Science is a good and great thing, and
it is very good at explaining quite a few things, such as the
production of energy by the sun, the appearance of volcanoes and
tsunamis, and the details of biological reproduction. Some like to
think that science has an explanation for almost everything. But this
is far from the truth. In reality, there are many things that science
has no credible explanation for. In this four-part series of blog
posts, I will list 50 such things.
#1 The origin of the universe (the
Big Bang)
Scientists say the universe began in an
incredibly hot and dense state (supposedly an infinitely dense
singularity). But they have no explanation at all for what may have
caused this event. The only attempts to explain this event have been
purely speculative.
#2 The existence of matter rather
than just energy
Scientists say the Big Bang should have
produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. When a matter
particle comes into contact with an antimatter particle, both are
converted into pure energy (photons). Scientists say that given the
incredible density at the Big Bang, all of the universe's matter
particles should have combined with antimatter particles, leaving a
universe with nothing but energy. But instead we have a universe in
which there is lots of matter, but no detectable antimatter.
Scientists call this puzzle the mystery of matter/antimatter
asymmetry. Scientists have been scratching their heads over this
issue for decades, but don't seem to be getting anywhere in solving
it.
#3 Extrasensory perception
As discussed in this post, very strong
evidence has been gathered over more than 80 years for the existence
of extrasensory perception. Much of this evidence has been gathered
under carefully controlled scientific conditions that meet all the
standards of modern experimental science. Science offers no
explanation for why the human mind should have such an ability. Many a modern scientist prefers to simply deny that there is any evidence
for the phenomenon, despite the accumulation of a mountain of
evidence for its existence, both laboratory evidence and quite common anecdotal evidence.
#4 The origin of life from chemicals
Scientists say that the first life
consisted of self-replicating molecules simpler than cells. But
scientists have no explanation for the origin of the first
self-replicating molecules. Scientists have been trying for decades
to figure out how simpler chemical compounds could have developed
into self-replicating molecules, but have made little progress on
this matter. Part of the problem is that the main way of explaining
the development of complexity is biological evolution. But before
there were self-replicating molecules, there could have been no
biological evolution. So biological evolution can't explain the
origin of the first self-replicating molecules.
#5 The origin of the genetic code
In order for life to begin, you need
not merely self-replicating molecules, but the genetic code, which is
kind of a simple language used in the production of proteins. The
origin of this genetic code is an unexplained mystery.
#6 Apparitions
Although skeptics may say that ghost
sightings are a relic of the past, all available evidence is that
apparition sightings are not any less frequent now than in the past.
There is evidence that a significant fraction of humanity may have
experienced an apparition sighting or a similar experience. What does
modern science have to say about this phenomenon? Virtually nothing.
There is no prevailing theory to explain away such sightings. The
simplest natural explanation – hallucinations – is not credible,
because apparitions seem to be experienced by such a significant
fraction of the population, most of whom have no psychiatric
symptoms. Nor can one plausibly explain apparitions as hallucinations
caused by fear, as there is no evidence that fear produces
hallucinations; and apparitions often are reported as sudden
appearances by people who are not afraid.
#7 The existence of consciousness
The origin of consciousness is the
problem of how it is that consciousness could have originated long
ago from mere protoplasm. To a person who is a reductionist, and who
believes that all human consciousness is merely a chemical and
electrical by-product of the brain, this problem may not seem like
much of a mystery. But the origin of consciousness has seemed like
quite a mystery to those who have considered how different Mind is
from matter. To some, the idea of mind arising from mere matter seems
as hard to explain as the inverse (the idea of matter arising from
mere mind, as might happen if you thought into existence an apple).
Here is another way to consider the mystery of the origin of consciousness. Let us define a philosophical zombie (for lack of a better term) as a person who acts like a human but has no real inner consciousness or self or private thoughts or inner emotions. We can imagine a race of such beings existing on our planet rather than human beings. Biologically, such a race seems every bit as plausible to exist as the human race (or even more so, since less is required from the brain). So why doesn't such a race exist rather than our race? Science has no answer.
Here is another way to consider the mystery of the origin of consciousness. Let us define a philosophical zombie (for lack of a better term) as a person who acts like a human but has no real inner consciousness or self or private thoughts or inner emotions. We can imagine a race of such beings existing on our planet rather than human beings. Biologically, such a race seems every bit as plausible to exist as the human race (or even more so, since less is required from the brain). So why doesn't such a race exist rather than our race? Science has no answer.
#8 Why there is something rather
than nothing
The mystery of existence is simply the
mystery of why anything exists at all. In other words, why is there
something rather than nothing? The simplest possible state of
existence is eternal absolute nonexistence: a state in which nothing
exists (no God, no universe, nothing). So why did not this elegantly
simple state of existence (the state of absolute nothingness)
prevail, rather than our messy, complicated universe? You can't
answer the question by imagining (in a quantum mechanical way) that a
vacuum is unstable, because an unstable quantum mechanical vacuum is
something, rather than nothing, and the question is why something
exists rather than nothing.
