Dark matter doesn’t, adding additional gravity to the calculations does, Dark Matter is an attempt to explain that additional gravity within the context of the standard model, which means you need mass to curve space. Bearing in mind we are considering our comprehension of gravitation to be complete, which is an assumption, we thought the same thing before Einstein.

Within the standard model you can’t have it both ways, the rules don’t get to change. If dark matter is a particle those have rules, we don’t get to say at scale it’s one set but locally there is nothing you can model based on the observable universe that get you to this larger reality.

I’ve been debating this concept for years with scientists and enthusiasts from all over the world, long enough to conclude that the effect called dark matter is very real and measurable. Yet our insistence it must be a particle isn’t an attempt to adhere to the standard model as much as it is one to protect the idea of the Big Bang. It’s pretty hard to model massive galaxic structures forming out of hot clusters of pop III stars in the dense early universe without it…