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13 things that do not make sense

dang

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dang
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
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There's an interesting article on newscientist.com that is ripe for skeptical commentary:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/space/mg18524911.600

The title, "13 things that do not make sense," is obviously designed to provoke more than illuminate. A better title might be, "Some things we don't understand yet, don't have enough data for, haven't been replicated, etc."

The list includes cold fusion (but provides no new evidence for it), and what seems to be a single homeopathy study. The fact that a single study is unexplained is not too impressive to me.

A 14th thing that doesn't make sense is that the article is dated March 19, which isn't here yet. Maybe this is the publication date of forthcoming issue.

Dan
 
so much for the hard work of some fellow skeptics in the forum, arguing like real champions against several of the points that the article discuss! :p
 
"departs from current theories", "doesn't make sense"; it's an easy mistake.
 
Really interesting article. Thanks for the link.

Beth
 
Well here is a slightly more detailed discussion of the methane debate from Bad Astronomy Forums

There's just a tad more to the problem than the article explains.

Honestly that article is shallow to the point of irresponsibility. I wouldn't expect that kind of 'scientists can't explain' list in New Scientist.

Actually these days maybe I would.
 
Ashles said:
Well here is a slightly more detailed discussion of the methane debate from Bad Astronomy Forums

There's just a tad more to the problem than the article explains.

Honestly that article is shallow to the point of irresponsibility. I wouldn't expect that kind of 'scientists can't explain' list in New Scientist.

Actually these days maybe I would.
Click to expand...

New Scientist has always been rather sensationalist in their 'reporting'. They are [or seem to be] far more interested in circulation than accuracy. This may not have always been the case but it has been since I first read them on the web. At best, they are good for links/search terms to more reliable data. I certainly wouldn't pay for their articles/mag.
 
Rob Lister said:
New Scientist has always been rather sensationalist in their 'reporting'. They are [or seem to be] far more interested in circulation than accuracy. This may not have always been the case but it has been since I first read them on the web. At best, they are good for links/search terms to more reliable data. I certainly wouldn't pay for their articles/mag.
Click to expand...
I used to read it a lot about 15 years ago and it seemed a hell of a lot better then.

But maybe I'm just being nostalgic. Also I wasn't quite as sceptical as I am now, and, of course, we didn't have the fantastic instant access to knowledge that we have now.

How did we manage before the internet? (Or before cash points?)

Edited because I suddenly remembered that 'to' has a 't' in it.
 
Another thing, the New Scientist article mentions Professor Ennis and her homeopathy results.
She is quoted as saying:
"We are," Ennis says in her paper, "unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon."
Click to expand...
Her paper (although the article doesn't mention it) was published in 2001.

But they don't appear to mention that others have investigated. The BBC 'Horizon' programme took up the challenge and actually, famously, performed the experiment for the JREF million dollar challenge.
You can read the transcript here.
Guess how it did?
By the way that was 2 years ago.

You'd have thought that might have warranted a mention in the New Scientist article.
I guess that would have made it a bit less exciting.
 
You'd have thought that might have warranted a mention in the New Scientist article.
Click to expand...
The name of the magizine is"New Scientist", not "Boring Scientist That's Hard to Read, Has Limited Circulation, and Can't Sell Ads".

Speaking of how the mighty have fallen, Has anyone picked up Scientific American lately?
 
joesixpack said:
Speaking of how the mighty have fallen, Has anyone picked up Scientific American lately?
Click to expand...
[Begin Rant] How true. It is a shadow of what it used to be. No more "Mathematical Games" or "Amateur Scientist" columns... And now they have restricted access to articles on their web site. You can find the articles and read the summaries, but you have to pay to see the article. So I no longer link to them in posts. And they accept ads for some seemingly woo woo items. Grrr... Despite the decline, I still read it. They still have some quality articles, and at over 30 years it is my longest continuous magazine subscription. But it ain't what it used to be... [End Rant]
 
joesixpack said:
Speaking of how the mighty have fallen, Has anyone picked up Scientific American lately?
Click to expand...
I used to be "Yay! New issue of Scientific American!" And read every issue from cover to cover, twice.

Now - bah.
 
Well thanks to the nice work here, I took the liberty of e-mailing the editor of New Scientist.

Here's what I sent:

Re 2 of the "13 things that do not make sense", 19 March 2005
NewScientist.com,Michael Brooks:

The homeopathy experiment was repeated and it failed the test. James Randi, famous skeptic sponsored the research.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathytrans.shtml

And you left out facts re: the Life on Mars experiment. See the discussion here on the Bad Astronomy.com forum.
http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=418683#418683
As you may know, Dr Phil Plait who runs the BA forum is renowned for countering astronomy myths.

While I found the article interesting, I was disappointed at the lack of fact checking of at least these two items.
 
Great! I may be wrong, but I like to believe that such feedback does influence people in the long run.

Hans
 
I like the JREF forum. My single post that began this topic has resulted in (1) interesting follow-up info on some of the 13 items (2) recommendations for good science magazines, and (3) a letter to the editor.

Thanks for all the responses.
 
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