70+ Questions to Ask a Scientist

These days biologists routinely display enormous overconfidence. They routinely claim to understand very deep things they do not understand, things that are a hundred miles over their heads. Biologists also have the very bad habit of repeating groundless triumphal legends claiming that scientists have developed explanations for wonders of biology that are actually vastly beyond the understanding of our biologists. 

Science journalists should act as a check inhibiting the extreme overconfidence of biologists, just as speed bumps are checks that limit the speeding of reckless drivers. But alas, today's science journalists often act like they are afraid to ask scientists the tough questions such scientists should be asked. 

Not a good way to interview a boasting scientist

But we may hope that one day we see more science journalists acting like real journalists rather than like North Korean journalists who reverently accept everything told them by authorities. In this post I will give 70+ questions you can ask a scientist, if you are trying to act like a good science journalist who asks tough questions. 

Below is a sketch of how a science journalist could interview an overconfident scientist.  The interview might follow a general strategy:

(1) First, the journalist asks a few "softball questions" that will typically result in the overconfident scientist making his most overconfident claims. 

(2) Instead of immediately disputing the overconfident answers, the journalist asks about very many smaller issues related to the overconfident claims. 

(3) Eventually, the journalist points out the discrepancy between the overconfident claims made by the scientist at the beginning of the interview, and the answers given in the main part of the interview, pointing out the contradiction between the two.  

The earliest of the questions below are questions you might ask in Part 1 of such an interview. 

A good interview might use many or most of these questions, with the interview selecting a subset of these questions that makes sense to ask a particular type of scientist. 

