The Duhem-Quine thesis and the dark matter problem

TL;DR

This paper proposes using the dark matter problem in galaxy rotation curves as a teaching tool to explore key philosophy of science concepts like falsifiability and the Duhem-Quine thesis in physics education.

Contribution

It introduces a novel pedagogical approach to teach philosophy of science through a concrete physics problem accessible to students.

Findings

Students gain deeper understanding of scientific reasoning.

The dark matter problem illustrates key philosophy concepts.

Applicable in advanced and introductory physics courses.

Abstract

There are few opportunities in introductory physics for a genuine discussion of the philosophy of science, especially in cases where the physical principles are straightforward and the mathematics is simple. Terrestrial classical mechanics satisfies these requirements, but students new to physics usually carry too many incorrect or misleading preconceptions about the subject for it to be analyzed epistemologically. The problem of dark matter, and especially the physics of spiral galaxy velocity rotation curves, is a straightforward application of Newton's laws of motion and gravitation, and is just enough removed from everyday experience to be analyzed from a fresh perspective. It is proposed to teach students about important issues in the philosophy of physics, including Bacon's induction, Popper's falsifiability, and the Duhem-Quine thesis, all in light of the dark matter problem. These issues can be discussed in an advanced classical mechanics course, or, with limited simplification, at the end of a first course in introductory mechanics. The goal is for students to understand at a deeper level how the physics community has arrived at the current state of knowledge.