According to astrophysicist Ethan Siegel:
Personally, I don’t expect these direct detection attempts to be successful; we’re stabbing in the dark hoping we hit something, and there are little-to-no good reasons for dark matter to be in these ranges. But it’s what we could see, so we go for it. If we find it, Nobel Prizes and new physics discoveries for everyone, and if we don’t, we know a little more about where the new physics isn’t. But just as you shouldn’t fall for the hyper-sensationalized claims that dark matter has been directly detected, you shouldn’t fall for the ones that say “there’s no dark matter” because a direct detection experiment failed.
We are after the most fundamental stuff in the Universe, and we’ve only recently begun to understand it. It shouldn’t be a surprise if the search takes a little — or even a lot — longer. In the meantime, the journey for knowledge and understanding of just what it is that holds the Universe together continues.Ethan Siegel, “This Is The Real Reason We Haven’t Directly Detected Dark Matter” at Forbes
So, according to Ethan Siegel, we should go on believing dark matter is true without expecting to see it. That’s similar to the doctrine of the Last Judgment. The similarity does not, of course, invalidate the existence of dark matter; it does, however, eventually, put it in a specific class of beliefs: a doctrine accepted as reasonable based on one’s faith
See also: Discover: Even the best dark matter theories are crumbling
Researcher: The search for dark matter has become a “quagmire of confirmation bias” So many research areas in science today are hitting hard barriers that it is reasonable to think that we are missing something.
Physicists devise test to find out if dark matter really exists
Largest particle detector draws a blank on dark matter
What if dark matter just doesn’t stick to the rules?
A proposed dark matter solution makes gravity an illusion
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Proposed dark matter solution: “Gravity is not a fundamental governance of our universe, but a reaction to the makeup of a given environment.”