Maybe this is naïve but can someone explain to me why when astronomers and astrophysicists do their calculation and realize their estimate of the amount of stuff in the universe is off by 95%, they add in a fudge factor instead of questioning that maybe their fundamental understanding of what we can see is in error.

I’m not saying dark matter and dark energy don’t exist. And I don’t have too difficult a time wrapping my head around the fact that there are things beyond our normal Newtonian sensory perception (near light speed time dilation is a pretty cool phenomenon). But when your result is that far off from the expected you don’t usually just go, “oh yeah and some other stuff” just because the math is neater.

When I add up my deposits and expect to see $1000 in my bank and I only see $50, I think “Error!” not “Oh its in the vault somewhere, I just cant see it”