13 Things That Do Not Make Sense

thpr writes "New Scientist is reporting on 13 things which do not make sense. It's an interesting article about 13 areas in which observations do not line up with current theory. From the placebo effect to dark matter, it's a list of areas in need of additional research. Explanations could lead to significant breakthroughs... or at least new and different errors in scientific observations. Now there are 20 interesting problems for Slashdotters to work on, once you combine these with the seven Millennium Problems!"

Comments

Seriously? Unexplainable Phenomenon?

[micsmith]

I don't find these issues to be unexplainable or unsupported in the least. The idea that these events are unexplainable "phenomena" is nothing more than a direct consequence of a limitation resulting from an individual's chosen belief system. The only reason these things become hard to comprehend or understand is because a person refuses to accept things past a certain level. The extent of the criteria a person uses to divide those beliefs and understandings (capable of explaining these things) directly determines whether they belong to faith or science. Quite frankly, I would day that people are either significantly under-educated in this regard or are to close-minded to accept facts and principles which are either not yet public, or are barely out of their tangible reach. You want to know how these things exist as they do? You could start by reading this: http://falundafa.org/book/eng/zflus.html

Re:2) The horizon problem - SOLVED!

[claar]

Well, no surprise to see this moderated into oblivion on /., but I actually thought the same thing when I read the article.. it's actually quite humorous to those of us who believe in an intelligent creator of the universe to read a statement from scientists like

You can solve the horizon problem by having the universe expand ultra-fast for a time, just after the big bang, blowing up by a factor of 1050 in 10-33 seconds. But is that just wishful thinking? "Inflation would be an explanation if it occurred," says University of Cambridge astronomer Martin Rees. The trouble is that no one knows what could have made that happen.

I mean, laugh all you want, but who's the one applying Occam's razor here, the creationist or the Big Bang'er? I find it curious that so many scientists will stare at such evidence, come up with a hypothesis that basically says "huh, looks like some huge unknown thing not bound by physical laws threw the universe together in an instant" and not even mention the obvious solution -- I suppose it's not popular to believe in God (or even the possibility of one!) these days.

you didn't explain a damn thing

[geekoid]

"psychosomatic recognition"

But what is it? how does it work? what is ogung on in the body?

it's like saying "We put gas in the car, then through a system conversion it make the car go" as an explanation of how a combustion engine works.