• Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    That’s kind of what I mean, it’s a cop-out, especially considering that we know so little about it. For all we know, it could be tiny microscopic black holes, and right now, we wouldn’t know the difference, yet we assume it’s something we “just know about”. Typically in science (or at least it used to be this way), you don’t resort to going with the placeholder hypothesis until the more specific ones are absolutely ruled out, so that we don’t draw a conclusion in a way that seals the deal on other possibilities.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      That’s where your understanding is wrong - nobody is saying that dark matter can’t be microscopic black holes. There are reasons to assume this to be untrue (e.g. microscopic black holes evaporating incredibly fast), but “dark matter” is a placeholder for whatever the underlying physical phenomenon is, be it microscopic black holes, or WIMPs, or whatever else. You yourself are asking for your explanation not to be considered.