is ridiculous. We can't fully understand anything, so if you assume the answer is yes then we could dismiss everything.

It's not a concept, it's just my lousy English and awkward abbreviation of "to the point where" with "fully".

I'm here just to play a game of logic.

Did we dismiss the ether at the point when we managed to understand it better/enough or we managed to dismiss it after we started to play with other cards?

It's not your English, I understand what you are saying, you're game of logic is using an old copy of the rules.

Science doesn't dismiss things. Theories about ether were put aside when we started getting experimental results that it could not support and developed other models that explained it better. The theory still exists, and there is a possibility that someone will use it to better explain things in the future.

Your logic boils down to "if we understand something, it can not be dismissed. If we do not understand something, it can be dismissed..." This doesn't work in science though, the first assumption can not be true, so the second ends up saying you can dismiss everything. Leibniz and other's noticed and addressed this flaw in logic in the 1700's, and expanded logic to deal with it.

I am not great at this logic either, but a laymen's version goes "if `theory` supports experimental evidence better than anything else, you should act as if it were true until a better theory is available."

Thank you very much for your effort here in explaining things.

There's nothing here in the thread powered by "my logic". I'm just certain that dark matter, ether, the Holy Grail, or anything, could be abandoned in our minds once we find the prettier chick to cope with, no matter how well we understood the previous one.

Yes, we could abandon it. The point of science is that we never should.

Before the scientific method was adopted, we would take that pretty woman, ignore any flaws, and make them essentially god. A new one had almost no chance to compete, even of they were much prettier.

With the scientific method, we say that she's the best around, but there's probably a better one out there, and with a little work it might be the old one. So it's easier to adopt new ideas, and the old ones still provide some value.

Yep, the best around trying to stand the test of time.

The title is bad, because it lacks the eloquence that befits a journalist.

Milgrom has provided an alternative to Dark Matter.

He isn't on a street corner shouting it doesn't exist. He didn't set out to disprove the theory. He took some evidence and reinterpreted it.

It appears to be a very common trend. Modern mass culture creates more interest in people's personalities than in anything else. I feel it every day myself, when I can't help noticing how easy it is for any serious discussion to quickly decay into talking about someone's personal traits, habits or preferences.

Humans have evolved for thousands of years to be social creatures, and to judge the merits of things that they may not understand by the characteristics of the person championing them. That's not modern mass culture, it's the way humans operate. I personally think it's also why many scientists fail to convince people versus (comparatively) charismatic novices.

Ironically I'm now more interested to read it after hearing your alternative title.

The use of the word "deny" is deliberate, it's used to invoke the phrase "holocaust denier" to smear the person you're accusing of it. An underhanded tactic from the author of this hit-piece.