The Case Against Dark Matter
Monday January 10, 2022 | By Hieronymus Hawkes | Science | Leave Comments
I've been arguing since the Aughts that Dark Matter is not a real thing. Scientists have been looking for decades and have found nothing to substantiate its existence, other than their theory fits how things work. This seems to be working backwards, to make a theory fit the data, instead of investigating and discovery the theory naturally. Occum's Razor implies that the simplest idea is probably the right one, and trying to make up matter that we can see or detect in any way disputes the Dark Matter theories in my mind.
Verlinde is not new to radical theories and in this new one he combines quantum entanglement and holographic space-time representation to show how dark matter is simply a false manifestation of quantum interplay with dark energy. Still some more work to be done on testing the hypothesis but it looks very intriguing. You can read more about it here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/erik-verlindes-gravity-minus-dark-matter-20161129
Read MoreDark Energy? Maybe not.
Monday January 6, 2020 | By Hieronymus Hawkes | Science | Leave Comments
[caption id="attachment_1741" align="alignnone" width="778"] (Image: Volker Springle/Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics/SP)[/caption]
I am feeling validated by the news that came out today regarding Dark Energy. A team of astronomers at Yonsei University (Seoul, South Korea), together with their collaborators at Lyon University and KASI (Korea Astronomy and Science Institute), showed that the key assumption in the theory is based on erroneous data. I had been saying all along that the measurements were suspect.
I posted this back in February 2011:
Why do I Love Science Fiction?
The whole story is here:
New evidence shows that the key assumption made in the discovery of dark energy is in error
I have been saying this from the beginning that it seemed to break the Simplicity principle. Most philosophers believe that, other things being equal, simpler theories are better than more complex ones and the Dark Energy theory was reliant on a lot of long range measurements that were open to a wide array of issues that might interfere with them. It seemed to leap to a conclusion based on data that was not very robust and to me, on lazy science.
This doesn't mean the universe isn't flying apart, or accelerating, but the idea that we couldn't detect 95% of the universe verges on the absurd on the face. It seemed to me more likely that the measurements were wrong. They made a lot of assumptions. Turns out their assumptions are likely wrong, as I surmised.
I think the Webb (JWST) telescope, which launches next year will provide scientists with better information with which to make better theories.