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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 1: Quantum and Classical Gravity 1

AGPhil 1.2: Talk

Monday, March 18, 2024, 10:15–10:45, PTB SR AvHB

Dark Matter or Modified Gravity? A pragmatic choice between two working hypotheses — •Antonis Antoniou — Institut für Philosophie, Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

The debate between dark matter and modified gravity scenarios in response to the cosmological anomalies observed in the 1970s and 1980s is often framed in the philosophy of physics as a clash between two competing theories or models: the standard cosmological model with general relativity (ΛCDM) and Milgrom's Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) (cf. Massimi 2018; Jacquart 2021; Martens and King 2023; Duerr and Wolf 2023). This discussion questions the fairness of directly comparing ΛCDM and MOND due to their different theoretical statuses. A more nuanced understanding of the philosophical question regarding the preference between the two possible lines of explanation for the observed cosmological anomalies emerges by framing the debate as a pragmatic choice between two working hypotheses: (1) introducing a non-baryonic form of matter to the mass-energy budget of the universe and (2) modifying gravitational dynamics. A historical analysis of the scientific situation in the 1980s suggests that, although no conclusive evidence supports the former hypothesis, the pragmatic advantages of adopting a dark matter scenario far outweigh the pursuit of a modified theory of gravity with a different phenomenology on the galactic scale.

Keywords: dark matter; modified gravity; MOND; pragmatism