It would seem that we cannot have the
slightest hope that science will ever be able to solve this problem.
We cannot hope that science might discover something such as some
natural law that guarantees the existence of something, because such
a natural law would itself be something in need of explanation; and
we could always ask why was there not any such natural law, and not
anything else?
#9 Near death experiences
For decades people who came close to
death have been reporting amazing experiences involving things such
as seeming to float out of their bodies, traveling through some
mysterious tunnel, encountering a Being of light, and encountering
dead relatives. Quite a few examples can be found here. Science has
no good explanation for this phenomenon. We cannot plausibly explain
near-death experiences by assuming oxygen deprivation, because we
have plenty of accounts of pilots and mountain climbers who
experienced oxygen deprivation, and the effects reported do not
strongly resemble those of near death experiences. We also cannot explain near-death experiences as being the result of drugs, as no known drug given to dying people produces similar accounts, and the accounts often occur when people have not recently been given drugs.
#10 The fine-tuning of nuclear
physics
This article yesterday gave a good
overview of the work of a scientist who has done computer simulations
to help answer the question: how big a change in some fundamental
physical constants (the quark masses and what is called the fine
structure constant) would mess things up so that the universe
wouldn't have abundant amounts of carbon and oxygen (both
requirements for living things)? The scientist came up with an answer
of about 2 percent. It seems that our universe is fine-tuned so that
it has two of the prerequisites of living things, abundant
amounts of carbon and oxygen.
Scientists have no explanation for this
example of cosmic fine-tuning. I am not counting the idea of a
multiverse (the possibility of some huge collection of universes) as
an explanation. Since we have no verified example of anything ever
being explained by the assumption of a huge collection of universes,
a multiverse explanation is disreputable. Because it is unverifiable, the idea of a vast set of other universes is not really a scientific explanation, but a metaphysical type of claim. Also, we wouldn't explain
fine-tuning in this universe by assuming the existence of many other
universes, because the existence of such other universes would not
make it any more likely that this particular universe would have the
characteristics needed for life.
#11 The more dramatic cases of table
tipping
Table tipping was hugely popular during
some years in the nineteenth century. A group of people would often
get together, lay their hands gently on a table, and find after a
while that the table would start moving about or tilting.
Spiritualists said this was evidence of intervention by spirits of
the dead, although an alternate paranormal explanation is that
somehow a group of people acting together can produce a small
psychokinetic “mind over matter” effect. Skeptics may say that
table tipping is no longer observed, but that's not correct. On
www.youtube.com if you search
for “table tipping” you can find 17,000 videos, some of which are
very spectacular.
Science has no real explanation for the
more dramatic cases of table tipping. There is a theory that
something called the “ideomoter effect” causes people to
subconsciously move tables while having their finger tips on top of
them. But while such a theory might account for a little bit of
movement of a very light table, such a theory cannot explain the more
dramatic cases of table tipping shown on www.youtube.com,
which show tables (sometimes heavy ones) dramatically moving about
when people simply lightly lay their finger tips on top of them.
#12 The existence and persistence of
spiral galaxies
There are two great marvels to
appreciate in the fact that we look out and see so many spiral
galaxies in the universe. The first marvel is that any spiral
galaxies should even have formed after the Big Bang. One would expect
that an inconceivably violent explosive event such as the Big Bang
should have produced only the wreckage of a universe, not a universe
in which beautiful and orderly spiral galaxies are abundant.
Scientists know that certain parameters such as the gravitational
constant had to be just right for galaxies to have formed.
Spiral galaxy M101 (Credit: NASA)
The other great marvel involving these
spiral galaxies is that they have continued to exist for billions of
years. There is an unsolved problem called the winding problem, which
is that the rotation of spiral galaxies should cause them to lose
their spiral shape after only a few rotations, which would occur in
about 600 million years. But somehow spiral galaxies have persisted
for a period more than 10 times longer, for more than 10 billion
years. There is currently no adequate scientific explanation for
this.
#13 The more dramatic cases of
unidentified flying objects
Reports of astonishing UFOs in the sky
have continued for more than 50 years, and there are many dramatic
photos and videos to substantiate the phenomenon. Does science offer
any natural explanation? It can only explain the less dramatic cases.
Explanations such as “seeing Venus” or “swamp gas” or
“reflections in the windshield” cannot explain very bright UFOs
seen outside of a car far away from a swamp.
But what about the simple explanation
that UFOs really are alien spacecraft from another planet? Isn't that
a good scientific explanation for UFO's? But the problem is that it
is often reported that UFOs accelerated at enormous speeds that would
kill any life forms in them. Also, if UFOs are from some other
planet, how come astronomers cannot seem to detect any
extraterrestrial “mother ship” out in outer space?
So we must also put down UFO's as
something science cannot currently explain.
In my next post on this blog, I will
describe 12 or 13 additional things science cannot explain; and by
the time the 4-part series is over, 50 such items will be listed.
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