Nuclear reactor experiment rules out one dark matter hope

There are alternative theories, which if even any of them are right or partially right I have no idea but we will never know if science becomes a dogmatic religion instead of open to alternative theories and discussion.

From just a casual reading I think your concerns are unjustified. Lots of scientists are not happy with current models of the universe and are exploring other theories.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/08/new-alternative-dark-matter/614767/

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-dark-alternative-theory.html

The theory of dark matter is a fudge to explain the evidence that doesn’t agree with the standard model. Very unscientific approach

Proposing a theory to explain something that is not understood seems a very scientific approach.

You'd think that with 100 trillion neutrinos passing through our bodies every second, Scientists would be able to catch at least one of them.

That's the thing - neutrinos hardly interact with anything

What do we have that could affect it?

As they say, it's like a ghost

It has become accepted and unchallengeable doctrine while vast sums are spent looking for it. Meanwhile any alternative theory is disallowed from publication

That's not my understanding. I think it's still seen as a head scratcher. There are alternative theories. I understand the most common suggest a modification of general relativity theory (see link below). But while they can explain some physical observations, they can't explain all of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternatives_to_general_relativity

(I've used the word "theories", but I think "hypotheses" is probably more accurate - both for dark matter and the alternatives.)

https://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com/

albaleo, you might be interested in reading this chaps blog as an intro to his theory, he is one who has found great difficulty in getting published though his ideas are beginning to gain a degree of acceptance and his theory does so far seem to answer most of the anomalous data. He has been funded by DARPA as if his theory pans out one application would replace rockets in space, if it pans out.

There are three confirmed flavors of neutrino: electron, muon and tau.

It’s already no good idea to name a neutrino flavor electron. Neutrino parts like Leptons, Quarks, Higgs bosons, ok, but electron, like the bigger well-known electron? That’s for sure widely confusing right from the beginning.

Proposing a theory to explain something that is not understood seems a very scientific approach.

First of all, one does not propose a "theory". One proposes a hypothesis. Dark Matter is not a theory, scientifically speaking. It is nothing more than a hypothesis that remains unverified.

Could some invisible stuff be the explanation for the data?

Sure. But every attempt to verify it thus far has failed. It was dreamed up to save the Standard Model. (Kind of like hyper-inflation at the very beginning of the Big Bang.)

It's really amazing that according to the standard model, a full 96% of the universe is unknown - Dark Matter and Dark Energy. No one knows what these things are or if they even exist. Theoretically, scientists could keep on looking for dark matter for all of eternity because it is philosophically and scientifically impossible to prove a negative. Just as we cannot prove that God does not exist, neither can we ever prove that dark matter does not exist. So believers will probably always exist.

BUT, here is the important question: At what point do scientists admit defeat and allow the evidence to disprove the Standard Model? How long do we give them to find evidence to support this hypothesis? Lots of time and money has been spent on what has so far proven to be a wild goose chase. I'm sure things have been learned along the way, but again, how long do we keep looking for evidence of dark matter before deciding that it might not really exist after all?

Well done Dark matter. You're doing great! Lol

The theory of dark matter is a fudge to explain the evidence that doesn’t agree with the standard model. Very unscientific approach, especially as it needs to be added in and can not be derived. There are other theories beginning to be given greater consideration as dark matter is becoming less likely as an explanation

Nobody suggesting it is all a ruse to bring in communism by the back door?

BUT, here is the important question: At what point do scientists admit defeat and allow the evidence to disprove the Standard Model? 

Probably when someone comes up with an alternative theory (hypothesis) that is supported by all observations of the physical universe. I'm not a physicist, so my knowledge is limited. But my understanding is that the dark matter hypothesis would explain what we observe. Other hypotheses do not fully explain all observations. (But correct me if I'm wrong on that one.)

Just as we cannot prove that God does not exist, neither can we ever prove that dark matter does not exist. So believers will probably always exist.

I don't think it's quite the same thing. We can drop the idea of dark matter if someone comes up with an alternative explanation that can be supported by evidence. Or we can stick to it if someone is able to detect the bloody stuff. Meanwhile, we have to accept our ignorance. Agnosticism rather than atheism.

Yes, but I still don't think alternative theories are given the same priority as the dark matter paradigm.

albaleo, theories are just that until evidence proves them or disproves them. Theories are fine but in this case the approach was unscientific, instead of proceeding from the evidence when presented with anomalous data that disagreed with the standard model (a theory) they “invented” a supposed material to compensate for the apparent missing matter in the universe which has to be added in manually in varying amounts to make it work and can not be derived. It has become accepted and unchallengeable doctrine while vast sums are spent looking for it. Meanwhile any alternative theory is disallowed from publication, a circumstance that is hardly conducive to good scientific discussion. Not surprising when so many scientific careers and grants/funding are tied up in the current theory.

There are alternative theories, which if even any of them are right or partially right I have no idea but we will never know if science becomes a dogmatic religion instead of open to alternative theories and discussion.

The smell of the ad hoc of ignorance is all over 'dark matter' and, at first examination, will remind anyone of the 'Luminiferous Æther' that earlier theorists found necessary within the confines of their limited knowledge to explain the apparent wave-like diffraction patterns they observed light producing in their pinhole experiments. A 'wave', a pulse of momentum, needed a 'medium' so one was invented and poisoned Physics for many years. And, even now, we cannot fully define 'light'. And, from reports, the acceptance of 'dark matter' by physicists suggests the same theoretical hubris, that we understand everything we need to know about Gravity itself, for example. We don't even have the foggiest notion of what 'space' itself is, but it's certainly not just nuthin'.

You'd think that with 100 trillion neutrinos passing through our bodies every second, Scientists would be able to catch at least one of them.