1. Do you think scientists such as yourself understand the universe well? 
2. Do you think scientists such as yourself have a good understanding of the human body?
3. Do you think scientists such as yourself understand well the origin of the human race?
4. Do you think scientists have a credible story to tell of the progression of matter in the universe, one leading from the universe's origin to the present day and the day-to-day reality we experience?
5. Do you think scientists such as yourself have a good understanding of how the human mind arises?
6. Are there any big unsolved problems of science that you find to be particularly interesting or troubling?
7. On a scale of 1 to 10 in which 1 is very poor scientific practice and 10 is the best possible scientific practice, how would you rate the practices and methods used in the scientific research you are doing?  The question is best asked of scientists such as psychologists, neuroscientists, and sociology scientists, although it can also be asked of evolutionary biologists and theoretical physicists. 
8. I have studied what are called Questionable Research Practices such as the use of way-too-small study group sizes, the lack of a blinding protocol, the failure to pre-register a hypothesis and a research plan, and something calling HARKing or Hypothesizing After Results are Known. Do you sometimes engage in such practices? If the answer is "yes," a follow-up question should be asked such as, "So why should we be confident in the research you have done?"
9. What is the universe mostly made of? Note whether the scientist professes belief in dark matter or dark energy. 
10. What happened at the earliest time in the history of the universe? Note whether the scientist tells an account of the universe undergoing "inflation" or an account of exponential expansion. 
11. How is that amino acid sequences in the human body are able to form into the three-dimensional shapes needed for protein molecules to function, and why does this occur at such a very fast speed? This question is known as the protein folding problem. It is still one of the biggest unanswered questions in biology. Don't be fooled by untrue claims that some software called AlphaFold2 has answered this question or solved this problem. That software made progress in a different problem, one called the protein folding prediction problem, which is the problem of predicting a protein's three-dimensional shape from its amino acid sequence. The year 2026 paper states, "The explanatory scientific understanding of the protein folding problem is thus not directly advanced by AF2 [AlphaFold2]." Later the same paper says, "The protein folding problem remains unsolved." The answer to the protein folding problem is not that the shape of a protein is specified by DNA or genes. DNA has only the linear, one-dimensional information of which amino acids make up a protein, not the three-dimensional information of what shape a protein molecule takes. 
12. Why is it that different types of proteins form into functional teams of proteins called protein complexes, with this occurring so very quickly and very frequently? Scientists lack any credible explanation for protein complex formation, the phenomenon of individual protein molecules joining together to form functional teams of protein molecules that serve a particular biological purpose. Random combinations fail to explain the phenomenon, which very often involves the formation of functional components so fine-tuned, well-organized and useful that they are often called "molecular machines." The formation of protein complexes is as stunning a wonder as what would occur if floods passing through hardware stores were to be very frequently assembling machines as well-arranged as bicycles, with very many types of such machines arising from a mysterious assembly of much smaller parts. In a scientific paper two scientists confess that "very little is known about how protein complexes form in vivo [in living organisms]." In another scientific paper, two scientists confess that "a general theoretical framework to understand protein complex formation and usage is still lacking." 
13. What are cells? If the scientist gives an answer such as "the basic building blocks of human bodies," follow-up with the next question.
14. Are human cells simple things like building blocks, or something more more complex?  If you get any answers failing to candidly describe the enormous organization of cells, follow-up with a question such as "But is it not true that many types of cells are vastly complex and enormously organized, components so complex that they have been compared to factories or cities?"
15. Can you list some of the levels of organization in a human body? What are cells made of, what are those constituent components made up, what are the constituent components of those constituent components made of, and what are the constituent components of those constituent components made of?  This is a good question to ask to help determine how well a scientist understands the organization of human bodies.  You should not at all assume that most scientists know the answers to these questions. The correct answers are that cells are built from organelles, that organelles are built from protein complexes and proteins, that protein complexes are built from proteins, and that proteins are built from amino acids. If the scientist failed to answer the question correctly, refer back to any upbeat answer the scientist may have given to Question 2 -- for example, asking, "So why did you claim earlier to have a good understanding of the human body?"
16. Why did you previously claim that you understand the origin of mankind, when you apparently do not well understand the degree of organization in the human body, given your answer to the previous question? Shouldn't a good understanding of the complexity and organization in the human body be a prerequisite for anyone claiming to understand human origins?  Ask this question only if the scientist has failed to answer well the previous question. 
17. How are cells so enormously complex and vastly organized ever able to reproduce? Keep in mind that you will not be getting a substantive answer to this question if you merely get from someone a listing of different stages of cell reproduction,  such as prophase and interphase. The question is: what is it that causes a cell to perform the incredibly complex series of transitions that results in cell reproduction? No one understands this well. 
18. If you had to richly describe the universe in a single sentence, some sentence that would provide insight and shed some light, what sentence would you use?
19. Are human memories stored in the brain? 
20. So in what part of the brain are memories stored -- in neurons, in synapses, or somewhere else? Ask this question only if you got an answer of "yes" to the previous question. 
21. Do you actually understand any brain mechanism by which a person could store learned information? Scientists do not actually understand any such brain mechanism, but you may get some bluffing hand-waving in response to this question. 
22. Do you actually understand any brain mechanism by which a person could instantly retrieve the answer to a specific question such as who was Napoleon? Scientists do not actually understand any such brain mechanism, but you may get some bluffing hand-waving in response to this question. If you get an "I don't know" answer to these questions about how memory works, you can ask a follow-up question such as, "But you previously claimed to know how the human species originated, and does it make sense to be saying that if you don't even how how human memory could occur in a brain?"
23. What's the shortest time it takes a human to learn something? If the scientist claims that learning takes several minutes, ask something like, "But is it not true that when people learn of the death of their child or parent, they learn something instantly, and never forget it?" If the scientist admits that learning can be instantaneous, ask a question such as, "So how could a person ever learn anything instantly using a brain, as that would require protein synthesis taking at least a few minutes?"
24. Do synapses have the kind of stability and permanence you would need for human memories to persist for 50 years? You may skip this question and the next one if the scientist did not refer to synapses when asked the earlier question about memory storage. 
25. But isn't it true that synapses are made of protein molecules that have an average lifetime of only a few weeks? And isn't it true that synapses are attached to dendritic spines that typically don't last for years?  Ask these questions only if you got a "yes" answer to the previous question. If you get an answer of "yes," and the answer to the previous question was "yes," then ask a question such as, "So why did you previously answer that synapses have the kind of stability and permanence you would need for human memories to persist for 50 years?"
26. Is a brain kind of like soft clay to which sensory impressions are written, rather like someone using a stylus to write characters into clay? If the scientist answers "yes," ask what brain component corresponds to such a stylus (there is none), and ask whether any types of specific impressions resembling marks in clay have ever been found (they have not). 
