Martens, Niels C.M. (2025) Detecting the Dark: Indirectness & Dark Matter Epistemology. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Have we detected cosmological dark matter, beyond neutrinos? What does it mean to detect dark matter? In this chapter we partially unpack this question, in two ways. Firstly, by focusing on the various ways in which dark matter (DM) detections can be indirect. Secondly, we hone in on what it means to detect dark matter by comparing 'detecting-that' dark matter exists to 'detecting-which' dark matter entity exists.
The main claims of this chapter are: 1) all potential detections of dark matter are more or less indirect; 2) (almost) no potential dark matter detection deserves to be called an experiment, in the sense that an experiment might be epistemically superior to a mere observation; 3) a direct comparison of the degree of indirectness of two potential detections of dark matter is typically neither possible in any useful quantitative sense nor particularly important; and 4) although I do not argue for this here, none of the above is particularly worrisome since these situations are commonplace in much of the natural sciences, or at least in astronomy. Instead, 5) different detection methods of dark matter are best construed as epistemically complementary; it is their combination that would achieve epistemic superiority over any single detection method. Rather than each detection method (potentially) providing us with the same knowledge of dark matter but with different degrees of trustworthiness, the various ways in which dark matter detections are indirect teach us different things about dark matter in each case. Finally, 6) detecting-that and detecting-which are strongly (semantically) intertwined in the specific dark matter context.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Additional Information: | Forthcoming in "Astronomy and Philosophy: Conceptual and Methodological Foundations and Challenges", Steven J. Dick (ed.), Cambridge University Press | ||||||
| Keywords: | dark matter, philosophy of physics, epistemology of astronomy, epistemology of cosmology, indirectness, detection, experiment | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Physics > Astrophysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology General Issues > Evidence General Issues > Experimentation General Issues > Theory/Observation |
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| Depositing User: | Dr Niels C.M. Martens | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 26 Oct 2025 16:04 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 26 Oct 2025 16:04 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 27027 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Physics > Astrophysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology General Issues > Evidence General Issues > Experimentation General Issues > Theory/Observation |
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| Date: | 2025 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27027 |
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