Stellar Metamorphosis: Cosmology Prizes for What?

By establishing a connection between observations of the nearby universe with the universe on the whole, Jaan Einasto, Kenneth Freeman, R. Brent Tully, and Sidney van den Bergh pioneered Near Field Cosmology—an area of study that helped establish both that the distribution of galaxies is not random but has a definite structure, and that dark matter played a key role in the evolution of that structure.

http://gruber.yale.edu/prize/2014-gruber-cosmology-prize

I have no words. Only Confused Cat can express how I feel. 

Here is something that I think my readers need to understand. Dark matter is a place holder for something that is not understood. Saying, "dark matter did it", is the exact same thing as throwing your hands up in the air and saying, "fuck it, I give up". 

These gentlemen were awarded a huge dollar amount to throw in the towel. Excellent news, but for a completely different reason than naive graduate students would expect.