27. How is it that a brain could possibly be storing memories, given that no trace of anything anyone has learned has ever been found by the microscopic examination of brain tissue? Scientists have long maintained that memories are stored in brains. But very much brain tissue has been examined by very powerful microscopes, including the full brains of very many who arranged for their brains to be quickly preserved after their deaths, and also much brain tissue surgically removed from living persons, as a treatment for diseases such as epilepsy. Such microscopic examination has never produced any trace of learned information. No one has ever found a single sentence by microscopically examining brain tissue, nor has anyone ever found a single word by such examination, nor has anyone ever found a single image by such examination. An answer to this question might involve some speculation about a secret storage code not yet figured out. Another answer might be that the brain does not actually store memories. 
28. How is it that a brain could possibly be storing memories, given that no one understands any system of encoding that would allow the storage of the very many types of things that humans can learn?  You may get some hand-waving answer in which something like "patterns of synaptic connectivity" are wrongly described as a system of encoding. If so, ask a follow-up question such as, "But isn't that just empty hand-waving?"
29. People can quickly look up exactly the right answer to a question by using a book such as a one-volume encyclopedia, in which all of the thousands of topics are sorted alphabetically, or by using a book with an index, which allows you to quickly find the page with the right answer. But the brain has neither sorting, nor indexes, nor any of the addresses that indexes depend on. So how does a human being instantly remember just the right answer upon hearing a single name or short question? How are we able to recall the right answer so quickly when we are asked a question? 
30. Humans can remember many things reliably for more than 50 years. For example, a 70-year may remember very well very many experiences of his childhood that happened 55 or 60 years ago. But the claimed storage place of memory (synapses) are unstable things that do not last for years. For example, a 2025 paper states that  "the synaptic turnover rate is as high as 1% per day in the visual cortex." Another paper  states that in  hippocampal CA1 cells the synapses have an  estimated lifetime of only 1–2 weeks. How could people ever remember things for five decades using synapses that do not last for years?
31. Mentally, what is a human being? You may get a diminutive answer such as "consciousness." If so, follow-up with a question such as, "But isn't a human mentally something vastly more than just consciousness? Isn't a human a thinking, knowing, believing, loving, caring, planning, questioning, seeing, hearing, creating, imagining, willing, speaking, reading, aspiring, instantly learning, curious, striving, enjoying, suffering and comprehending unified self, a person capable of insight, compassion, morality, self-introspection, instant recall, philosophical inquiry, appreciation and spirituality?"
32. If your brain is what is producing your mind, why is it that many people report observing their bodies from a position outside of their bodies, in the type of event called out-of-body experiences? If you get an answer claiming hallucinations, ask the next question as a follow-up.
33. Out-of-body experiences are often reported during cardiac arrest, when the brain very quickly shuts down electrically, flatlining within 15 to 20 seconds after the heart stops. How could the brain ever hallucinate when the brain was flatlining, in a state in which conscious experience should be impossible, given assumptions that the brain makes the mind? 
34. How much have you studied near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences? Have you read very many of the accounts of those who had such experiences, or watched very many of their reports in videos in which they are interviewed? Or do you get your information on such things second-hand, mainly from reading skeptical magazines or skeptical websites?
35. How much reading have you done about the evidence for paranormal phenomena? Did that reading include lots of reading of original source materials and first-hand accounts? If you get a claim to have well-studied this topic, ask the scientist to discuss what was reported on this topic by the leading physicist William Crookes. If the scientist cannot answer, ask about the discrepancy between his previous answer and his lack of knowledge on this topic. 
36. There is very high similarity in near-death experiences, with so many reporting out-of-body experiences, seeing dead relatives, and getting a glimpse of some other realm of existence. If near-death experiences are hallucinations, why would so very many people hallucinate the same thing?
37.  Should people assert the existence of things they have not directly seen or directly measured? If the scientist answers in a negative manner, check whether the scientist previously asserted the existence of macroevolution, brain-stored memories, dark matter, dark energy or "cosmic inflation" occurring at the beginning of time. None of these has been directly observed.  In such a case, ask the next question.
38. Why did you say that people should not assert the existence of things they have not directly seen or measured, despite your previous claims of the existence of something that was never directly seen or measured?  Ask this question if the scientist previously asserted the existence of dark matter, dark energy, brain-stored memories, macroevolution or "cosmic inflation" occurring at the beginning of time. 
39. Which well-known scientist (living or dead) is the most overrated? 
40. Which little-known scientist is the most worthy of being well-known?
41. How could humans have ever started to speak using a language? Do you have a theory of the origin of language? If you get a "no" answer, and the scientist previously claimed to understand the origin of humans, ask a question such as, "But you earlier claimed to understand the origin of humans, and does it make sense for anyone to claim that, if they don't understand the origin of language?" If you get a hand-waving attempt to explain the origin of language, ask a follow-up question such as, "But using a language requires a kind of mass adoption of a set of rules for how to speak, and how could such rules ever have been spread before there was any language?"
42. Will scientists ever be able to look all the way back to the beginning of time, to see exactly what was happening at the very beginning? If the scientist suggests this can be done by building sufficiently large telescopes, ask something like, "Is such a thing not impossible, given the assumptions of the Big Bang theory, which tells us that for its first 300,000 years the universe was so dense that it should have hopelessly scattered all light and radiation from such a period?"
43. Have you ever said to yourself something like: "Looking back on my career, I wish I had done more studying of X, and less studying of Y?" If so, what was the X and the Y?
44. Of the methods that are used by scientists in your field, which method do you think is the shakiest, the most prone to create false alarms or lead scientists on "wild goose chases" or point scientists in the wrong direction?
45. Darwin and Wallace were the co-founders of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Did they both claim that such a theory explains all human characteristics, or almost all?  If the scientist answers "yes," ask, "But is it not true that Alfred Russel Wallace wrote an essay claiming that natural selection is not sufficient to explain the higher characteristics of the human mind?" 
46. When did we first get very complex and very organized life on Earth? If the scientist claims that this did not occur until there arose the first eukaryotic cells, follow up with a question such as, "But is it not true that even the simplest self-reproducing cell would be a very high state of complexity and organization, requiring hundreds of types of very complex protein molecules?"
47. So how did there ever arise eukaryotic cells vastly more complex than prokaryotic cells? You may get an answer reciting the tall tale of eukaryogenesis by endosymbiosis. 
48. Has anyone ever observed either life arising from non-life, or eukaryotic cells arising from prokaryotic cells? The correct answer is "no." If you get that correct answer, follow up with a question such as "So why do scientists keep asserting these miracles of chance that no one has ever observed?"
49. Darwin kept claiming that "nature does not make leaps." Is either the theory of abiogenesis (an origin of life from non-life) or the theory of the endosymbiotic origin of eukaryotic cells compatible with such a principle? Is either of these theories a Darwinian explanation? The answers to these questions are "no." If the scientists answers correctly, follow up with a question such as, "So why do scientists keep insinuating that Darwin explained life, when he failed to explain the origin of the two main types of cells?"
