# 13 Scientific mysteries AKA "13 things that do not make sense" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 11, 2008, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582 "2008-08-11T06:06:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/1 "2008-08-11T06:06:38Z")
[13 things that do not make sense](http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600) ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2008, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/2 "2008-08-11T12:28:03Z")
We talked about this in [thread=397248]November 2006[/thread]. As I recall there’s been more on the Pioneer Anomaly since then, but the rest of the list remains questionable at best. I’ll comment again about Dave Nagel, the NRL scientist quoted about cold fusion in the article. I knew him when I worked at NRL from 1989-1992. Dave was a true believer in cold fusion from the moment of the Pons and Fleischmann news conference. Another NRL friend of mine worked on cold fusion at Dave’s direction (Dave was a manager at that point), and my friend found no effect. Other NRL researchers found no effect. All other researchers found no effect. As I recall, once Steve Jones - the guy at Brigham Young U who Pons and Fleischmann were trying to beat - got access to equipment with better shielding, even he found no effect. Yet Dave still Truly Believes[sup]TM[/sup]. :rolleyes: The data for cold fusion are bulltet proof only in the sense that you could shoot them and do them no additional harm. The same may be said for the air, but you’re not going to get any fusion power out of that either. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/3 "2008-08-12T08:01:53Z")
The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the fact that people are still debating homeopathy. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/4 "2009-08-07T07:39:50Z")
You know what doesn’t make sense? Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a wookie, but he lives on Endor with a bunch of munchkins. Now _that_ does not make sense. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/5 "2009-08-07T08:22:16Z")
Chewbacca has an Ewok fetish. What’s so hard to understand? ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/6 "2009-08-07T09:04:40Z")
As an aside to the placebo effect entry, it’s interesting that they picked morphine to study. Endogenous morphine is now on pretty solid ground - there was a rigorous PNAS paper on it a few years back. I don’t mean enkephalins or endorphins, the endogenous peptides that bind to the opiod receptors, but actual morphine has been proven to be synthesised in the human body. Why humans possess the biosynthetic machinery to synthesise this molecule, presumably through a very similar pathway as that of the poppy, is a quite a mystery. Maybe not in the same league as dark matter, but it’s a headscratcher. So using morphine to examine the placebo effect may not have been the best choice in light of this discovery. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/7 "2009-08-07T09:21:53Z")
> [@On another topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/505629/7): > > Science is ever growing. Science has no fixed notions. What was not acceptable before, is accepted today, and what is not accepted toda, will be accepted tommorrow But homeopathy is highly, highly unlikely to be one of those things that science changes it’s mind about. There’s simply no plausible way for it to work. It’s nothing more than a fraud that’s far outlived it’s time. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/8 "2009-08-07T09:28:36Z")
And I just realized that this is a zombie thread. **Dr. Nancy Malik** appears to be running all over the board pushing homeopathy, and not checking or caring about the date of the threads she posts to. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/9 "2009-08-07T10:24:18Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > You know what doesn’t make sense? Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a wookie, but he lives on Endor with a bunch of munchkins. Now _that_ does not make sense. The problem with the Chewbacca Defense is that Wookiees actually live on Kashyyyk. ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/10 "2009-08-07T13:51:32Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And I just realized that this is a zombie thread. **Dr. Nancy Malik** appears to be running all over the board pushing homeopathy, and not checking or caring about the date of the threads she posts to. But just because reanimating dead tissue into independent activity is scientifically bogus, that doesn’t mean that a yet-to-be-discovered (or -evolved) virus could duplicate the same effect! Viral infections can still turn people into the walking only-mostly-dead – so they can have their zombie threads too!!13333! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13-scientific-mysteries-aka-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense/459582/11 "2009-08-07T14:11:44Z")
As you can see, this is one of several threads on the board that was bumped yesterday by a homeopathy spammer. I’ve removed her post and we’re locking this thread.