That paragon of virtues, Science magazine, has cleverly celebrated its 125th anniversary with 125 "big questions that face scientific inquiry over the next quarter-century." These questions were submitted and evaluated and then ranked by importance. The top 25 questions were then singled out for a detailed description, with the remaining 100 questions warranting merely a brief description.
The Real Skeptic has its own ranking system. Questions that deal with the creation of concepts concerning the mechanical operation of the physical reality in which we exist and of which we are a part are scientific questions. These questions have to be relevant to the production of the technology we develop to extend our range of survivability in physical reality. Questions which deal with musings that do not involve concepts that lead to the development of technology are either religious or philosophical questions and not questions involving science.
And questions concerning realities created by concepts, for instance, things like dark matter and black holes which are the sole product of theoretical musings, are not questions at all, but rather science fiction conjecturing. Questions concerning biology and medicine, while clearly of a scientific nature, belong in the field of medical research. I am neither qualified, nor am I competent to say anything about these questions one way or another. They pretty much belong in the realm of true trial and error with, I would hope, the results of actual experimentation controlling theory rather than harebrained theory controlling treatment. I don't particularly want to be treated by doctors who subscribe to the procedures that produced the black hole and dark matter world of fantasy.
That said, there is one thing that can be said about the questions that is absolutely amazing. While the questions pose some really weird and even absurd propositions, they don't pose one of the most important questions dealing with our existence. Absent from all 125 questions is any question dealing with the mechanical cause of the motions in our existence.
Think of it. Empirical scientists are running around claiming to know all about things a trillion billion miles away that they can't even see and yet they are not even interested, when they walk out into the night sky, what the heck is making the moon move across the sky.
How delusional can you get?
On the other hand, The Real Skeptic feels honored. One of the questions is the question posed in column 02-05, What is Gravity? However, the poobahs at Science magazine didn't think this was an important enough question to put in the top 25. Imagine that? They pose what is probably the most important question in our existence, and don't even think it is important enough to put in the top 25 questions. Are we alone in the Universe is more important than what gravity is.
These people aren't deluded, they're just plain nuts.
In any event, 11 of the top 25 deal with either medicine or biology. Come to think of it, what better way to hide the fact that empirical science knows nothing about the physical reality in which we exist, the mechanical nature of the obvious motions in our existence, than to accentuate the medical and biological sciences and then claim the credit for the advances made by lonely researchers in laboratories testing this, that and the other thing (an example, the ostrazied guy who discovered stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria, not by grant, but by taking the cure himself, got a Nobel prize, empirical science stealing credit for something it scorned) and amazing surgeons creating new techniques that in turn require new technology. The medical researchers and pioneering surgeons are the equivalent of the engineers who deal with the real world, the inventors of the lasers and radars that acted in the face of scientific theory claiming what they were doing couldn't be done.
That leaves 14 of the top 25 to deal with science and right away, one of them is thrown away using the sociological question, how did cooperative behavior evolve? How indeed, or perhaps more to the point, did cooperative behavior evolve? This is almost an assumptive question, or perhaps a philosophical question, or perhaps one of my other categories, a why ask in the first place question, like another of the top 25, what are the limits of conventional computing, but I felt generous, so I used the nonscientific class of sociological to cover it.
As to, what are the limits of conventional computing, who in their right mind would sit around messing with this question when they could be advancing the limits of conventional computing? Looks like empirical science has inadvertently disclosed their little game of making up a bunch of gibberish and making it appear valid by taking credit for the real stuff people do on this one.
So, with minus 2 more, we're down to 12 and guess what, 9 of those 12 involve questions dealing with things empirical science made up out of thin air to start with. These include questions like how hot will the greenhouse world be which, of course, assumes global warming, a political rather than a scientific construct and what is the biological basis of consciousness which assumes that there is no mind, no there in there (see columns 34 and 35-05). I also included some inanities in this category because I didn't want to insult Science magazine by pointing out that some of their top 25 are just plain absurd. Thus, I included in this category things like will Malthus continue to be wrong, a strange way of saying, is population going to outstrip the planet's ability to support it, a given in a world growing cold in the zero temperature of space. I also included the equally absurd how does Earth's interior work (work?), can the laws of physics be unified, the grand search for the theory of everything and do deeper principles underlie quantum uncertainty and nonlocality, the latter being the notion that one thing can be in two places at once. I also included here, what can replace cheap oil and when. While we use a lot of oil to heat ourselves and a lot more to build things, we also use a heck of a lot overcoming gravity, from automobiles to airplanes to electrical turbines. We got these nitwits sitting around wondering not only what will replace oil but when, and downgrading the basic question, what is holding us to the surface of the Earth to paragraph status.
