Particle Dark Matter - Teflon Pseudoscience

For roughly 45 years particle theorists and cosmology me-to specialists have been hawking the extremely dubious hypothesis of particle dark matter, e.g., WIMPs, axions, sparticles, dark photons, sterile neutrinos, etc, The wall of shame has very many names on post-it notes.

In spite of many hundreds of experiments in labs, deep mines, on the Moon, in near Earth orbit, deep space, in the ocean, etc., not a single dark matter particle has been found. Just false hints of something that are later falsified. After this remarkable record of failure, do particle physicists admit they might have been wrong all along? Not a chance. This is big business with huge sums going into grants and experiments. Status, reputations, and bragging rights on who has has the lowest lower limit mass keep the circus going apparently indefinitely.

Is this how science is supposed to work, with teflon theories whose parameter space is effectively infinite so there can be no effective falsification. No Friggin' Way!

For comparison look at the hypothesis of stellar-mass primordial black holes as the real dark matter. A natural explanation, growing empirical support, robust falsification tests available in the near future, via, LIGO/Virgo and the Webb telescope, and more experiments. PBHs are a scientific candidate for the dark matter. Particle dark matter efforts look more and more like a sad and unscientific fool's errand.


Student of Nature


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