An Unfolding Scientific Revolution in Cosmology(economicsfromthetopdown.com)
28 pointsby empiko23 days ago4 comments
  • ddellacosta17 days ago
    > In hindsight, the ‘seemingly’ part is key. When astronomers first gazed beyond the solar system, they noticed systematic deviations from the predictions of Newtonian gravity. Most scientists assumed that the problem was due to missing mass. But today, there is mounting evidence that this hypothesis is false, and that the observed discrepancy is caused by a breakdown of Newtonian physics. However, like the geocentric model of antiquity, the dark-matter paradigm lumbers on as the dominant belief, largely unfazed by the challenging evidence.

    Yeah given that this blog is about "new ideas in economics and the social sciences" I was already feeling a bit skeptical, but when I got to this point and saw no mention of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster (I did not bother looking at the 4-year-old video linked to in that paragraph), I had to put this piece down. I subscribe to a number of astronomy youtubers and I have not heard anyone with data to back them up making this assertion.

    As a counterpoint example, here's Dr. Becky (https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/smethurst) from ~4 months ago obviously not coming from the perspective that dark matter is being ruled out, and right out of the gate she refers back to another piece talking about why we are (so far) convinced dark matter is legitimate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyyZzzgoLNE

    So, yeah, as jfengel says...this seems like more MOND again from a dilettante. Skip it

  • jfengel22 days ago
    Tl;dr it's MOND again.
  • fpoling17 days ago
    Even Wikipedia article [1] on the rotation curves mentioned that those could be explained if one stops using Newtonian mechanics and rather try to use the full equations of General Relativity. Basically it turned out on the galaxy scale one could not use Newtonian approximation. GR equations are highly non-linear and even tiny non-Newtonian effects accumulates.

    Then there are various articles pointing out that taking into account that galaxies are filled with plasma can also explain observed results.

    [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve