I mentioned dark matter a little while back. I think I made clear then that I have no idea what it is–I’m a luddite; I can barely operate a DVD player–but I thought nonetheless it might be instructive to pass on this chestnut from a UC Davis physic prof:
Hat tip: Discover
Dark matter, the postulate of theoretical physics used to explain the funny gravitational behavior of galaxies, is being declared the new phlogiston. Of course, being a humanities guy repurposed as a social scientist, I don’t understand any of this. But it made it onto Digg, so I guess it’s a pretty big deal. Compared to the painfully slow (putative) death of string theory, I would guess this could be pretty quick. Not, again, that I understand this. At all.