
Things that do not make sense (2005) - quoderat
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524911.600-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense.html?full=true
======
Eliezer
_When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the
above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that
blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-
relieving power of saline solution disappeared._

When I read this, I said, out loud, "What the flying farkmipple?"

So does naloxone block placebo effects in general, or only placebo morphine?
Inquiring minds want to know.

~~~
seiji
The placebo opiate link is widely known. Naloxone blocks opiate receptors
which blocks placebo effect. Also, children aren't susceptible to a placebo
effect.

Check out a good lecture on pain at
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQS0tdIbJ0w> for more context.

~~~
Eliezer
Thank you, kind sir or madam!

------
Avshalom
_Astronomers call this boundary the Kuiper cliff, because the density of space
rocks drops off so steeply. What caused it? The only answer seems to be a 10th
planet. We're not talking about Quaoar or Sedna: this is a massive object, as
big as Earth or Mars, that has swept the area clean of debris._

They've got this kind of backwards. They describe this like something
basically pushed parts of the Kuiper belt inward to form the steep gradient.
We're pretty sure Neptune and Pluto pushed things out to form the Kuiper belt.
As well Mike Brown's work that found Xena, Santa, Easter Bunny etc. would have
picked up on a Mars sized object past the Kuiper Belt but close enough to
shepard things.

 _Maybe we can't work out what dark matter is because it doesn't actually
exist. That's certainly the way Rubin would like it to turn out. "If I could
have my pick, I would like to learn that Newton's laws must be modified in
order to correctly describe gravitational interactions at large distances,"
she says. "That's more appealing than a universe filled with a new kind of
sub-nuclear particle."_

Actually modified Newtonian Dynamics or MOND equations are WAAAAY harder to
swallow than dark matter.

Dark Matter: The majority of particles don't interact significantly with
photons

MOND: Particles shooting through space either spontaneously replicate or
behave non geometrically. Gravity falling off at 1/R^2 is a consequence of
geometry, the surface area of a sphere. MOND proposes 1/R^2 + R/N (for some
very large but arbitrary number N) which makes NO physical sense. Meanwhile
gravitational lensing observations continue to provide evidence for
"invisible" matter.

 _If the observations are correct, the only vaguely reasonable explanation is
that a constant of physics called the fine structure constant, or alpha, had a
different value at the time the light passed through the clouds.

But that's heresy. Alpha is an extremely important constant that determines
how light interacts with matter - and it shouldn't be able to change. Its
value depends on, among other things, the charge on the electron, the speed of
light and Planck's constant. Could one of these really have changed?_

Actually any sophomore or junior in college is exposed to the concept of
evolution in the fine structure constant, while it isn't taught as definitive,
it's hardly heresy.

AND it goes on, none of these (at least the physics based ones) really have
much debate in the scientific world.

~~~
aristus
Were they debatable 4 years ago, when this was written?

~~~
Avshalom
Kuiper Belt stuff, yes...ish

Dark Matter, eh we had a lot less direct evidence of it but MOND still made no
sense.

The rest? not particularly.

------
m104
Oh, we definitely understand number 4 now. All scientists and researchers
should be aware of the observer-expectancy effect:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer-expectancy_effect>

Wikipedia also briefly covers the debunking of the Belfast homeopathy results:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_memory#Subsequent_researc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_memory#Subsequent_research)

~~~
whatusername
But that still takes number 4 into #1 territory (Placebo effect). It's good to
know that homeopathy is pretty much bunk as expected though - thanks for those
links! I was rather confused when I first saw this article.

~~~
m104
From the perspective of the patients in this type of research and "treatment,"
I think you are correct. Looking at the effect on science and knowledge as a
whole, however, the observer-expectancy effect is quite damaging and is not a
mystery at all.

This team (and many other teams) of unfortunate researchers got caught up in a
belief system that skewed their results. Ironically, the more skeptical one is
of a particular belief, the deeper in love one will fall with it when it
appears to be correct.

------
Allocator2008
Regarding the tetraneutron issue: I would be interested if they could repeat
the experiment which supposedly detected this. My guess is that this was a
statistical anomaly. It is highly unlikely 4 neutrons could arrive more or
less at the same time at the same place in the detector, but the alternative,
that something is wrong with the Pauli exclusion principle, may be even more
unlikely. Accordingly I would seriously bet if they did the exact same
experiment again (shooting beryllium atoms at a carbon target) that they would
not detect any "tetra-neutrons".

With things like this, I always remember something Sherlock Holmes said in 'A
Study in Scarlett' I think it was though not quite sure where it was exactly -
"Once one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how
improbable, must be the case."

Here, it strikes me that though the anomaly seen was very improbable, the
alternative idea that the Pauli exclusion principle and hence the standard
model is wrong in some way is tantamount to impossible. It is far easier for
me to believe what they saw was just a fluke, than to think there is an issue
with the Pauli exclusion principle. Of course, if they can repeat the
experiment, that is something else again, and I suppose then further inquiry
would be warranted.

------
Ardit20
That should be retitled to 13 things that do not make sense in Physics.

------
tamersalama
_2 The horizon problem_ _.. You can solve the horizon problem by having the
universe expand ultra-fast for a time .._

Quran 51:47

<http://islam.thetruecall.com/Quran_Chapter_51:47.htm>

