James Webb Space Telescope finds evidence for alternate theory of gravity

Why why why do people share articles with sensational headlines like this? Its no wonder science journalism gets a bad rap. This kind of thing really undermines all the people who are actually trying to communicate science properly.

Without this article and HN discussion I’d never have known about MOND, which is (at the very least) a fun theory.

The trouble is that MOND is just not worth your time. In fact, I would even object to calling it a 'theory' in the first place.

MOND is just some wild idea, but a little thought should convince every physicist of its uselessness. It has major issues both in explaining experimental data and in its theoretical consistency. It justifiably receives next to no attention from the vast majority of (astro)physicists.

In popular science the idea however does not seem to want to die, perhaps because it is so easily explained to a layperson. Of course this is a little frustrating for the community, but perhaps we should look at the upsides: more attention for science is probably a good thing, and explaining to people why MOND is so useless provides a good opportunity to discuss some proper physics.

This is a weirdly arrogant comment given both TFA and the fact that professional physicists have worked on MOND and disagree with everything you've said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n33aurhg788

Is this typical behaviour for physicsts? Extremely strong opinions expressed in an abrasive way, out of proportion to the available evidence?

I just want to convey the following point: for the vast, vast majority of physicists the status of MOND is akin to what doctors think of the anti-vaccine theories. The evidence in the opposite direction is simply overwhelming.

You refer to a non-scientific article and to a youtube video, but any vaccine sceptic can probably easily find exactly the same kind of material to support their view. That would almost certainly include a video by a "professional doctor".

You might call me abrasive, but I am really just trying to be as clear as possible: this is the consensus in the field.

And before you continue this discussion it might be worth pondering the following questions. How do you think doctors should convince vaccine skeptics that vaccines work? And how big a percentage of their weekend do you think they should spend engaging on the details with anti-vaxxers? (And, in this forum, how many downvotes from obvious non-experts should they be willing to accept?)

In other words, what could I do to convince you in a reasonable amount of time?