[tt] NS: Review: 13 Things that Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks

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Review: 13 Things that Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19926692.000&print=true
13 August 2008
Jennifer Ouellette

ISAAC ASIMOV said that the phrase most likely to herald a scientific
discovery is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny...". It is fitting that
Michael Brooks chose that sentiment to kick off 13 Things That Don't
Make Sense. Based on his hugely popular New Scientist article (19
March 2005, p 30), this entertaining and often provocative book
examines such mysteries as dark matter and dark energy, the prospect
of life on Mars, sex and death, free will and the placebo effect,
among other head-scratchers.

If Asimov provided the epigram, philosopher Thomas Kuhn provided the
central thesis: it is those niggling scientific anomalies, which
seem to make no sense, that most often give rise to scientific
revolutions, changing the way we think about the universe and our
place in it.

If you want to know where the next revolution will occur, look to
the anomalies. Brooks offers 13 of them, though not everyone will
agree with his choices. For instance, his inclusion of homeopathy
initially elicited in me an inward groan of dismay, but Brooks
deftly argues for its inclusion because of its relation to the
placebo effect: people think it works, so they feel better. He
strikes a careful balance between the obvious quackery and the few
tattered shreds of credible science underlying homeopathic
principles.

The book is at its best when Brooks throws himself into the action.
He undergoes transcranial magnetic stimulation to test the
assumption that he has free will, and subjects himself to electric
shocks for a placebo-response test. Ironically, given his physics
background, he is less actively engaged and less convincing when
writing about anomalies that fall within his expertise.

Brooks's treatment of the controversy surrounding cold fusion is
disappointing. He snagged an exclusive interview with Martin
Fleischmann, who, with Stanley Pons, announced the "discovery" of
cold fusion in 1989. Fleischmann tells Brooks that his biggest
regret is that he "never told people I was only interested in
understanding quantum electrodynamics". I wanted to read more about
this rarely covered aspect of cold fusion, and more about his
conversation with Fleischmann, but Brooks doesn't delve much further
into either. Instead, he offers a tepid rehashing of the
controversy, though he does a creditable job of separating the
signal from the noise and bringing the original experimental anomaly
back to the forefront. Low-temperature nuclear reactions, as cold
fusion is now called, remain a mystery with inconclusive evidence
and no satisfactory theoretical explanation... yet. It might be a
strange form of fusion. It might be something else entirely. What it
won't be is "a clean, virtually inexhaustible form of energy", as
the University of Utah's infamous 1989 press release claimed.

This elegantly written, meticulously researched and
thought-provoking book provides a window into how science actually
works, and is sure to spur intense debate. At times, Brooks lapses
into the all-too-familiar theme of championing the underdogs: those
persecuted souls whose claims are prematurely dismissed by the
stodgy scientific establishment. And sometimes he seems exasperated
with scientists who steadfastly refuse to "embrace the extraordinary
until they rule out the ordinary" - even though doing so might mean
spending a decade or more poring over data, as Slava Turyshev, one
of the book's heroes, has done in his investigation of the Pioneer
spacecraft anomaly.

Brooks seems most impatient with Gilbert Levin, who uncovered what
appeared to be the first evidence of life on Mars. His was one of
four experiments aboard the Viking spacecraft in the mid-1970s; the
results of the other three were too ambiguous to confirm the
discovery. Levin, who still believes his experiment worked, remains
cautious, even as Phoenix performs experiments that may vindicate
him once and for all. "If not a scandal, this seems a shame," Brooks
chides. "This overwhelming caution, this softly-softly approach to
looking for life beyond Earth, is postponing a glorious moment in
the story of humanity."

I say let those glorious moments wait until we have an indisputable,
bona fide discovery. It should be a rigorous, difficult process to
usher in new scientific paradigms. That maddening caution and
painstaking sifting through data serve as a safeguard against bias
and wishful thinking. Eventually, if an idea is sound, it will
survive the personalities, politics and petty conflicts of the
practitioners of science. Brooks acknowledges this: "True anomalies
stand by themselves because they don't go away."

Related Articles

13 things that do not make sense, updated
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600
19 December 2007
[I sent this out earlier and can send it again.]

Pioneer spacecraft mystery may be laid to rest
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn13676
15 April 2008
Cold fusion - hot news again?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19426021.000
05 May 2007
The search for ET must go on
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19325885.500
26 January 2007

Weblinks

13 Things That Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks
http://www.13thingsthatdontmakesense.com/
Michael Brooks's website
http://www.michaelbrooks.org/
Jennifer Ouellette's website
http://www.jenniferouellette-writes.com/