[BlackFly]

Having worked quite closely with cosmologists I can tell you that you have the wrong impression. Cosmologists perform maximum likelihood parameter estimations of models. Often included in these models are parameters that control deviations from general relativity or parameters that completely switch from GR to another form of gravity. The fundamental truth that there is dark matter is the fundamental fact that GR + visible matter alone is a terrible fit, GR + visible matter + invisible matter is an amazing fit and all other models tried so far are also bad fits if multiple distinct experiments are compared. They continue to try to replace the invisible matter term with terms from first principles all the time. However, often someone comes along and fits a model to a single dataset and proclaims loudly that they have solved the dark matter or dark energy problem. However, there are many distinct datasets which also need to be modeled, and invariably when this is performed the model was seen to be a worse fit than GR + visible matter + invisible matter. I've been involved in various alternate model discussions with cosmologists and I wasn't even a cosmologist, so it is definitely not true that testing alternatives to gravity is the third rail.

The same seems to happen in the climate change debate: there is a huge range of experiments, where anthropomorphic warming is the maximum likelihood model. Many people select a single experiment, find a model with a better fit and then loudly proclaim that anthropomorphic warming is a conspiracy. However, their model is a terrible fit to the other experiments which they did not perform due diligence in checking.

Scientists grow tired of playing politics. If you have an alternate model, it needs to fit a vast set of observations, not a cherry picked one. If you only test against one observation and make a press release about it, you will definitely not be seen as a serious scientist.

[oldandtired]

My apologies that it has taken some time to respond to your points. The problem I have is that cosmologists incorporate entities that have not been experimentally verified or are impossible (at least at this time) to be experimentally verified. Just because the models appear to work actually means nothing when you cannot get any experimental verification of all the elements on which a theory or model depends. Proxy evidence is used to enhance the belief in some specific entities, but proxies are only proxies and the use of such can be very misleading.

To say that "the fundamental truth that there is dark matter..." is problematic from the get go. No experiment has demonstrated that "dark matter" of any kind exists. You cannot say that there is a fundamental "truth" anywhere in science. We have observation, we develop hypothesis which should suggest experiments to test said hypothesis and with further evidence we develop theory. At no point is either hypothesis or theory "truth". Unless, of course, your intention is to make science into a religion.

When it boils down to it, science is a way of developing understanding of the physical world about us. It may lead to changes in one's philosophical or religious viewpoint, but it doesn't have to. It is not the be all and end all of anything. It is simply a means of hopefully increasing one's understanding. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. There are many examples of experiments and the results that have been considered anathema to the consensus view that the scientists who did those experiments have been made pariahs. This is very problematic as politics and religion become the driving forces that maintain the orthodox view.

There has been and is a significant push for science to be the authoritative voice as to what one should believe. However, science gives no guidance on any matters relating to human interaction or action. If anything, it is a cause of significant problems for human interaction and action.