[jccalhoun]

>For whatever reason, dark matter seems to repeatedly rub people the wrong way today, more so than any other scientific concept I can think of.

I think that it is because it is so hard to understand. You can't see it or touch it but it is supposed to make up the majority of mater in the universe. So what is it then? For a lot of people that's a hard thing to get and it would be easier if the answer was something we understood like the scientists being wrong.

In that way it isn't any different than creationists or flat-earthers. Of course dark matter "deniers" don't have the same religious convictions of creationists.

[acqq]

> Of course dark matter "deniers" don't have the same religious convictions of creationists.

Can you support that "of course"? I'm not so sure that there is no correlation. E.g. it is known that the same persons who tried to convince us that the "smoking is not dangerous" try to convince us that the "global warming doesn't exist, or at best it's beneficial." There are definitely the circles that immediately welcome and use any way to raise the doubt in the relevance of the majority of the scientific claims. It is intentional, it is supported by a lot of money, and it comes not only from one political direction. It is complex, it's not only a single ideology or a single religious group, but there are multiple correlations.

See the books: "The War on Science" by Shawn Otto and "Merchants of Doubt" by Oreskes and Conway.

[TangoTrotFox]

Consider something. What is it that makes god did [x] an improbable hypothesis? The fundamental reason is that there is no direct evidence of said god. There is indirect evidence and logical arguments that can favor a god, but that means nothing when you cannot observe a god, you cannot measure a god, and there is no direct evidence for that god.

Dark matter still holds more in common with the divine than the practical, for now. We've developed and carried out a slew of extremely clever experiments to try to affirm its existence, yet each and every experiment has returned a resounding negative. This is one of the biggest problems with the gulf between experimental and theoretical physics that's been rapidly expanding over the past several decades.

[dcow]

I get what you’re saying. I think you could be way more clear and articulate (took me about 3 reads to understand that you’re just agreeing with the well received parent, I think). I hope that is the reason for the downvotes and not simply people not wanting to hear that rationalism is just as dogmatic as anything it has displaced. Sure it’s better (in the more pragmatic sense), but it still depends on sets of axioms regarded as truth and fails to present explanations for plenty of observed phenomena. It also is strictly not philosophic so it can’t answer “Why?” nor can it yield any sort of ethical/moral framework(s) for understanding reality.