Xenon experiments have been undergoing a bit of a crisis of faith as of late. Each iteration is a cycle of of "we predict dark matter in this energy window" -> find nothing out of place -> "well we can't rule out the long tail" -> build a bigger, more sensitive xenon detector.

Now physicists have tried a new method - Run the experiment, then propose the model after the data is in! This makes it much easier to fit theory to data.

Yup. This hypothesis revolves around posited "chameleon-screened dark energy" - particles/fields whose mass and coupling with other field fluctuates based on their surroundings. Wow, it looks just like dark matter - a field with properties that are non-homogeneous and just happen to match your model at both microscopic and cosmic scales?

Why do they do this bros?