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In my head, "dark matter" and "dark energy" are the names we've given to the limits of our understanding. At some point in the future the news is going to break that an Einstein or a Feynman or a Hawking will publish a paper titled "So we figured out what's causing the thing we've been calling dark matter this whole time."
But that's literally true and fully acknowledged by the physics and astronomy fields. It's why those things received the names "dark." Because currently we can't see what's causing those effects. And there are currently physicists and astronomers who spend their time researching these effects in hopes of publishing that exact "Hey! I figured out what it is" paper. Then we'll praise that person, add their name to the pantheon and fail to acknowledge the hoards of other people who contributed to the foundational research that allowed them to finally figure it out.
Same as it ever was.
Yes, I completely agree. Dark matter and dark energy are supposed to make up over 90% of the universe, yet we failed to detect them yet? No way! Those are just fill-ins, because our formulas are obviously not working that great on a grander scale.
This suggests the question why do most of the highly educated people who have spent their lives studying the question think differently? Why is the universe obligated to be made of something easy to measure and understand?
The universe isn't obligated to us for anything, but we want to understand it and be able to make predictions. Right now we seem not to be able to do that.
Nope. Dark matter or dark energy have not been detected, as of yet.
I would count as detection if scientists would say "we detected it".