Don't forget dark energy, also (like dark matter) invented to fit the observations. How many hundreds of $millions of taxpayer money will be spent searching for it? These inventions are keeping many scientists employed, it seems. If they went back to correct the mistakes (like any good software developer) there might be a mass layoff.
Just imagine the fame a researcher or a team would get should they explain dark matter by updating current theories (in a way that fits _all_other_explained_ observations). I don't think if anybody had a good idea they would care about mass layoffs.
But the people who'd review the idea would care about that, so they might refuse to review it as "too nutty". Plate tectonics might have fit into that category, although of course it did reach general acceptance when the evidence became overwhelming.
That makes the point you're replying to. "The most straightforward explanation for our observations is that these objects have event horizons and, therefore, are black holes." No, another even more straightforward explanation is that it's just an extremely dense object that's not a black hole. Even in Einstein's theory, an "almost black hole" suffices. Nothing mentioned in the article favors the former over the latter.
Without event horizon all the matter that spirals into it would emit a lot of EM radiation as it collides with the matter already there, converting kinetic energy into radiation. In this case they see matter spiraling in, but they don't see results of collision. So they conclude that no photons escape, and that's pretty much definition of event horizon.
No, if it was an "almost black hole" as predicted by general relativity, they wouldn't see EM radiation, due to gravitational time dilation. The "almost black hole" might emit a single photon only once every 100 years in our time.
Black holes are not the only theory which fits the evidence we have. Simply add 2M to the first 2 r's in the Schwarzschild metric (the equation used to confirm black holes), and you get a metric that fits all the evidence but doesn't predict black holes, hence doesn't raise the black hole information loss paradox, and so isn't incompatible with quantum mechanics that way. That's well known in the cosmological community, but ignored.
We have evidence of luminous matter falling into a black hole and disappearing. What more do you want? What possible other non-black-hole theory fits that evidence?
An "almost black hole" also predicted by Einstein's theory predicts the same observation, as an effect of gravitational time dilation. The non-black-hole theory that fits the evidence is the tweak you replied to. As I said, it fits all the evidence.
Here's what really happened: Wells Fargo checked out your income and determined that you'd likely keep paying them 6+% if they said no.
Yes you should check out lots of other banks. After all, you're paying them nothing right now, so you're worth more than zero if they sign you up as a customer. You should check out a mortgage broker, who could give mucho assistance.
If that path fails, you should actually stop paying your mortgage, not just tell them. After it's late, tell them there will be no more payments unless you can refinance at a lower rate. Don't do it unless you're serious about walking away. If you do walk away you'll save a boatload of money of course, and the worst hit to your credit rating will last 3 years tops. But you shouldn't need credit during that time, due to the savings. You'll be mortgage-free rent-free for at least a year, or two if you take steps to drag it out. Let Wells Fargo know that you know that.
You could also sell your house. If you skip a payment or two, the bank will probably start begging you to do a shortsale. In which case you rent for a year or two to fix your credit, and then buy another place.
Lucid dreaming and related out of body experiences have made me realize that the universe we're in is likely an elaborate illusion. That's because the dreams/OBEs are just as real as here, at least while they last. If you can't distinguish between two things then go ahead and call them equivalent.
I'm not sure this aids me though. On the downside I now think of my existence as eternal (we'll always be experiencing some kind of reality), which promotes procrastination. On the upside I don't need many material things to enjoy myself.
About the lack of evidence of lucid dreaming: you know what they say about absence of evidence. When one has had a full-on lucid dream, no more evidence is needed. It takes only one scientist to do good science. Corroboration isn't a real scientific requirement.
