In article , "Robert L.
Oldershaw" writes:

On Sunday, March 8, 2015 at 4:35:22 AM UTC-4, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
I think it is fair to say that practically no-one believes Hawkins's
claim that such compact objects make up a substantial fraction of dark
matter. At one time, it was a viable idea, like massive neutrinos. But
not anymore.

Apparently the referee(s) for this paper and the editor(s) at
Astronomy and Astrophysics see things quite differently. They must
have determined that Hawkins has a valid scientific argument.

[Mod. note: reformatted -- mjh]

Scientific literature is discussion. Editors and referees are there to
guarantee a minimum of quality, but not to decide what is correct and
what is not (except in the case of obviously crackpot papers, and
sometimes not even then). Sort of like a moderated newsgroup, but a bit
more strict. :-) Discussion can exist only if there are different
points of view. Go back a few years and you will find many papers
claiming that the Hubble constant was 50 or less. That doesn't mean
that the editor and referees believed that this must be completely
correct.

Otherwise, you don't abide by the scheme "refereed journal paper is
proof that the argument is correct". Anyone interested in this needs to
take ALL work in this field into account, not just touting those papers
which support a preconceived idea and ignoring those which don't.

Certainly no-one can claim that Hawkins has not had the opportunity to
plead his case. Also, even if it turns out that his claims about the
Milky-Way halo are correct, there are still arguments against his claim
that most of the dark matter in the universe is in the form of compact
objects with Jupiter-to-solar masses.