Re: OT: 13 things that do not make sense
- From: Matt Silberstein <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 20:25:01 GMT
On 2 Jan 2006 09:17:37 -0800, in talk.origins , "Andrew McClure"
<amcclure@xxxxxxxxxx> in
<1136222257.121779.9990@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Since this group is usually engrossed trying to deal with people
>pronouncing imaginary holes in science, I thought it might be a nice
>break to look at some things science *actually* can't explain. New
>Scientist: Space has a list of 13 things that "don't make sense"--
>experimental results that current theory can't explain, at least not
>very well. This makes these things really important, since, as Isaac
>Asimov said, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that
>heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather,
>'hmm.... that's funny....'"
>
>http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600
>
>The article's quite good and worth a look, but here's a condensed
>summary:
>
>1. The placebo effect: Everybody knows this works, but we're still not
>entirely sure why.
It is not what we don't know that is a problem, it is what we know
that just ain't so. Like the placebo effect, which according to recent
studies does not actually exist.
>2. The horizon problem: The cosmic background radiation is way too
>uniform for normal physical theory to explain it. Inflationary theory
>explains this nicely-- but inflationary theory also smacks of being a
>kludge, an entirely arbitrary postulated event which occurs for no
>reason except to make data fit theory.
>3. Ultra-energetic cosmic rays: University of Tokyo's Akeno Giant Air
>Shower Array has detected a number of cosmic rays coming from space
>which are above the energy limit of what current physical theory says
>is possible. (A new experiment in Argentina may help to explain this
>one.)
>
>4. Homeopathy: This shouldn't work. Clinical trials keep demonstrating
>it doesn't work. But experiments into homeopathy keep picking up
>anamolous results frequently enough that the subject can't quite die.
>Either there is some kind of actual, tangential effect which isn't
>homeopathy but which homeopathy experiments are accidentally picking up
>on, or there have just been a surprisingly large number of sloppy
>experiments.
For some notion of "surprisingly". If you cherry pick the data you can
get anything you want.
>5. Dark matter: What the heck *is* this stuff, anyway?
>
>6. Viking's methane: In 1976, one of the Viking probe's sensors picked
>up methane laced with signs of life in the form of carbon-14-- but the
>other sensor on Viking didn't corroborate the results, and found
>nothing. So was the first sensor malfunctioning, or... what?
>
>7. Tetraneutrons: Four years ago a particle accelerator in France
>detected six particles made up of four neutrons each. According to
>current physical theory, that's impossible. So either current physical
>theory is wrong, or the particle accelerator was confused, and just
>took got six snapshots of four individual neutrons that by coincidence
>happened to be really, really close together at that exact moment.
>That's not at all impossible, but it's incredibly unlikely.
>
>8. The Pioneer trajectories: The Pioneer missions completed long ago,
>but NASA is still picking up data from them as they fly out into the
>void. And they've noticed: The pioneer probes aren't where they're
>supposed to be. As they move further out, they seem to be very, very
>slowly but surely slowing down. This is so wierd that people have
>proposed the reason may actually be flaws in physical theory, maybe
>linked to the dark matter problem. (A proposed NASA probe may help to
>explain this one.)
>
>9. The universe's increasing expansion: The universe's expansion seems
>to be speeding up, and we have no idea why. A new theory attempts to
>explain this by postulating the presence of "Dark Energy", but this
>suffers the same problem as dark matter and inflationary theory and
>Ptolemaic epicycles: It's kludgy, and we can't explain where it's
>coming from.
>
>10. The Kuliper Cliff: Outside the solar system is the Kuliper belt, a
>crowded field of random rocks. And past that is... nothing. The Kuliper
>belt ends so abruptly that there doesn't seem to be any possible
>explanation except a Mars-sized "planet X" that no one has been able to
>find. (A future NASA probe may help to explain this one.)
>
>11. The "wow" signal. In 1977 Ohio State university picked up a
>narrow-band signal from an object 220 light years away of the *exact*
>kind SETI looks for. SETI, however, is pretty sure it was just radio
>interference coming from inside earth's atmosphere.
>
>12. Changing constants: A series of experimental results indicate that
>the "fine structure constant", which effects how light interacts with
>matter, has changed slightly sometime in the last two to twelve billion
>years. Or maybe the results are wrong.
>
>13. Cold fusion: See: Homeopathy
Except that there is even less supporting data to cherry pick.
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
.
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