I guess one has to make the distinction between science and scientific theories. Scientific theories are part of science. Science also includes experimentation. A theory can be deemed scientific if it explains all past observations and is conceivably falsifiable. Falsification always requires at least one observation (conceivably even past observations if the author of the theory is an incompetent scientist). There are no moral obligation, gentlemen's agreement, industry standard, government regulation or UN resolution which specify when exactly an experiment should be conducted to try and falsify a theory. It's all done on a piecemeal voluntary basis so it is at least conceivable that a scientific theory will never be tested, even therefore false ones. So, personally, I wouldn't give a Nobel Prize to the inventor of a theory or to an experimentator who merely "confirmed" a theory. They are already paid to do their jobs. Instead, Nobels should go to experimentators who successfully show that a theory previously "confirmed" and widely accepted by scientists is false, like Newton's universal theory of gravitation. Yet, even that is difficult. Astronomers eventually decided that the orbit of Mercury contradicted Newton but essentially because Einstein came up with an alternative they could regard as better than Newton's theory. So in effect, scientists don't seem to be concerned with truth but with the apparent prediction power of the theory and this of course makes sense if we remember that scientists are mere human beings, i.e. a by-product of evolution. The realisation that the speed of stars in galaxies exceeds what Newton's or Einstein's theory of gravitation predict led scientists to postulate the existence of dark matter without any other evidence of it so far, and specific detectors have failed to detect it. What would happen if none is ever found anywhere? When should it be decided that there is no dark matter? I don't think scientists have worked out any clear criteria but they will no doubt come to a particular view depending on future events. However, there is possibly a practical limit to the power of scientific experimentation, be it money or lack of imagination. So the theory that there is a distribution of dark matter around galaxies explaining observations of the orbital speed of stars may conceivably never be properly tested, let alone "confirmed". Which leads to the question of what it means exactly for the theory of the existence of dark matter to be regarded as falsifiable even in the absence any proper experiments to test it. Is it not just how scientists feel about the theory given a number of experiments? Is it not just in the end gut feeling?
EB
