I think they mean the reverse: since dark matter gives a possible solution to some of the unexpected observations resulting from the current theories, so if the theories later change, they are hoping the dark matter/energy terms will vanish. I likely have about the same physics knowledge as them, so I don’t speak from authority. But dark energy is not just a small fudge factor, so current theories seem unlikely to change by that much. As mentioned in the article, we have some measurements now also consistent with the existence of dark energy being pervasive, not just the appearance of it in theories.
Because I was taught at a young age to assume everyone is fallible and question assumptions, and it seemed an awful lot like a rounding error to me at the time.
As people have mentioned, there is apparently now more substantial support for it, but back then it was posited based on equations only, and seemed a lot more like trying to explain away a theory not fully matching reality
Um, as I understand it, dark matter was not posited by equations but by how observations differed from the the equations. And essentially, this is still the state of things. To wit, the standard model doesn't match observation unless there is this "dark matter" out there. We have no idea what it is. It's just what we call a particular type of ignorance. Current work is either a) assume that the theory is correct and that "dark matter" actually exists so they try to figure out what it is or b) assume that current theory is wrong and so try to come up with a better theory. Or c) a combination.
I recall that back in the day my thought was that "Or our model of gravity is just wrong and what we're observing is correct (as in, visible matter is causing this behavior), we just don't understand how gravity works at massive scales because there are variables we aren't taking into account" but honestly it's been so long I forget all the basic info on this.
> Because I was taught at a young age to assume everyone is fallible and question assumptions
It is generally a good idea to have some familiarity (or better still, expertise) with a topic and knowing what the actual assumptions are before questioning them.
I was very surprised that you had that kind of expertise in high school. For eg, did you know about the electromagnetic field theory and Maxwell's introduction/invention of displacement current in high school? Or reimannian geometry?
