From: g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com   
      
   vonroach  writes:   
      
   > On 26 Apr 2004 00:24:09 -0500, g_d_pusch_remove_underscores@xnet.com   
   > (Gordon D. Pusch) wrote:   
   >   
   >> The total mass of the Oort cloud is indeed small compared even to a large   
   planet,   
   >> let alone a small star, and could not possibly account for the "Dark   
   Matter,"   
   >> which exceeds the amount of "ordinary" matter by nearly ten to one.   
   >>   
   >> Furthermore, there are very strong reasons to believe that _whatever_ the   
   >> "Dark Matter" is, one thing it _CANNOT_ possibly be is any form of "normal"   
   >> matter, because that much "normal" matter would screw up the observed   
   >> abundances of the lightest chemical elements and isotopes that were created   
   >> during the Big Bang, such as helium, lithium, and deuterium.   
   >   
   > Chuckle...we don't know what `dark _matter_ ' is but we conclude it   
   > cannot be ordinary or normal because that would screw up our   
   > observations even though we can not observe it ...chuckle   
      
   You confuse "cannot _see_ dark matter because it does not emit light"   
   with the completely different statement "we cannot observe dark matter   
   _AT ALL_, by _ANY_ method;" the former statemnet is true, however the   
   latter statement is false.  While we cannot _see_ "Dark Matter" optically,   
   we can still detect it indirectly by the gravitational forces it exerts,   
   and by the other influences it has on processes that we _can_ observe.   
   Indirect observations are hardly a new thing in science; in fact,   
   very little that science now routinely deals with, from radiation   
   outside the visible spectrum to subatomic particles and forces   
   can be _directly_ perceived as primary sense impressions. If science were   
   limited only to what we could see, hear, smell, touch, and taste directly,   
   then like Ernst Mach we would still be denying the existence of atoms,   
   like early alchemists we would still be routinely poisoning ourselves   
   tasting chemicals in an attempt to identify them, and we would be unable   
   to make an _quantitative_ measurement at all, because human senses are   
   simply =NOT= sufficiently sensitive to do more than the most trivial sorts   
   of scientific experiments with!   
      
   Whether you like it or not, modern science _necessarily_ rests on an   
   elaborate multi-layered structure of deductive and inductive inference;   
   otherwise it would not be able to deal with phenomena so many many times   
   removed from that which we can directly see, hear, smell, touch, or taste   
   using our unaided senses.   
      
      
   -- Gordon D. Pusch   
      
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