13 Things that Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries

 

13 Things that Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time (Vintage) [Paperback]

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (August 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307278816
• ISBN-13: 978-0307278814
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  

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Customer Reviews

"13 Things That Don't Make Sense" is a list of things that the author apparently dearly wishes were true. If this book had been written as a exercise for the reader in identifying logical fallacies I'm quite sure I would have found it an enjoyable and educational read. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
Halfway through the book I identified the formulaic pattern by which nearly every chapter seems to have been manufactured. It goes something like this. 1) Identify some topic which the vast majority of scientists that specialize in it have reached a consensus of their general understanding of how it works. 2) Introduce crank "scientist" that has radical ideas about said topic that challenge the consensus. 3) Gain reader's trust by acknowledging a few of the more obvious arguments against the radical ideas and insincerely admit that the crank scientist might actually be wrong. 4) Spend the rest of the chapter a) promoting the radical ideas and b) ignoring, or merely giving lip service to, the more fundamental arguments that demonstrate how patently absurd the ideas actually are and c) painting the scientific community as a closed-minded dogmatic bunch of good-old-boys who don't like outsiders challenging their beliefs.
I was genuinely surprised that there wasn't a chapter titled "Evolution", as the author's pattern of attacking science seems to come directly from the play book of the Discovery Institute. In fact, it would seem that the author co-opted the "Wedge Strategy" of the DI for his own purposes.
Upon finishing the book, I concluded that the author's overarching agenda was to champion homeopathy. All the preceding chapters were a setup to undermine the reader's trust in the scientific community and it's ability to accurately answer questions about the world around us. The author clearly wants homeopathy to be true so bad that he's resolved to believe in it until the scientific community can prove to his satisfaction that it doesn't work. At the top of page 195, he states that "[The Scientific Community has] failed to prove homeopathy's inefficacy. Yet again." and in the next paragraph states that, "Given more than two centuries science has failed to show that homeopathy is bumkum."
Anyone with a sensible grasp of how science works knows quite well that it is not the responsibility of the scientific community to prove that homeopathy does not work. The onus is on those who claim that it does work to provide clear, repeatable, evidence to support their claim. To paraphrase the author, Given more that two centuries, homeopathy proponents have failed to produce even one truly homeopathic remedy that that can reliably and consistently treat even one medical condition under strict double-blind controls. In the absence of such evidence, to even believe that homeopathy might work, is nothing more that wishful thinking and those actively selling true homeopathic remedies are engaging in fraud.
On page 200 the author briefly dances around the argument that the extremely high dilution ratios in true homeopathy are actually the problem. He states that "dilution and succussion - to most, the very essence of homeopathy - could not just be a waste of time but the root of homeopathy's problems." But then he fails to take that to it's logical conclusion, that if you stop diluting these "remedies" to absurd degrees and actually provide a substance with enough molecules of active ingredient remaining, then the active ingredient will have a predictable effect on the patient. But that's not homeopathy anymore, that's how real science based medicine works.
There are a few medicines that market themselves as "homeopathic" but are actually real medicine provided in safe, clinically proven, dilution levels. In this case, the word "homeopathic" is just a clever marketing term to take advantage of the public's ignorance of what homeopathy is. Most active ingredients in real medicine are not safe to take in their pure form and are normally diluted to safe levels. But, if you're going to call these kinds of medicine "homeopathic", then you might as well call your morning coffee "homeopathic". Just remember, homeopathic dilution makes the substance stronger, so don't dilute your coffee too much or you won't be able to sleep for weeks.

"I believe that knowledge is fractal in nature. No matter how much we learn, what remains how seemingly small is infinitely complex."
Isaac Asimov
In detailing 13 mysteries at the edge of modern science Michael Brooks expertly lays bare fertile domains for scientific progress. But much more than that, referencing history and historical shifts in perspective that accompanied scientific advance (as for example, when the church attempted to suppress the writings of Galileo and was ultimately unsuccessful in doing so) Brooks also suggests that shifts in perspective may be necessary for us to gain the advance we seek.
But enough about generalities...let's take glimpse at the mysteries surveyed by Brooks:
1) The search for the missing mass in the universe: Today's physicists believe they can only fully explain four percent of what constitutes the universe. The remaining 96 percent has been supposedly divided into dark matter and dark energy owing to qualities about some of it that seem to behave more like matter and others that seem to behave more like energy. However, another proposal is that our understanding of gravity itself is at fault and just as Einstein had to tweek Isaac Newton's concepts of gravity in relation to light we may also have to tweek them in relation to supposedly empty space...which relates to the next mystery:
2) The Pioneer anomaly: In the early 1970s the US sent out two Pioneer probes that are now both past Pluto. Yet amazingly both of them are off course and by the same degree than would be predicted under traditional notions of gravitational pull. Have our probes journeyed far enough to make contact with that missing universe aluded to in the first mystery? The answer to that question is related to our next mystery:
3) Varying Constants: The set strength of the various fundamental forces of nature may not be constant. For those whose appetite is whetted by this chapter, please read Oxford University Prof. John Barrow's book entitled simply "Constants of the Universe." In a rough way, this mystery relates to the next one:
4) Whether cold fusion is possible: Thanks to Einstein's famous E = MC2 huge amounts of energy can be produced by either nuclear fission (the division of nuclear particles) or alternatively fusion (the unification of certain nuclear particles). For those familiar with US A bomb and H bomb testing videos and Godzilla movies, this process is usually a very dramatic one. If cold fusion were possible it would bode significantly against global energy concerns. And while we still don't know for sure if it can be done, we do know that the US Navy is convinced enough to massively fund research in this area. From this mystery, we leap to our next one:
5) How did life originate: Wisely Brooks peppers this part of his book heavily with quotations from both Erwin Schroedinger whose 1944 essay of the same name is still in print and also Adelaide U prof Paul Davies fantastic book The Fifth Miracle. While personally, I believe life will ultimately be found to a fairly common emergent property on certain types of planets and moons, it's still interesting reading to see just how far current research has NOT come. This brings us to our next mystery:
6) Did Viking find evidence of life on Mars: On July 20 1976 the Viking lander did just that on Mars. In four then cutting edge tests (the fifth one failed to work properly) Viking's magic eight ball said: Probably not. But was that the final word? Itself probably not. Which brings us to the next mystery: did we alredy recieve an extra terrestrial signal?
As can be seen, the issues (and the ones listed were just a sampling are fascinating reading for both the questions they answer and the others they beckon us...their inheritors...to answer.