Finding the solution to some long-standing problem of nature or science is very hard. But there's a very important task that is much easier: the task of simply listing what are the most important unsolved problems of science and nature. Even though this task is much easier, scientists are pretty bad at doing such a thing.
Let's look at some examples of scientists in some field doing a bad job at listing the unsolved problems in that field. When I use Google Scholar to search for "unsolved problems in biology," the first paper I get is one entitled "Unsolved problems in biology—The state of current thinking." We have a not-very-good list of 13 problems, which omits some of the biggest unsolved problems in biology. The list includes only skimpy problem statements that are not even full sentences:
"1. Origin of life
2. Genetic and Molecular basis of Neural Specificity
3. Gene Regulation in Animals and Plants
4. Developmental and Behavioral Biology
5. Protein Folding and Prediction of Three-dimensional Structure from Amino Acid Sequences
6. The Problems of Evolution
7. Viral Evolution in the Genomic Age
8. Stoichiometry and the New Biology: The Future Is Now
9.The Genetics of Brain Wiring: From Molecule to Mind
10. Environmental Shotgun Sequencing: Its Potential and Challenges for Studying the Hidden World of Microbes
11. Evolution, Interactions, and Biological Networks
12. Balancing Robustness and Evolvability
13. Cooperation among Microorganisms"
Many of the biggest problems of biology are not mentioned in this list. Moreover, the items fail to be specific problem statements of the type that might spur some scientist to start working on an answer to an exactly defined problem. What we need are specific problem statements, not mere research categories or problem categories like in the list above.
The author wrote various science luminaries for comments on his list. The responses the author lists are mostly weak sounding and unimpressive, the kind of statements you might get from someone who can't be bothered to spend a few hours thinking about what are the main unsolved problems in his field. We do get a few candid confessions:
- A professor named Philip Sharp states, "The most challenging central questions that will be investigated for decades, perhaps centuries, is an integrated model of the processes constituting and maintaining in a dynamic fashion the state of the cell." Got it: cells are so complex they will take centuries for humans to figure out. So why do scientists claim they understand the origin of the human species?
- Mario Capecchi, a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, states, "I would agree that our most glaring ignorance is how our brain works which can be couched in various paradigms." A Princeton Professor of neuroscience named Lynn Enquist says, "The major and exciting problem is the brain – how does it work?" Scientists say things like this because they have no understanding of how a brain could store a memory, no understanding of how a memory could last for a lifetime, no understanding of how a brain could instantly and accurately retrieve a memory, and no understanding of any neural way by which a brain could come up with an idea or an insight. They have failed to understand that one of the main things they should be studying and pondering are the many reasons why physical shortfalls of the brain (such as short protein lifetimes and unreliable synaptic transmission) should prevent all such things from happening.
Searching further after doing a Google Scholar search for "unsolved problems in biology," I come across a much better-than-average paper entitled "Human Development I: Twenty Fundamental Problems of Biology, Medicine, and Neuropsychology Related to Biological Information." We have some good confessions and problem statements:
- "Biochemistry cannot provide the spatial information needed to explain morphogenesis."
- "Supracellular morphogenesis is mysterious. Nobody seems to understand the origin of biological and cellular order."
- "How does the brain think? Can it think without the body? Can it think without the wholeness (including the soul)? How does it remember? How does it organize a model of reality?"
- "Biochemistry Cannot Explain Morphogenesis; We Need Something Else!"
The paper is a strange mixture between a paper listing unsolved problems in biology and a paper suggesting some radical solutions, which are presented in a sketchy kind of way. After examining 100 papers that appeared after doing a Google scholar search for "unsolved problems in biology," I found no other paper worth mentioning.
Doing a Google Scholar search for "unsolved problems in neuroscience" produces disappointing results. The first result is a weak and short paper entitled "The Unsolved Problems of Neuroscience." It only raises three questions:
- "What counts as understanding the brain?
- How can a brain be built?
- What are the different ways of understanding the brain?"
I consider none of these to be any of the ten problems of neuroscience. Then there's a paper entitled "Top Mysteries of the Mind: Insights From the Default Space Model of Consciousness." It lists these as the top mysteries of the mind:
- "What Is the Relationship Between Subjective Experience and the Physical World?
- How Do We So Quickly Process and Interpret the External World?
