"Dark Matter" vs MOND

[DougShrapnel]

Can anyone explain to me why "Dark Matter" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Matter) is more wildly accepted than MOND (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOND) ? Are sceintists really that stuborn when results don't match equations?

[Metric]

I agree that MOND should get more attention -- it does a fantastic job of fitting galactic rotation curves.

However, from a theoretical point of view, it breaks some fundamental principles on which relativity is based -- this causes people to think it's more likely that MOND is some kind of subtle emergent effect of the standard theory + dark matter, rather than something entirely new.

[gumpzilla]

I'm ill-qualified to comment on these matters as they're pretty far outside my field (I know essentially nothing of astronomy/cosmology), but I had also been under the impression that dark matter fits the prejudices of the high energy community better, as that discipline comes up with likely candidates (super-partners? I'm not sure) to be the dark matter. That's a pretty strong sociological force to overcome as well.

[Metric]

Your impression is absolutely right on, as usual. There are a number of high-visibility experiments looking for super particles as a source of galactic dark matter. Usually these consist of big chuncks of germanium that sit at low temperature and wait to be ionized by a passing sparticle. MOND just isn't very fashionable next to string theory, I'm afraid (though, ironically, it's more useful for making predictions).

[DougShrapnel]

Thanks for your responses guys. I'm also not a sceintist. But I try to understand the laymans version of what is currently thought. You mentioned super string theory as being part of the dark matter school. I was unaware of that, could you explain why that needs be so?