50. Is it credible to imagine many thousands of new types of protein molecules originating in the distant past by hundreds of little steps, each providing a benefit to survival or reproduction, or is it true in general that protein molecules only become functional when most of their parts are arranged in the right way, and also that most types of protein molecules only are useful as parts of much larger systems such as protein complexes?  The idea that most types of protein molecules arose by a long series of little steps (each producing an improvement in survival or reproduction) is inconsistent with findings that very small changes in protein molecules tend to make them nonfunctional, preventing them from folding correctly, and also inconsistent with the reality that most protein molecules only become functional as team members of much larger systems such as protein complexes. 
51. Explain what are orphan genes, and tell whether they are rare or very common. Orphan genes are genes that seem to have no clear ancestor in genes existing in earlier species. Such orphan genes are very common. 
52. How many types of complex inventions are in your body?  A good answer is something like 20,000, referring to the number of genes or protein molecules in a person's body (some people estimate the number of types of human protein molecules as being as high as 100,000).
53. If you had to richly describe an average human being in a single sentence, some sentence that would provide insight and shed some light, what sentence would you use?
54. Can you name a philosopher whose works you've read, someone who provided a model of conduct or a mode of inquiry or a technique that you sometimes try to emulate? A good answer to this question would refer to Plato. In the dialogues of Plato, the character of Socrates very frequently asks questions of overconfident people, questions that tend to expose when someone is boasting about understanding something he does not really understand.
55. What do you think is the single greatest insight that anyone has ever had after pondering things observed by humans?
56. Can the wonders of biology be explained by a mere theory of accumulation, or do we need something much more than that, a true theory of organization? If the scientist confesses that we need a true theory of organization, ask something like, "Do we need a mere theory of simple organization, or something better -- a true theory of hierarchical organization, one that can account for fine-tuned systems filled with interdependent components?" If the scientist confesses the need for the latter, ask, "Is Darwinism such a theory, or is it a mere theory of accidental accumulation?"
57. Can you describe one time that you "stuck your neck out," and told your scientist colleagues, "You guys all seem to believe in this, but I think you're wrong"? If you get a "no" answer, ask something like, "So would you describe yourself as a 'follow-the-herd' kind of scientist?"
58. What type of spooky phenomena do you hear about, while thinking "That can't possibly exist?" And why do you say to yourself that after hearing reports of such phenomena? This question may produce a revealing confession in which the scientist says that some type of phenomenon cannot possibly occur; and the phenomenon may be something that has been well-observed by reliable witnesses. If you get a confession such as that, ask a follow-up question such as, "But don't all the observations for that phenomenon show that you've gone badly wrong in your underlying assumptions?"
59. Can you think of anything that you might observe that might cause you to think, "My worldview is in need of drastic revision, and some of my most fundamental assumptions are in error?"
60. If you had to richly describe the history of science in a single sentence, some sentence that would provide insight and shed some light, what sentence would you use?
61. What scientific finding or observation in your lifetime has most surprised you, and why did you find it to be so surprising?
62. Which supposedly prevailing idea of today's scientists is most likely to be overthrown, or most deserving of abandonment?
63. Is there anything that scientists of your type are not paying much attention to, which you should be paying attention to, because it suggests the need for a dramatically new paradigm?
64. Why is it that so many scientists use an unreliable technique for measuring memory recall in rodents, involving so-called freezing behavior judgments that are just recording immobility, rather than using reliable techniques for measuring memory recall in rodents?
65. Synapses seem to have short lifetimes, because they are built from proteins with average lifetimes of only weeks, and are connected to dendritic spines that almost all have short lifetimes less than a year. If synapses have short lifetimes, what does that imply about out understanding of memory?  A good answer would be one recognizing the gigantic inconsistency between the described short lifetimes, and the prevailing but senseless theory that memories are stored in synapses. 
66. Can you identify some central belief of yours that is not simply something that you directly observed or that someone else directly observed? If you get an answer, ask, "Did you independently adopt such a belief after years of studying the related evidence, or did you instead simply adopt that belief because one or more of your professors taught you that belief, or because you thought such a belief had become popular among scientists of your specialty?"
67. What exactly is DNA?  Look for misstatements such as the claim that DNA is a recipe, program or blueprint for building a human body. If you get such a misstatement, ask, "But is it not true that DNA and its genes merely have low-level chemical information, such as which amino acids make up a protein?" If you don't get such a misstatement, ask something like, "But why have so many, including scientists, described DNA as if it were something much more, something like a recipe, program or blueprint for building a human body? Are authorities misleading us on this topic?"
68. Is the brain a computer? If you get an answer of "yes," ask a question such as, "But isn't it true that computers have things such an operating systems, application programs, indexes, addresses, CPU chips, information transfer protocols, a system for permanently storing new information and a system for reading such information, and also perfectly reliable signal transmission, none of which are found in the brain?"
69. Have you made a deep study of cases of exceptional human mental performance, such as people with HSAM or people who seemed to have something like photographic memory? If you get an answer of "no," ask a follow-up question such as, "But don't you think you should be studying such cases before making any claims about how a human mind arises?" If you get an answer of "yes," ask a follow-up question such as, "What do you think such cases imply?"
70. What are some of the biggest examples of good fortune that our universe needed to have to allow the existence of creatures such as ourselves? The question tests whether the scientist has studied the issue of cosmic fine-tuning. A good answer would mention facts such as the fact that every proton has an electric charge the exact opposite of every electron (discussed here).
71. Why would our universe have had so many such blessings of good fortune needed to allow the existence of creatures such as ourselves?  If you get an answer referring to a multiverse, ask follow-up questions such as "Is there any observational evidence for any such multiverse?" or "But is it not true that the existence of other universes would have had no effect on the likelihood of our universe being habitable, just as the existence of other poker players has no effect on the odds of me getting two royal flushes when I play poker?"
72. Why do today's scientists so often seem to fail to study evidence for the inexplicable, such as evidence for telepathy, clairvoyance, apparition sightings, deathbed visions and near-death experiences? Is it because they don't want to learn about things that might conflict with their belief system?  If you get an answer such as "because they want to limit themselves to things that are on the most solid ground," then ask this follow-up question: "But what about all the scientists who spend so many years on things we never directly observed, such as dark matter, dark energy, string theory and primordial cosmic inflation?"
73. Do you think the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence is likely, and if so, why do you think that? You will most typically get an answer stating the dubious "many chances equals some successes" argument, one referring to the very large number of stars and planets. If you get that, follow-up with a question such as, "But isn't it true that if something is sufficiently improbable, we would never expect it to happen by chance in the history of the universe?  And given the very great organization in even the simplest cells, and given all the endless difficulties of explaining powerful minds and powerful human memories, why shouldn't we regard as prohibitive the odds against an unguided origin of life and high intelligence?"
74. Do you think that 100 years from now scientists will still believe the main explanations scientists give today, or do you think they will look back and kind of laugh at much of what scientists claim today?

