• Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Your comments all seem to imply that you think dark matter is something scientists just randomly assume to be true

    Isn’t that what a placeholder theory is? They definitely treat it as a go-to, not just with my example, and it’s not like I’m the only one who questions it.

    People can think of anomalies without taking a leap on it. Dark matter as a hypothesis should not be treated as objective, because that’s what a conclusion does, nor should it be, to use a pun, what we gravitate to. We make the instruments to learn, not confirm what we already believe.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Then come up with a better theory that fits the available data - many others have tried and failed.

      We make the instruments to learn, not confirm what we already believe.

      No. We usually make instruments to confirm hypotheses, and then use them to learn new things. That’s why people are trying to build dark matte detectors. You don’t just randomly build stuff without thinking about the use.

      • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        As opposed to randomly building stuff without fully knowing what it’s designed for? How do you build a detector for something you know so little about you wouldn’t recognize it if it ever were detected? I’m aware an attempt to make them was made, but even the criteria these apparatus’ go by can lead us in other places, and often seem to. That’s a sign it’s premature. They haven’t detected. Which is the basis for the findings I showed. It’s natural to float around many hypotheses, what goes against critical thinking is to scapegoat it.

        • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          As opposed to randomly building stuff without fully knowing what it’s designed for? How do you build a detector for something you know so little about you wouldn’t recognize it if it ever were detected?

          We’ve been over this - you build a detector for something you don’t know much about by making hypotheses about the thing you don’t know about, and checking if they are true. How else could you ever build a new kind of detector? This is how pretty much all scientific discoveries happened - people saw phenomena, tried to explain them, and tried to experimentally verify their explanations.

          I’m aware an attempt to make them was made, but even the criteria these apparatus’ go by can lead us in other places, and often seem to.

          Many different attempts have been made, because many people have different hypotheses about what dark matter could be.

          That’s a sign it’s premature. They haven’t detected.

          How are you ever going to detect something without looking for it? Please, explain how you can ever detect something new without building instruments to detect it.

          Which is the basis for the findings I showed. It’s natural to float around many hypotheses, what goes against critical thinking is to scapegoat it.

          Again: then propose a better theory. People would love to find an alternative explanation for dark matter, if it would fit the data. Make a hypothesis and test it. But you can literally never do that, because according to you, you shouldn’t attempt to verify a theory that you don’t know to be true. So how will you ever learn even a shred about new things? Before you learn about them, you can’t know about them, but you don’t want people learning about them because they might be wrong.