Not so simple.
First, extraordinary claims attract extraordinary skepticism and scrutiny. The least oversight can sink theory.
Second, for all the reasons set out in Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Text books, courses and curricula, including introductory courses might require revision. Proposed theories of dark energy that are superseded would impair the field of research of many experts.
Third, billions of dollars of current and future research has been allocated to dark energy, if you include proposed space missions. Jobs and careers would be impaired by a valid theory.
Or not.
What do you think? What other factors would influence rejection or acceptance?
And see:
Wolinsky, Howard Paths to acceptance. The advancement of scientific knowledge is an uphill struggle against 'accepted wisdom' 2008-05 EMBO Rep , Vol. 9, No. 5 : England p. 416-418
It depends on the specific details and predictions of the theory. In general, new theories in physics are subjected to rigorous testing and scrutiny by the scientific community before they are widely accepted.
If the new theory of dark energy were able to explain existing observations and make new, testable predictions, it would likely receive serious consideration by the physics community. However, it would need to withstand rigorous testing through experiments and observations to gain widespread acceptance.
The process of scientific inquiry is often slow and careful, and it can take time for a new theory to gain acceptance, especially if it challenges existing paradigms. But ultimately, the scientific community will embrace any theory that is supported by empirical evidence and stands up to scrutiny.
A valid theory of dark energy exists: It’s general relativity, where dark energy is described by a positive cosmological constant. What wasn’t known before 1998 was the value of the cosmological constant, so considerable effort went into trying to understand whether its value could be zero. The measurements that were published in 1998 could be described by assigning a positive value to the cosmological constant.
Dear Robert Shour
To your question: "If a valid theory of DE were introduced next week, would it be embraced by physics?"
Indeed the answer is not so simple.
The short answer is no.
No doubt you have come across this remark by Max Planck one hundred years ago:
"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
In the first half of the 20th century, Alfred Korzybski tried to make the community aware of the reason that underlies this hindrance to the acceptance of experimentally confirmed discoveries that are out of the familiar beaten path, even discoveries that could benefit humanity in the short term. This relates to a natural biological process discovered by Donald Hebb in the 1940's about the manner in which memories are stored in the neocortex and strengthened each time they are "re-visited", so to speak, or correlated with other issues over time, once they have been concluded as being important by an individual.
As in all communities, when studying the currently popular scientific theories, each would be future physicist eventually understands the current theories in a manner that comes to underlie all aspects of his worldview, in such a manner that thinking about any aspect of his worldview constantly re-strengthens the memories of the underlying premises on which these theories are grounded, that for this individual have become "biologically re-strengthened "certainties".
Any new information that comes in contradiction with these "personal certainties" will be rejected outright. We all are affected by this problem, unless becoming deeply aware of this very normal biological process.
This issue with "biological certainties" is analyzed in this article published in 2021, with all formal references provided, and with direct links to those references that are available on the Internet:
Article Study on General Neurolinguistics and the Comprehension Ability
The only way for experimentally confirmed new extraordinary discoveries to eventually integrate the common pool of accepted theories turns out to be, as noticed by Planck, that the next generation of students has access to these new discoveries before this biological certainty is established about the currently accepted theories and eventually finds this discovery as being more important than the currently established older theory.
Best Regards, André
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