Robustness and Dark-Matter Observation

Current cosmological observations place little constraints on the nature of dark matter, allowing the development of a large number of viable models and various methods for probing their properties. At first glance, this variety of models and methods provides ideal grounds for the employment of robustness arguments in dark matter research. The aim of this article is to examine the extent to which such arguments can be used to overcome various methodological and theoretical challenges. The main conclusion is that while robustness arguments have a limited scope in the context of dark matter research, they can still be used for increasing the scientists' confidence about the properties of specific models.