I’ve always felt like (as neither a mathematician nor a physicist) that “dark matter” is simply just something that suddenly makes a math problem work to model the universe-—and that in reality, that math problem just doesn’t work. Is my theory even _possible_ here, or am I missing something. Really fundamental?
99% of the evidence points to dark matter being a real thing. And yes, many many phds have thought of the "what if we're just completely wrong" aspect. It's not interesting
If you mean particle dark matter, that's an exaggeration:
From Galactic Bars to the Hubble Tension: Weighing Up the Astrophysical Evidence for Milgromian Gravity, https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/14/7/1331