The 3 questions that remain in the top 25 are pretty interesting questions. The first, how are memories stored and retrieved is covered in The Model Mind, the 4th volume of The Copernican Series, and also in column 35-05. The rub with these delusional questioners attempting to find an answer is found in their assumptive question, what is the biological basis for consciousness. If you don't believe there's a place where experience can be compared with reality, you might as well take mind expanders and see truth in the clouds of your dreams. Another question, what is the universe made of, I almost put in the category of religion until I realized that basically, I hypothesize an answer in column 17-05 and then show how that answer applied to reality in 18 and 19-05, as well as its operation in column 08-05. The truth is, though, we'll never be able to do anything but hypothesize and check the hypotheses for consistency against each other and reality as we discover it, so Science magazine is putting a religious delusion in the list of questions it claims the answers to are actually discoverable. Only half the final question of the 3 actually dealing with physical reality, and therefore with science, deals with science. The "where" in how and where did life on Earth arise is irrelevant, showing once again empirical science's inability to even get its basic thinking process straight. The how is covered in The Cooling Continuum, the 2nd volume of The Copernican Series, and also in column 34-05.
Turning to the remaining 100 questions, 30 deal with medicine or biology, 6 are technical in nature (can researchers make a perfect optical lens &endash; and note the arrogance of claiming that researchers rather than engineers are going to accomplish this technical feat, if at all), 20 are assumptive (is ours the only universe), 5 are economic and political, 6 are obscure mathematical questions that have no affect whatsoever on physical reality (is there a simple test for determining whether an elliptic curve has an infinite number of rational solutions &endash; although 1 borders on the absurd, does the Standard Model of particle physics rest on solid mathematical foundations), 3 are theoretical (can we develop a general theory of the dynamics of turbulent flows and the motion of granular materials), 1 is philosophical (is morality hardwired into the brain), 2 deal with empirical science's obsession with using the comparison process of the mind to create categories (will there ever be a tree of life that systematists can agree on), 8 fall under the category of why even ask (what is the most power laser researchers can build &endash; guess they just wanted to underscore how much engineering work empirical researchers do - not), and 4 are just plain absurd (what are the limits of learning by machines, how many species are there on Earth).
That leaves 15 valid scientific questions out of the 100, or a total of 18 valid scientific questions out of all 125. What is the nature of gravity appears as number 9 on the list of 100, after such incredibly important questions as, is ours the only universe. See, as the little 3-line blurb explains, Newton's mass/gravity clashes with quantum theory, it doesn't fit in the Standard Model, nobody has spotted the particle that is responsible for it and, in fact, Newton's apple contained a whole can of worms. Now isn't that just as scientific as you can get? The three theories empirical science uses to explain the major things in our life, matter, light and gravity, are all inconsistent but it's because an apple contains a can of worms. (An apple contains a can of worms? Where do these people get their writers?)
In any event, the 15 valid questions can be grouped in 5 categories, questions dealing with the operation of the mind, questions dealing with animal evolution, a question involving biological evolution, questions involved generally with the nature of gravity and a question involving human nature.
Two of the questions involved with the mind I answer directly in The Model Mind. These two questions are why do we sleep and why do we dream. In addition, that volume of course describes how consciousness arises, the question Science magazine reduced to a nonquestion by making it assumptive, what is the biological basis of consciousness. Two other questions, what synchronizes an organism's circadian clocks and how do migrating organisms find their way can only be answered by eliminating the empirical conclusion that there is no mind and therefore no mind body connection. I find answering the two remaining questions, what are the evolutionary roots of language and music and why are there critical periods for language learning unnecessary simply because knowing how the mind operates makes the answers obvious (language is a product of consciousness and without knowing how consciousness arises, empirical science might as well be whistling in the dark, which come to think of it is exactly what it is doing).
Why doe lateral transfer occur in so many species and how, a question concerning gene swapping is not a question at all, but a fact that informs us that evolution is characteristic rather than species based (column 09-05). What is all that "junk" doing in our genomes and why some dinosaurs were so large are explained in The Cooling Continuum, as is what caused mass extinctions and can we prevent extinction (see column 28-05). Light, the 6th volume of The Copernican Series explains how flowers evolve and Atoms, Stars and Minds, the 3rd volume of The Copernican Series covers what the nature of gravity is and how the solar system formed, the planets formed and how they operate. Finally, Human Nature, the 8th volume of The Copernican Series, explains what the roots of human culture are.
That pretty much polishes off Science magazine's 125 125th anniversary "science" questions. There's about as much chance of empirical science answering any of them as there is of even asking the most important unasked questions, what are the mechanical descriptions of the forces that control our existence.
Peter Bros is the author of the 9 volume Copernican Series and is President of The Far Museum of Dallas, an actual history museum, which will house its collection of 50,000 rare Eastern Mediterranean manuscripts and artifacts together with actual history displays and tours in a full-sized replica of the Egyptian Temple at Dendera to be built in the Dallas Ft. Worth area. Email:peterbros@therealskeptic.com