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13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

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"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 was very disappointed. The first chapter on dark matter and dark energy was indeed a baffling mystery of science. However, many of the 13 things were not so baffling or in a couple of cases not even serious phenomenon.

There is a Nobel Prize waiting for the person who figures out cold fusion, but until someone can actually reproduce the experiments there is no "thing" to be baffled by. Occam's razor does not suggest an alien transmission is the best explanation for SETI's "Wow" signal. The "Wow" signal was a onetime event. It is scientific frustration that we don't have more data from the event, but it isn't one of the most baffling mysteries in science.

The situation gets even worse when the author moves on to free will and homeopathy. I was hoping for a book about the frontiers of science. This was not it. Failing to prove negatives does not constitute scientific mystery.

"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.

There are times when it is clear the author just does not understand what he is discussing. The worst chapter for this must surely be the one on sexual selection. He clearly just does not know what this is, confusing mate selection with sexual selection in places, and concluding that because some species do not seem to have suffered sexual selection that none have. At one point he cites a prediction of sexual selection as a refutation. Just an awful, awful mess. The first two chapters are quite interesting though.

MUCH better is Nine Crazy Ideas in Science: A Few Might Even Be True

It's probably flaky to delete my (3 out of 3 people found this helpful) review just to up the book's rating from 1 to 2 stars, but I didn't know how else to do that. It's a lesson to me -- think before saving! 1 star was unfair.

I got it and started listening to it with all the sympathy in the world.

It's such a mishmash of true mysteries and belligerent cranks-are-rightism that it's completely useless, because there's no systematic way to tell what's what.

Michael Brooks is teaching people exactly how NOT to think about a scientific controversy. Cherrypicking, prejudicial language and revisionist history abound. Then again, it also has a lot of real mysteries and some people in science ARE too smug and their world is too small.

It's not wrong, precisely, just the soil in which science denialism grows. My feeling reminds me of what Richard Feynman told me about the Tao of Physics, Dancing Wu Li Masters, etc. "I get just so far in them and I can't physically turn another page. I just can't take any more and I have to close it."

This is a quirky little book about 13 issues chosen by the author. These are dark matter/energy, trajectory anomalies in deep space probes, universal constants, cold fusion, life, extraterrestrial life, intelligent extraterrestrial life, an unusual virus, death, sex, free will, the placebo effect, and homeopathy. He maintains a more or less neutral position on the issues he discusses, except that he indirectly reveals his favorite theory about sex, and overtly chooses sides on the free will question.

The title is a bit misleading; it is not that these issues don't make sense, but rather they are issues that have not been resolved to the author's satisfaction (with the exception of free will - see below).

If you read popularized science books, you may have already read about many of the issues presented in this book. You will not find anything new about dark matter/energy or universal constants here. However, the book does provide a nice and fairly entertaining overview of the issues it discusses. Any overall theme is at best a loose progression from hard physics to biology to cognitive science.

The author's point of view is distinctly scientists-know-best. By that I mean that he just assumes that the only valuable input on any of these issues is to come from science. This gets him into trouble, especially in the chapter on free will. Mind you, I do not even necessarily disagree with his position, it is just that his position is shallow and imprecise. It is difficult to say more without spoilers, but he would have done better to stick to describing the issue and let others come to their own conclusion. Instead he takes a stand, and the other side never gets thoroughly presented.

At the same time, he does raise challenges to current mainstream science, but even then everything is cast as a Kuhnian moment.

The author's choice of sources was sometimes odd; there were much better sources to draw from in discussing life for example. The author seems to have a particular affection for Carl Sagan, who, while popular, never impressed me with his insight (or lack of insight).

This book bursts with enthusiasm - that with which the author wrote it. And that enthusiasm can be very contagious for any of its readers. In 13 spellbinding chapters the author presents concise overviews of 13 topics in modern-day science that seem to defy scientific explanation. These topics include dark matter/energy in the universe, varying constants, cold fusion (still alive in some laboratories), the placebo effect and homeopathy to name just a few. In each case, scientists specializing in the field in question have been interviewed and their work discussed in sufficient detail for the reader to get a good grasp of what is involved. This book contains very good examples of the scientific method at work. The writing style is animated, clear, friendly and quite engaging. Although the book is also quite accessible to anyone, it will likely appeal the most to science buffs.