Trying to Solve One of the Hardest Problems of Biology, Physicists Sound "Lost in the Woods"

 Developmental biology is the branch of biology studying the process by which an organism progresses from a speck-sized state of a newly fertilized zygote to a full adult state that is vastly more organized and much larger. The Quanta Magazine article here tries to give us some sound bites suggesting that developmental biologists are making progress. But inadvertently the article is rather much a portrait of developmental biology in disarray, not getting much of anywhere, without any convincing story to tell for how marvels of biological organization occur. There's a little halfhearted mention of chemicals, a little halfhearted mention of physics, and nothing that adds up to a hundredth of an explanation of how vastly organized human bodies could arise from the tiny speck-sized simplicity of a newly fertilized zygote.  

Over the past few decades we have seen these common elements in these types of articles and the papers of developmental biologists:

(1) Again and again, words will be carefully chosen to try to make the problem of morphogenesis sound a billion times simpler than it is. For example, someone will talk about a problem of the origin of "form" or "shape." The problem is vastly bigger than that. It is the problem of explaining why fantastically organized structures appear, with so many levels of very high organization. That is a problem almost infinitely bigger than the problem of explaining how human-shaped bodies arise.

(2) Again and again, appeals are made to "patterns," as if an organism's body was a mere pattern. A human body is something almost infinitely more impressive than some mere pattern. A human body is a work of the most enormous dynamism, with endless continuous purposeful activity of the most vast complexity, much of it involving the breakdown of old cells and old proteins, and their continual replacement with new cells and new proteins.  Even the types of cells that last for decades continually have their components broken down and replaced, like some skyscraper being continuously remodeled. 

A Google Gemini infographic

(3) Again and again, dubious claims are made that some tiny little thing has been explained, often with some kind of mention of physics or chemistry. Almost all of the claims fail to be well-replicated scientific results.  An example is the unfounded claim that there are "morphogen gradient" chemicals that tell cells where to go to. For a long discussion of why this claim has no real explanatory value and is also not well grounded in observations, see my post here. 

(4) The explanatory sound bites given made are ever-changing. For decades  biologists told us the bogus story line that the human body arises because of a blueprint in DNA (despite the lack of any such anatomical blueprint in DNA). But the Quanta Magazine article ends with this statement, which sings a different tune:

“ 'We used to think if we just studied the genome with more and more depth and rigor, all of this would be clear,' Shyer said, but 'the answers to the important questions might not be at the level of the genome.' Once it seemed that developmental decisions were made through the interplay of genes and their products within cells, but the emerging truth is that 'the decision-making can be happening outside of the cell, through the physical interactions of cells with each other.' ” 

You do not explain how cells know where to go in the developing body or how to progress from vastly simpler states by using the vague wooly phrase "the physical interactions of cells with each other." If we don't understand how cells are able to go to the right places in the body (as if they had some target destination knowledge they do not have), we do not explain such a thing by imagining such cells are interacting with other cells that also should not have such knowledge of the proper destinations of cells. And you don't get "decision-making" from "physical interactions"; you get decision-making from a mind. 

(5) There is an abundant use of imprecise wooly phrases and poorly defined terms, such as "morphogens" (a term defined in many different ways) and "the physical interactions of cells with each other." 

(6) Again and again, we will read the use of spurious action verbs in which it is unreasonably claimed that mindless information-free things "guide" or "direct" things.  An example is when the Quanta Magazine article claims that "physical tensions within an embryo set up patterns that guide growth."  

(7) Again and again, we hear about meaningless unimpressive experiments that are described in glowing terms, as if some great insight was gained. An example may be found in the Quanta Magazine article here when we read about some silly experiment in which scientists "removed the skin from a chicken embryo and disintegrated the tissue to pull apart the cells," putting the cells into a petri dish, and adding some chemical. They then observed the cells form a shape that is described as a ring shape (even though it does not look like a ring at all). This unimpressive result is described in the most glowing terms in the Quanta Magazine article, as if it provides some great insight. We see three pictures, and the third picture hardly looks any more organized than the first. But the result is described glowingly as evidence for "self-organization." Scientists are deluding themselves if they get excited about such results. 

Another example of this is the Quanta Magazine article here. Besides the unsolved problem of how cells end up in the correct positions in the body (not at all solved by the socially constructed myth of morphogen gradients), there is the problem of how simple stem cells turn into 200 types of cells in the human body, most of which are many, many times more organized and complex than such stem cells. This is the problem of cellular differentiation.  The Quanta Magazine article above offers no answer to this great mystery. It merely discusses scientists fooling around with artificial methods of making cells change their color.  

To get some revealing glimpses of how "lost in the woods" efforts in developmental biology are, there's another place we can look other than Quanta Magazine. We can look in the grant query tool of the National Science Foundation, which you can find here. Using "morphogenesis" as the search term, we can find some of the projects that have been granted lots of money to research morphogenesis. 

One such project is the project described here. It has the very general title "General Mechanisms of Morphogenesis on Multiple Scales."  The project was awarded $924,000.  Below are some "lost in the woods" elements we read:

(1) Morphogenesis (properly defined as the process by which a speck-sized zygote progresses to become the full organizational reality of a new-born organism or adult organism) is senselessly described  in the project abstract as "the process of biological shape formation." When this kind of shadow-speaking nonsense occurs, someone is childishly trying to make the problem of explaining the progression from a one-celled zygote to a full organism look like a problem enormously simpler than it is. A human body is something almost infinitely more than just a shape. A human body is a state of vast hierarchical organization, in which fairly simple chemicals are organized into many thousands of types of very organized and functional protein molecules, different types of protein molecules are organized into very many types of protein complexes so complex they are often called molecular machines, protein complexes and individual proteins are organized into organelles, organelles are organized into 200 types of cells, cells are organized into tissues, tissues are organized into organs, and organs are organized into organ systems, with sky-high levels of fine-tuned biochemistry required everywhere for such things to work. Calling that level of organization "a shape" is like saying that a million-volume library is "some paper with ink marks on it." 

