People were being a bit stupid when they dogmatically stuck with the idea that "the earth is the center of the universe" and had to come up with ridiculously complex epicycles and systems of motion to describe the movement of the planets, when really if they had just change their assumptions and frame of reference, it was quite simple to see the planets were orbiting around the sun rather than in some weird epicycle involving the earth.
The impression a lot of people have about dark matter is I think similar -- dark matter / dark energy basically comes up as an explanation for why theory doesn't match what we observe. Thus a lot of people assume there is simply a more reasonable explanation, like a hidden variable we haven't considered, that would result in a theory that matches our observations. When I was in high school physics this was my assumption as well. I think if that were really the problem, though, someone would have solved it by now. That said, never underestimate an entire school of thought's inability to see things differently.
The impression a lot of people have about dark matter is I think similar -- dark matter / dark energy basically comes up as an explanation for why theory doesn't match what we observe. Thus a lot of people assume there is simply a more reasonable explanation, like a hidden variable we haven't considered, that would result in a theory that matches our observations. When I was in high school physics this was my assumption as well. I think if that were really the problem, though, someone would have solved it by now. That said, never underestimate an entire school of thought's inability to see things differently.