It is difficult for a reader with no high-level scientific training to know what can be relied on, in a popular work, and what cannot. Of course, a science book written by an eminent scientist, such as a winner of the Nobel Prize, may be assumed to be correct; but such people are generally too busy to write popular science. This work, about the 13 Things, is an example of the problem.

No doubt the most famous astronomer of the 20th century was Edwin Hubble. Pretty well any popular science book dealing with astronomy or the universe discusses his discoveries. He was of course an American who lived and did his scientific work in the US; he also spent a few years, in his youth, studying at Oxford. It is puzzling indeed that this author thinks he was an Englishman. One asks the question: if you got that elementary point wrong, what else is wrong? I do not propose to multiply examples of what seemed to me to be serious errors; but his explanation of what won Einstein the Nobel Prize is surely quite misleading.

It is surely not asking much to expect that the publisher hire a competent editor to weed out obvious bloopers. in

INVICTUS

While this book is not for people who want to find answers to the thirteen things, I found it quite intriguing. The author takes you through a journey of each of the so-called scientific mysteries from the beginning of its historical footprint to present time. The topics can get a bit challenging to comprehend at times, but if you have an open mind and are willing to look up a few topics, you should enjoy it as well. Nonetheless, the author does give you a great deal of detail in most areas. If you have a scientific background, you will enjoy it even more. Might it have been written to make it easier for average readers to fully comprehend, I would have awarded five stars. Otherwise, do not miss this one. It is definitely a conversation piece.

Point by point response to the amazon.com review

Things That Don't Make Sense:
"Homeopathic remedies seem to have biological effects that cannot be explained by chemistry"

When properly controlled studies are done all correlations on the efficacy of homeopathy disappear. It's actually possible to disprove homeopathy at home. Take a single drop of coffee and put it in your city's water supply intake. If homeopathy is correct then this super dilute amount should induce the opposite effect: it should make everyone extremely tired.

Now when everyone else is sleeping, rob all the banks in your town
Haha

Homeopathy, if true would mean that all the trace chemicals in the enviroment would have an enormous effect on us. A glass of water would contain in it all the traces of absolute chemical chaos and would tear us down

"Gases have been detected on Mars that could only have come from carbon-based life forms "

What GASES? There's hardly any atmosphere, and of that all can be created by non biological sources. There are few things that can only be said to have come from biological sources complex proteins would be an example. If you found that the red of mars was because of hemoglobin, then... wow it's a slam dunk.

But even if we were to take this at face value: let's provisionally accept this as evidence of life on mars. How does this belong in the list of 13 things that don't make sense? There's nothing that says there can't be life on mars. A piece of evidence can only be said to not make sense if it contradicts something. Many reasonable scientists have reasoned that the possibility of chemotrophic bacteria or analogs of a totally separate primordial genesis might be present on Mars. On Earth we find bacteria in boiling water in hot springs, on volcanic vents on the ocean floor surrounded by extreme pressures with high heat and bathed in sulfuric acid, miles underground in mines eating bands of iron. We find them everywhere! For every extreme condition on mars there is something that we know of on earth that can thrive in that niche

"Cold fusion, theoretically impossible and discredited in the 1980s, seems to work in some modern laboratory experiments"

So I suppose this is another example of "THE MAN" keeping us down? Hmmm.....

"It's quite likely we have nothing close to free will"

We cannot assign likelyhood or probability to something like this simply because finding a place for free will would require that we know EVERYTHING. And science cannot investigate such claims ultimately. IT can show that so far we've been able to show that neurobiology proceeds from physical events.

No greedy reductionism needed

"Life and non-life may exist along a continuum, which may pave the way for us to create life in the near future "

This is actually true. Good job for once! Protobionts display nearly all the properties of life. As well many non living things satisfy some of the requirements for being called living. Crystals are complex, grow, require resources, use energy, and pass on their specific structure. Fire uses energy, grows and reproduces.


"Sexual reproduction doesn't line up with evolutionary theory and, moreover, there's no good scientific explanation for why we must die "

1. We have some good ideas, read the book "The evolution of sex" by John Maynard smith as well as "the evolution of sex" by George C Williams. Then pick up "the Red Queen hypothesis by matt ridley for some ideas about this.
2. Disposable soma theory explains why things die. Whenever health and reproductive success become unlinked, evolution sides with reproductive success.

Also, evolution has been formed based on the assumption that on average things die at an average age. Development involves the complex timing of many factors and so evolution might just not have taken into account any "Methuselah Selection" properties.