(2) The second sentence of the research project abstract has this piece of vacuous or misleading hand-waving: "Recent discoveries in this interdisciplinary field have established the importance of mechanical interactions that guide growing tissues into diverse shapes and forms of adult organisms." We do not know how the enormous organization of a full human body arises from a speck-sized zygote, and no real progress has occurred in solving this problem. Claiming that "mechanical interactions" are something that "guide" this process is as vacuous as trying to explain the origin of a 100-story skyscraper by saying that "construction actions guide the building of the building."  Equally vacuous hand-waving occurs later in the research project abstract when the claim is made that " patterns of tissue growth define the shapes of animal limbs," a claim as empty as the claim that "patterns of building define how the building arises." 

(3) The second paragraph of the research project abstract is just as bad and misleading. We have an appeal to "active mechanical self-organization of tissues"  (a vacuous hand-waving phrase) and an appeal to the false claim that developmental biologists have long told, the fiction that development occurs because instructions for how to build a body are read from DNA. This time that falsehood is told by the claim that there are "genetically encoded developmental signals that guide morphogenesis."  There is no robust evidence for such signals, and DNA and its genes do not have any specification of how to build a human body or any of its organs or any of its cells. DNA and its genes do not even have any specification of how to make any of the organelles from which cells are constructed. DNA contains only low-level chemical information such as which sequence of amino acids makes up a particular type of protein molecule. 

(4) By the third paragraph we learn that the project will try to make things a million times easier not just by defining morphogenesis as the mere arising of a shape, but also by restricting itself to a study of fruit flies, tiny creatures only 3 millimeters in size (one third of an inch). 

 When a  project abstract makes statements so misleading, oversimplified and self-contradictory,  showing such a childish notion of the mountainous problems of explaining morphogenesis, we should have no confidence at all that the allocated money will be wisely spent.  

We have the same kind of shadow-speaking nonsense in another project awarded more than $700,000 by the National Science Foundation. It's a project (described here) with the  dumb-sounding title "In-Vivo Analysis of Active Mechanical Mechanisms Driving Animal Morphogenesis."  Mechanical mechanisms?  That sounds like someone saying that his project is "scientifically scientific."  When scientists don't understand some mystery a hundred miles over their heads,  scientists often use vague and vacuous hand-waving phrases such as claiming that something is "guided" or "driven" by "mechanisms."  Such assertions don't really amount to saying anything. 

In the first paragraph of the project abstract, we have the same sins as the research project previously discussed.  Again, the problem of explaining the arising of the vast organization and dynamism of the full body of an organism is senselessly reduced to a mere problem of explaining "shape." Again, we have the telling of the favorite falsehood of developmental biologists, this time as the untrue claim that "genes instruct form."  Without giving any details, we are vaguely told that "experiments will be used to uncover the physical mechanisms of how 3D shape is dynamically encoded by 2D gene expression patterns." Again, we have the childish nonsense of trying to reduce the problem of explaining the origin of enormously organized organisms into a billion-times-easier problem of merely explaining a shape.  Neither the shape nor the structure of any human body is encoded in genes, nor is the shape or the structure of any organ system, any organ or any cell or any cell organelle.  "DNA as body blueprint" is the lie that many biologists keep telling, even though dozens of biologists, chemists and doctors have confessed that DNA and its genes are no blueprint or recipe or program for making a body or any of its organs or cells.  You can read a bullet list of the statements of such biologists, chemists and doctors in my long post here, entitled "Why We Were Told So Often the Huge Lie That DNA Is a Specification for Building Humans." 

$894,000 has been allocated to this project, which we should have little confidence in, based on the misstatements in its abstract.  Anyone who thinks that the problem of explaining the progression from a speck-sized zygote to a full human body (the problem of morphogenesis) is a mere problem of explaining a shape is someone  lost in the woods when it comes to understanding the unsolved problems of developmental biology. 

Each of of these projects involved almost a million dollars allocated to try to help solve one of the two hardest problems of biology, and senselessly both of the projects were awarded not to people in a department of biology but to people in a department of physics.  The people who wrote the abstracts for these research projects sounded  like people who had never adequately studied biology. 

I found one other example of this type of thing. It is the project entitled "Geometry, Genetics and Development" described on the page here.  The project description starts out with a huge falsehood by stating, "Developmental biology has been immensely successful in reducing the seeming miraculous self-organization of a fertilized egg to a fetus and adult to a list of genes and the instructions for their regulation in the noncoding genome. " Nothing of the sort has occurred.  DNA and its genes do not specify any of these things: how to make a full human body, how to make any organ system, how to make any organ, how to make any cell, how to make any of the organelles that make up a cell.  Developmental biology has utterly failed to explain the progression from a fertilized egg to a full organism. 

We are told that the research of this project will involve tiny little creatures such as C. elegans, a roundworm.  We can be rather sure that no real light will be shed on human morphogenesis.  No research plan is specified in any detail; but strangely the project has been awarded more than $750,000.  Once again, a huge sum has been awarded to try and solve one of the two hardest problems of biology; but the money was awarded not to a department of biology but to a department of physics.  Again, we have a research project abstract with a glaring falsehood, sounding like it was written by someone who had never decently studied biology. 

The links I have given above to these projects will take you to  pages that list scientific papers that were the end results of the millions that were allocated. An examination of those papers will be very unlikely to leave you with any feeling that physicists are capable of shedding much of any light on the great riddle of how the vast purposeful organization and ever-constructing dynamism of a human body arises from a speck-sized zygote having no specification of how to build such a body or any of its cells. 

