MOND is unsuccessful in the broadest sense because the jury is still out. It hasn't failed, and does have support, but hasn't managed to convince the experts that its individual successes translate into overall success as a model.
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.
Re:The strength of the strong force
by throwawaymaths on Thursday August 11, 2022 @03:58PM
(#32430981)
You shouldn't have said successful, because that implies a finality to the judgement. There are definitely "dead" scientific theories (like phlogiston) and MOND is far from that, it's making highly competitive predictions, it just seems for some reason that the contemporary culture of science is overly resistant to it. I have no idea why.
> 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.