Exactly. And yet, from the depth of their ignorance and lack of interest to educate themselves, they feel confident enough to shit of the astrophysics community, and argue that "we can't really know", and "any theory is as valid as the other". Well, no. But I guess it's the same kind of people who argue with their physician about a therapy because they saw a facebook post telling them that sodium bicarbonate cures cancer.
Define "fringe." Is that anything socially unacceptable to the cool kids of the "in" crowd? Plasma cosmology is still evolving. Charge is the most fundamental aspect of all matter, and we have over a century of laboratory experience with plasmas. Meanwhile, "dark matter" and dark energy in all its various hypothetical forms (WIMPs, MACHOs, axions, etc.) is not even science because it cannot be tested. We are told that it makes up over 90 percent of the universe, yet is completely invisible, undetectable and does not interact with baryonic matter—except through gravity. That makes it nothing more than a placeholder to cover a serious hole in mainstream theory.
Right now? Pretty much all of your posts. I must have missed the lesson at the university where they explained how electric charge keeps planets together, or atomic nuclei. Whoops.
The trouble with plasma cosmology is that it takes on aspects of a cult or a dodgy religion when you examine it closely.
Mathematics is the basis for all physics. If your physics is lacking the math to back it up, it's bad science--or rather, it's not science, just speculation if not outright crankery. A quick google for "mathematical basis for plasma cosmology" turned up this winner: Yeah, math is just a pesky afterthought, not really necessary to the "theory"!
What I find disturbing is that astronomers and astrophysicists are spending billions and billions on large telescope projects. Where did they get billions and billions of dollars? Was it from controlling large sectors of the economy, such as the diamond sector (which is star stuff), or do they have complete control of several Western nations, profiting from quasi-legal trade in all sorts of otherwise illicit goods and services? Nobody can quite explain how a gaggle of university professors can cough up ten billion for a space telescope, even if they are tenured. Obviously, most of the skyrocketing costs of a college education is probably going directly into the pockets of the astronomy professors.
So far you haven't addressed any of the science. All you do is fling insults. As for "cult or dodgy religion," one could easily say the same for the dogmatic defense of the Big Bang. Some proponents seem almost desperate to prove the theory—which would account for the premature announcement recently about polarized light being due to gravity waves from the Big Bang, and then the sudden withdrawal of the claim. Also, mainstream astronomy routinely spawns theories that violate known physics, such as neutron stars. These bizarre beasts usually boil down to one flawed assumption, in the case of neutron stars it is the assumption that pulsars are rotating like a lighthouse. I, at least, have never claimed that plasma cosmology is the answer to everything. If you have any specific arguments you'd like to make from your close examinations—no straw man arguments, please—I'd be happy to hear it. Science thrives on ideas being tested.
I'm just saddened that the one man on this thread capable of enlightening us ignorants doesn't want to. I'll stand by my belief with my current knowledge that Dark Matter and Dark Energy are simply a theory similar to the Aether (trying to fit observations with current established theories) and that most likely one day it will be replaced with a better theory, as the Aether did.
How can I enlighten you when neither I nor anyone else knows the answer. There are no definitive experimental results. I favour certain theories as being more likely and I have prejudices against certain explanations -- such as plasma cosmology because of its lack of mathematical exposition and the attitude of its "true believers" -- but my unsubstantiated opinions are of no use to anyone else.