Chizuko Mifune, Clairvoyant Wonder Woman

The evidence for clairvoyance is overwhelming, and it includes nearly two hundred years of written evidence by distinguished writers including many doctors and professors. Let us look at another of the endless examples of written evidence for clairvoyance: the 1931 book "Clairvoyance & Thoughtography" by Tomokici Fukurai, a Japanese professor and president of the Psychical Institute of Japan, a book that can be read here.  On the first page of the book, Fukurai notes the hostile reception his observation reports received. Despite such hostility, he rightly states at the beginning of the book that clairvoyance is a fact. 

The first chapter deals with stunningly successful clairvoyance experiments Fukurai did with Chizuko Mifune (1886-1911), who Fukurai describes as having an odd, somber personality, and being very much prone to stick to what impressions she got about a person upon first meeting with such a person.  

Chizuko Mifune (1886-1911)

Fukurai suggests on pages 16-17 that Chizuko probably was driven to suicide by skeptics making unfavorable comments about her.  He says, "Judging from these letters, besides agony over her family affairs, the suspicious criticism of scientists on the clairvoyance force, the gradual declining of her psychic force, the appearance of Mrs. Nagao and many other mediums, etc seemed to wound her amour propre and to influence her to commit suicide."

On page 21 Fukurai describes this method of preparing sealed envelopes containing contents to be used for clairvoyance testing, one involving characters blocked by opaque cards on both the front and back, and also blocked by tin foil on the front of the characters, with this arrangement put in opaque sealed envelopes:

The sealed envelopes were sent to Chizuko and returned to Fukurai, and on page 22 Fukurai says he examined the envelopes and found them unopened: "I examined the seams of the envelopes, but there was not the slightest shadow of doubt."

Page 24 gives the answers that Chizuko gave. That page is shown below. References by Chizuko to "dingy paper" apparently refer to the tin foil in the envelopes. Clicking on the image and inspecting it carefully will reveal that the results are almost perfectly accurate, with almost every character correctly identified. Even without being able to read Japanese, an English reader will be able to check the accuracy by simply checking the appearances of the characters of the left column and the corresponding answers in the right column. The only shortfalls are that only the first  six characters in Envelope 10 were read, and that one of the characters in Envelope 6 (the last character in the second row) seems to be wrong. It is inconceivable that anyone could get so many matches by guessing. 

Japanese characters may use any of three different writing systems: Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji.  The main part of the Hiragana alphabet is about 46 characters, and the main part of the Katakana alphabet is also about 46 characters, as we in the charts below. The Kanji alphabet apparently has thousands of different characters. I cannot find any of the more elaborate characters listed above in a listing of either the Hiragana or Katakana characters, like the one we see below. 

We apparently had Kanji characters being included in the guess targets for this test of clairvoyance. When such characters are included as guess targets, along with the two alphabets (Hiragana or Katakana) having a total of about 92 characters, the likelihood of correctly guessing three out of three random characters would seem to be less than about 1 in a million, and the chance of getting any of the more impressive successes shown above (such as 22 out of 23 correct or 16 out of 16 correct) is basically zero, something we would never expect to occur if there were 1,000,000,000,000,000 people spending their whole lives guessing. 

On page 25 Fukurai starts to discuss experiments done by "Dr. Imamuru, Professor at the Kyoto Imperial University." These were face-to-face experiments with Chizuko Mifune in which she was constantly observed. The first test on February 20 made use of twelve objects which were each put in a separate envelope, pasted and sealed. We read on page 26 of this success, in one of the characters was identified:

In the following tests conducted by the professor, Chizuko failed in test 2, but succeeded in tests 3 and 4, test 4 requiring the identification of a character wrapped in tin foil and thick paper. On page 30 we read of tests of Chizuko performed the next day (February 21).  We read of two consecutive successes in tests of clairvoyance:

On the next trial Chizuko was successful on a harder test of clairvoyance. She correctly identified the exact two Japanese characters in a sealed envelope in which the letters were on a scrap of paper covered by two thick sheets of paper. Particularly impressive was the 4th trial reported on pages 33-34. A professor randomly selected one of a thousand business cards, and without reading it, put in an iron pot which was wrapped in paper.  Chizuko successfully identified four characters on the business card. 

On page 36 we begin to read of tests done with Chizuko Mifune on April 10, 1910, in the presence of  Professor Imamuru, Mr. Kiyohara and Fukurai. In the second trial Chizuko was asked to identify characters on a name card put in a china tea pot sealed in paper. She correctly identified all five Japanese characters on the card. A few trials later in the day were unsuccessful. On the next day on the first trial Chizuko was successful, identifying four Japanese characters on a name card covered in two sheets of paper and put in an envelope. On the second trial involving a name card put in a china teapot with a double-lid, sealed in paper, Chizuko got three out of four characters correct.  In the third trial involving a name card in an iron pot sealed by paper, Chizuko named all four characters correctly. In all these tests she was closely observed by multiple witnesses, seeming to prevent any possibility of tampering with the guess targets.  

Another series of trials on April 12, 1910 was conducted in the villa of Mr. Nagasaki, and observed by Professor Imamuru,  Fukurai, and Nagasaki. The successful first test (involving naming all five characters on a name card) is described below:

There was later some trials on April 17, 1910, involving Professor Imamuru,  Fukurai, and a Mr. Kiyohara, at the house of Mr. Kiyohara. In the first trial Fukurai picked randomly from a group of fifty name cards, putting the card in a teapot, which was then put in a wooden box, over which a paper was pasted, with a seal put on the paper. Chizuko named four out of four characters correctly. The second trial involved similar conditions, with Chizuko naming the first three characters correctly, erring on the last one. In the third trial involving similar conditions, all four characters on the name card were named correctly. The fourth trial used similar conditions, with an even greater success:  Chizuko named ten out of ten characters correctly. Figure 16 shown below shows the name cards used in these tests, the one on the bottom right being the card with ten characters.

