How is dark matter different from the old ether theory?

[yogi]

I couple of comments - the MMX didn't actually disprove the ether - nor did the success of SR - Einstein simply turned the surprising results from a problem to a postulate - similar to what is being done by inventing a something that explains the apparent flatness of the universe - so there is an analogy - Einstein did the same thing in deriving the General Theory - he knew the answer was in curvature - so he simply postulated that inert matter curves static space - the equations work - but there seems to be some missing physics - maybe dark energy will turn out to be tied to the stress of space - and maybe the stress of space will ultimately be connected to the velocity of light -