um, the amount of evidence that shows that the dark stuff really exists rather than it being just one hypothesis of how to make observation match theory. the hypothesis that god makes the galaxies spin just so is as valid as the dark stuffs hypothesis due to the total lack of evidence one way or the other.
another hypothesis is that the theory is wrong. this is what I happen to believe: that there will be physical evidence that validates some other theory of gravity ability to predict the observed behavior without needing dark stuffs.
You didn't answer my question. What does dark matter or whatever have to do with what I wrote? Are you posting to me but actually responding to someone else? Very confusing.
Ya know RAZD, much as I enjoy reading your posts in most cases, you occasionally seem to develop a selective "blind spot" to what people are actually saying to you if it conflicts with what you're saying. The key element in the post to which you responded, and which you completely skipped over to reiterate your confusing - and as far as I can see irrelevent - "dark matter" thingy, was the following:
Quetzal in post 80 writes:
Sure. "I don't know" is a reasonable answer when there is doubt. My discussion with Oook appears to be based on at what level "doubt" becomes meaningless mental masturbation. IOW, at what point it becomes reasonable to state, "it ain't so". For me, the last 40,000 years or so provide a pretty fair baseline - to the point that continuing to admit "doubt" becomes futile exercise equivalent to a metaphysical argument over "the square root of a duck", as a friend once put it.
Do you continue to espouse "doubt" for every single theory or idea ever produced by man on this planet, simply because it can't be 100% disproved? If no one has produced evidence for a theory for over three times the written history of humankind, it seems strange to me to continue to inisist on the potential. You, obviously, see things differently. Your opinion, however, doesn't necessarily make my position illogical or untenable. In fact, if anything, I would say it was incumbent upon YOU to make the case that a) there is some reason for doubt, and b) the level of said doubt is sufficient to leave the question open.
LOL. Not metaphysics so much as arguing for the same approach to be used for things with similar levels of evidence.
You have not established that I DON'T use exactly the same methodology - and level of skepticism - for all claims, regardless of nature. What gives you the impression that I don't? Because I disagree with your pet hypothesis (that all atheists are blind believers who adhere to some "atheist tenet" equivalent to the worst creationist)? Sorry to burst your bubble here.