Later tests were done on April 15, 1910, at Mr. Nagasaki's villa, with the tests witnessed by Iseri, Kiyohari, Professor Imamuru,  and Fukurai, As you can see below, page 45 of the book lists the first three tests as producing perfect results, with 13 out of 13 hidden characters correctly identified:

The fourth trial was very different, involving a test of the ability to identify randomly selected coins, placed by Fukurai in what he calls a purse, and then wrapped in paper. Chizuko perfectly identified a series of coins consisting of "three coins of ten sen, one coin of one sen, and one coin of two sen." The author then describes a mail test involving cards in a wooden box wrapped up in multiple layers that had various types of seals to prevent tampering. Again, Chizuko perfectly identified ten out of ten characters in the heavily sealed box, which was returned with the seals unbroken. 

On page 48 we read of clairvoyance test targets Fukurai had another person prepare, after Fukurai got feedback from other professors. The targets are described below:

On pages 50 to 51 we learn of the results Chizuko achieved on these tests: perfect results, with 11 out of 11 characters correctly identified. Page 52 reports equally perfect results by Chizuko in tests of clairvoyance, involving targets that were mostly letters, but in one case a drawing of a shape looking like a pie with six pieces.  On page 55 we read of rigorous tests of clairvoyance performed on September 2, 1910, with  tests witnessed by Mifune,  Kiyohari, Professor Imamuru,  and Fukurai:

 

After failing on the first trial using such a method (not producing an answer because of some concentration problem), Chizoku succeeded perfectly on the second and third trials, both times naming three out of three characters.  Page 57 describes additional successful trials with Chizoku on another date:

On page 59 we read of a test of Chizuko in which she successfully named all three characters written on a piece of flat pipe that had its two ends sealed by heat-soldering.  The next page reports a similar success on the next trial, with all three letters being successfully read in a lead pipe that was in a pot kept in a wooden case, with additional paper covering and a seal.  On page 63 the author tells of nine tests he did with Chizuko on November 18, 1910, tests in which she was asked to tell the numbers shown on a pair of dice that were put in a black cigarette case, wrapped in paper, with the paper sealed by the author.  In 6 out of 9 trials Chizuko identified the correct number shown on the dice. 

There are 55 numbers that a pair of dice can show, ranging from 11 to 66. Using the binomial probability calculator at the Wolfram Alpha site, I get a probability of such a result as being about 1 in 300,000,000. Such a success seems to be vastly less impressive than the correct guesses of Japanese characters by Chizoku described above. As noted earlier, the simplest Japanese alphabets (Hiragana and Katakana) each consist of 46 characters. But the more complex characters listed above (which I cannot find on lists of Hiragana and Katakana characters) seem to be Kanji characters, and there are thousands of different Kanji characters. 

The author's last page on Chizuku is one with the saddest irony. We read of her success in the most stringent trial, involving reading letters written on a piece of paper inside a flat iron pipe that had both ends soldered tight.  The author tells us that this triumphant test was his last involvement with Chizoku, who soon thereafter committed suicide.  The groundless criticism of her by skeptics may have been a major factor in her suicide. 

No one who has seriously studied the evidence for clairvoyance should be surprised by the reports above. They are simply a replication of what was very abundantly reported in the nineteenth century by a great many reliable witnesses, including professors and many doctors.  As you can read here, the evidence for the clairvoyance of Alexis Didier was every bit as convincing as the evidence for the clairvoyance of  Chizuko Mifune; and Didier repeatedly passed the most stringent tests of his ability to reveal the contents of sealed boxes, and to state detailed corrections descriptions of houses he had never visited.

For example, on pages 508-509 of the  document here, we read that Alexis Didier was able to  describe an object in a thick closed case, an object he had never seen, and also to tell various unusual facts about that object that could not be guessed from its appearance:

"An officer, of long standing in the army, who was severely wounded at Waterloo, and is well known in the highest military circles, was one of the company present. He was an unbeliever, and knew nothing of mesmerism, and had never seen or scarcely heard of Alexis, — but having been accidentally invited to join the party, and been told that the young man had the power of reading through opaque objects, he determined to bring his talent rigidly to the test.
He produced a morocco case, eight inches long, and an inch and a half thick, looking like a surgical instrument case, or a small jewel-case. It was placed in the hands of Alexis, who held it for a short time in silence, and then gradually and slowly gave the following description :

 'The object within the case is a hard substance.'
' It is folded in an envelope.'
' The envelope is whiter than the thing itself.' (The envelope was a piece of silver-paper.)
' It is a kind of ivory.'
'It has a point (pique) at one end' (which is the case).
' It is a bone.'
' Taken from a body'—
' From a human body' —
' From your body.'
' The bone has been separated and cut, so as to leave a flat side.'

This was true : the bone, which was a piece of the colonel's leg, and sawed off after the wound, is flat towards the part that enclosed the marrow.

Here, Alexis removed the piece of bone from the case, and placed his finger on a part, and said, ' The ball struck here.' (True.)

' It was an extraordinary ball, as to its effect.'

'You received three separate injuries at the same moment.' (Which was the case, for the ball broke or burst into three pieces, and injured the colonel in three places in the same leg.)

' You were wounded in the early part of the day, whilst charging the enemy.' (Which was the fact.)"

To read 25 posts telling about how convincing is the evidence for clairvoyance, use the link here, and keep pressing Older Posts at the bottom right. 

Our education system will be operating well when every high school graduate knows some names such as Chizuko Mifune, Alexis Didier, Hubert Pearce, Daniel Dunglas Home, Leonora Piper, Kate Fox and Florence Cook. When 9 out of 10 students graduate high school and 9 out of 10 students graduate college without ever even having heard such names mentioned, as now occurs, it is a sign of how defective our educational systems are.