They’re calling out a “the pretense of a theory” of dark matter that we “pretended we resolved” unlike the “different but similarly unexplained phenomena were called in the past.” Where do you see the figurative gap?
In reality, we have General Relativity and the Standard Model. Both theories which have defied falsification to the limits of our instruments. Their unification, unfortunately, demands certain discrepancies be resolved. Dark matter and dark energy being possible solutions to those discrepancies. There is no “theory” of dark matter or dark energy, just a compendium of hypotheses.
In the past, unresolved questions were aptly named, like "UV-catastrophe" etc. as opposed to "dark energy" etc.
One clearly indicates scientists being baffled (a catastrophic conclusion), versus a linguistically tangible substance "dark energy", unnecessarily specific in quantity (energy vs position vs momentum vs ...).
For unexplained phenomena, doesn't it sound alarmingly specific?
Wouldn't specific issues getting their own names not have been more desirable? like "anomalous rotation curves", ...