- How Do All of Our Sensations Unify Into One Experience Seamlessly?
- Why Do We Sleep?
- How and By What Mechanisms Can Emotions Be Regulated?"
This a very poor list of the top mysteries of the mind. Continuing through 100 papers returned after searching for "unsolved problems in neuroscience," I fail to find a single paper making a good statement of such problems.
The field of developmental biology is a field thoroughly filled with unsolved problems. Scientists have no understanding of how a speck-sized zygote is able to progress to become the vast organization of a human body. Such a progression is not specified by DNA or its genes, which merely contain low-level chemical information such as which amino acids make up particular proteins. We would think, therefore, that a Google scholar search for "unsolved problems of developmental biology" would give quite a few papers listing the many unsolved problems of that field. But such a search gives no such papers worth mentioning.
A huge problem in papers discussing unsolved problems in biology is the problem of problem misstatement. This comes when a problem is stated in some way that presupposes some particular type of answer. For example, a biologist may ask, "How does the brain store memories?" A better statement of the problem would be something like this: "Does the brain have physical characteristics that explain a lifelong persistence of memory, and if so, what are those characteristics?" The brain does not seem to have any such characteristics.
With the exception of the somewhat impressive paper "Human Development I: Twenty Fundamental Problems of Biology, Medicine, and Neuropsychology Related to Biological Information," the results discussed above are mostly very unimpressive. Why are scientists so bad at listing unsolved problems in biology? Probably we can largely explain this on the grounds that biologists have several huge myths that they are trying to uphold. The first myth is the myth that the human mind can be explained by the brain. The second myth is that biological origins can all be explained by Darwinian evolution. The more candidly scientists list their unsolved problems, the harder it is to uphold such myths. And the more fully scientists describe unsolved problems of biology, the harder it is to uphold such myths.
Consequently we see several different shortfalls:
(1) There rarely appear papers or lengthy thoughtful articles dealing with the topic of unsolved problems in biology.
(2) When there appear articles or papers dealing with the topic of unsolved problems in biology, the problems discussed are only a tiny fraction of the unsolved problems of biology.
(3) When there appear articles or papers dealing with the topic of unsolved problems in biology, the problems discussed tend to be discussed in a skimpy shorthand way, so that people will be unlikely to realize how big some particular explanatory shortfall is.
(4) Biologists tend to avoid discussing anomalous phenomena they cannot explain.
One of the few biologists who did a good job of listing and describing unsolved problems in biology is Rupert Sheldrake. The first chapter of his book A new science of life : the hypothesis of morphic resonance was entitled "The Unsolved Problems of Biology." Sheldrake described problems such as these:
Morphogenesis: "New structures appear which cannot be explained in terms of the unfolding or growth of structures which are already present in the egg at the beginning of development."
Regulation: "Developing systems proceed towards a morphological goal, and they have some property which specifies this goal and enables them to reach it even if parts of the system are removed
and the normal course of development is disturbed."
Regeneration: "Organisms are able to replace or restore damaged structures...If a flatworm, for example, is cut up into several pieces, each can regenerate into a complete worm."
Reproduction: With some organisms, "a detached part of the parent becomes a new organism, a part becomes a whole."
Instinct: "For example, spiders are able to spin webs without learning from other spiders."
Evolution: Sheldrake said that conventional theories of evolution "can never be more than speculative."
The Origin of Life: Sheldrake called this problem "just as insoluble as that of evolution, for the same reasons."
Memory: "There is no persuasive evidence that any of these proposed mechanisms can in fact account for memory."
Parapsychology: Sheldrake pointed out that that there is good evidence for psychical phenomena which mechanistic biologists cannot explain.
Sheldrake presented a theory designed to aid in the solution to such problems. But his book was condemned by biologists, and literally declared by a science journal editor to be a suitable candidate for burning, perhaps because it highlighted too clearly the explanatory shortfalls of biologists. It seems that the modern biologist is encouraged not to think too much about the unsolved problems of biology, for the sake of not disturbing the public's confidence in the crowing boasts of biologists.
The unsolved problems of biology are very great and very many. In my next post on this blog I will show that even if we confine ourselves only to problems of navigation, we find seven great problems that our biologists are unable to explain. My discussion of these problems will not be the kind of skimpy and shallow "brief mentions" biologists tend to make when discussing unsolved problems of biology.
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