Dark Matter!!

[Joe Horn]

<rant> Everybody tells me that The Scientific Method insists on empirical verification before it accepts any claims. Oh yeah? Then why are the existence of dark matter and dark energy taken seriously even though they have never been -- and never can be -- measured? I'm told, "Oh, it's ok, because their existence is deduced from proper scientific observations of OTHER things." Bad answer! That's EXACTLY the same way that the existence of the "luminiferous ether" was deduced, until the fact that it does NOT exist was proven in 1887 by the famous Michelson-Morley experiment. There are countless web pages that claim to explain why the existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy is NOT AT ALL like the existence of the Luminiferous Ether, but they all sound fishy to me. I hold the Scientific Method in too high regard to violate Occam's Razor this way. I would rather assume that our models of physical reality are flawed, and in need of revision. After all, that is the proper way to make scientific advances, not by explaining away things with pure speculations. Dark matter? Dark energy? Unicorns and Pixie Dust! I hope a new Michelson and Morley come forward and discredit this highly unscientific fantasy. Bottom line: the scientific method never allows untestable hypotheses, but the existence of dark matter and dark energy is by definition untestable, and therefore must be rejected as a hypothesis, Q.E.D.</rant>

Disclaimer: I'm as happy to change my opinions as real science is happy to change its theories, for the same reason, and by the same process. Saying, "Go away and read a book about quantum physics, or just stop thinking about this stuff entirely," is not helpful in this regard.