MOND the physical hypothesis is perfectly good science, whether it turns out to match reality or not. My issue is with MOND the meme, the complex of beliefs among non-physicists (like me) that MOND explains "dark matter"[0] without matter which is dark, whose fitness isn't really based on the success of MOND-the-model.
I say MOND-the-meme is pseudoskeptical because it a) manufactures disbelief by misrepresenting a subject and then b) provides a "skeptical" alternative in order to appeal to skeptics which c) does not itself stand up to skepticism because (a) was a strawman and (b) was motivated reasoning. It survives because it makes you feel smart, not because it's sound or valid or the MOND hypothesis is true.
Accepting MOND-the-meme would still be problematic even if the MOND hypothesis was overwhelmingly confirmed tomorrow.
[0] Taking full advantage of the ambiguity between "dark matter" as the name for observations, one hypothesis explaining them, and an overall cosmological model.
> despite not being a successful physical theory.
I think the jury is still out on that, and, like I said, it has actually made predictions which is more than what you can say about LCDM, which as far as I can tell has only made post-hoc rationalizations.
Narrowing the meaning of "success" can lead (me, at least) into a philosophical morass about what really are predictions, what is parsimonious, how do we science, why even is anything. Sorry, maybe it's not fair, but I don't really want to go there.
Rereading my first comment, I'm not happy with the tone. I wrote it quickly on a phone and didn't get it right. I was honestly just making observations without judgement, but it doesn't sound that way.
It's an easy way to be "skeptical" without really knowing anything about the relative success of the two theories. Because MOND is an underdog theory, you can feel like a skeptic questioning dogma by supporting it... even if you don't really know much about the merits.
It seems a little flippant to denounce it as a ridiculous "meme" idea. It's healthy to have different scientists pursue different theories. And valuable insight can be gleaned even when taking the time to _disprove_ a distant possibility.
I'm criticizing MOND-the-meme, I guess, but also admiring. I don't like it, but it's very good in its niche.
Like a shark. Stay over there please... but wow.
The narrative of MOND-the-meme is totally wrong but extremely compelling. That's enough to give it outsized fitness in its niche, and then that general compellingness (which comes from being really good at tricking us) is misinterpreted as scientific merit. Even by those who say they're interested in truth, not stories.
It's an excellent test-case for critical thinking because everything about it as a meme should set off alarm bells, but often it doesn't.