Dark Forces Reconsidered

1100 words, 5 minute read

“For nearly thirty years, Dark Energy has been the cornerstone of modern cosmology. When astronomers discovered in the 1990s that the universe wasn't just expanding but accelerating, getting faster as it grows, they needed an explanation. Dark Energy was it, an invisible pressure built into the fabric of space itself, pushing everything apart. Nobody has ever detected it directly, but the maths seemed to demand it, so into the equations it went.” - Mark Thompson, BBC, May 31, 2026

Dark Energy seemed to account for the fact that the universe seemed to be expanding at an accelerating rate. Cosmologists had already given the name Dark Matter to another mysterious force, this one seeming to hold galaxies together. (If cosmologists are not always poetic, they do strive to be consistent.) Between the two, Dark Forces (Oooo!) are thought to account for 95% of the universe’s gravitational behavior (96% on October 31).

A new definition of Scientific Method is emerging: Whenever you can’t explain some phenomenon, ‘discover’ a new ‘force’ to account for it and then label that force ‘dark’ so no one can expect to explain it. Neat trick…no wonder these guys (sic) got all A’s in high school; they really are smart after all!

Dark gravity/anti-gravity forces have long been accepted as canonical by the astronomical community. The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 2011 in recognition of the ‘discovery’ of Dark Matter. But Cambridge(s), we have a problem!

Actually, several problems. Earlier on this site we reported on a new set of measurements that seem to suggest that the expansion of the universe is not accelerating after all; in fact, it’s slowing down. Oops!

So we have a beautiful theory, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Anyone who’s been stood up on prom night can empathize with the cosmological angst.

But believe it or not, it gets even worse for our denizens of the dark. Mark Thompson (above), science broadcaster and author, continued his remarks, turning his attention to a team of mathematicians who recently “…found that accelerating expansion falls naturally out of Einstein's original equations, without any need to bolt Dark Energy onto the side. The universe accelerates not because of some mysterious invisible force, but because of the inherent mathematics of how space and matter behave in the wake of the Big Bang.”

So not only did your prom date ghost you, it turns out that the prom had already been cancelled and nobody bothered to let you know.

***

Just 15 years ago we thought we had everything figured out…well, at least one thing figured out: ‘We’re all in the dark!’ (95% dark anyway). MIT Technology Review (5/19/2025):

“We can put a good figure on how much we know about the universe: 5%. That’s how much of what’s floating about in the cosmos is ordinary matter—planets and stars and galaxies and the dust and gas between them.

The other 95% is dark matter and dark energy, two mysterious entities aptly named for our inability to shed light on their true nature... Cosmologists have cast dark matter as the hidden glue binding galaxies together. Dark energy plays an opposite role, ripping the fabric of space apart.”

Poor Isaac Newton must have been on mushrooms when he thought to explain gravity in terms of a perfectly visible, and regrettably tactile, apple (falling from a tree branch overhead). Dark gravity/anti-gravity forces have been accepted as canonical by the astronomical community for about three decades, but the smug satisfaction that comes from intellectual certainty does not last long. Take in the 2026 view from the left coast (UC Davis):

“…A new paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society produced mathematical proof that the standard model of cosmic expansion, the one built around dark energy, is fundamentally unstable.”

So your prom date ghosted you, but the prom had been cancelled anyway, and OBTW, the brand new limo you hired to take you to the prom was just recalled - something about a tendency for this model’s engine to explode? And I thought I was having a bad day!

Scientists invented the Dark Universe hypothesis to give a name to things they couldn’t explain. “We believe in things we don’t understand…” Based on what we know, the Universe shouldn’t work. There’s not nearly enough mass to hold galaxies together. In fact, however, galaxies do exist, 100’s of billions of them with more forming ‘every day’. So something’s wrong and the Dark Universe hypothesis seems to solve the problem. Of course, it’s merely ‘solving’ one unknown in terms of another.

So where do we go from here with our Dark Forces? Well, the headlines are already in the can: “Dark hypotheses confirmed!” And they will be confirmed because any advance in our understanding of the universe will now be labeled dark.

And why not? ‘Dark Universe’ has no denotative meaning, nothing that might subject it to the risk of falsification. It’s a universal place holder for whatever we don’t know now but may discover later. ‘Dark’ is apt after all.

Once we learn something about the universe that we don’t already know, whatever that is, that will be what ‘dark’ is. It will define ‘dark’. Of course it will. We don’t know what Dark is so whatever turns out to solve the paradox will be quite correctly labeled Dark, and we will say, “Of course that’s what Dark Matter and Energy are, we knew it all along.” Except of course, we didn’t.

Do you doubt me? It’s already happening. A recent article by Evan Gough in the February 09, 2026 issue of Universe Today suggests replacing the Black Hole hypothesis with…you guessed it, Dark Matter. According to Gough, it may be dark matter, not a black hole, that resides at the center of the Milky Way and holds the galaxy together.

So the Dark Forces are living up to their name. They can explain virtually everything…no matter what anything is. Thanks for reading through to the end and now, if you don’t mind, just one more favor, please: Can you just remind me how science is different from magic?