Do you have any pet theories that probably wouldn't hold up under scientific scrutiny?

[Jackmannii]

I have speculated that there is a trigger mechanism that causes germy people to cough or sneeze just when they are walking by me in a corridor, or passing by my office door. It could be an unconscious psychological urge on their part, or a physiologic reflex somehow spawned by whatever bacteria or virus they are carrying.

Of course it could be a reflection of my paranoid germophobia, but how likely is that? :dubious:

[Lumpy]

@Obnoxious_Hood_Ornament

I’m not a biologist, neurologist, geneticist, or any other -ist that might be related to this charming delusion.

I wonder if profoundly traumatic or revelatory events may in some way inscribe themselves genetically, such that after countless generations subject to the same conditions, they give rise to instinctive behavior that allows members of a species innate knowledge of how to survive in their environment.

See Epigenetics.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

Another theory of mine is that the dot com boom of this early century will be Mans recognition of how much he can manipulate his own nuerological state by exposure and participation in various activities that he will become successful at. It wll be a major factor in criminal rehabilitation as well as just another tool for bringing all of us up to speed. Dealing with this in real life settings will overtake sciences knowledge and possibly even aid science in them unlocking all the nysteries of how we work.

[Reepicheep]

I believe that babies/toddlers are better prepared for life if they are allowed to get dirty and eat dirt.

I believe that people who suffer from excessive pimples will, sometime in their lives, get what I call the master pimple (and it normally is not on their face). It is an excessively large pimple; if this master pimple is popped it will dry up most of the other pimples. I have observers this on myself and other members of my family, but I have no scientific basis to base my belief on.

I believe that, while it is statistically unrealistic to think we are the only intelligent species in the galaxy, space is so extremely large and C is a law we can not break, it is very unlikely we will meet another space going species.

I disagree with want2befree – my mother drank to excess and due to her example I have determined that I will not drink to excess – I am in my 50s now and have only been drunk 3 times in my life.

I disagree with **Si Amigo **– I dislike President Obama mainly for his stance on abortion (which I oppose vehemently). I disliked President Clinton for the same reason. My dislike of the president has everything to do with his stance on an issue I feel passionately about and nothing to do with his race. I also believe he was born in Hawaii and since he self identifies as a Christian he is not a Muslin but is in fact a Christian.

[Mrmanface]

I think that my dog was a lot more intelligent than people gave credit for and I think he was able to communicate with his facial muscles. Science would say this is not the case, but I can’t prove that it was true.

Also I think pets become integrated into the family much better than we would expect from other animals because they share a common gene with humans.

[mandala]

Certain foods heat up the body and certain foods cool it down. Not that the normal metabolic body temperature itself changes; but something that happens internally. The eyes burn, sleep is disturbed, sometimes boils erupt on the face. Eating foods that cool down the body, such as buttermilk, bananas brings back the balance.

Again, this is not an actual metabolic temperature, but something internal to the body. It is traditional knowledge, has no scientific backing.

[mandala]

I swear that on many occasions, I have turned to look at someone who was looking/staring at me, without any visual or auditory cue that the said person was looking at me. I think when they gaze at you, the eyes of humans and animals somehow register on your consciousness, and you instincively turn in that direction.

[Glazer]

@Hari_Seldon

I do have such a theory and I have not succeeded in even getting anyone to comment on it. It is that time is best viewed as logarithmic; there was nothing before time 0 because log(0) is -infinity. That there will be no entropy death of the universe; things will just slow down and interactions will take place over larger and larger distances and, from out point of view, will take longer and longer, but not from a logarithmic point of view. So you could still have life, even intelligent life, it just is very slow. The free energy of the universe will never hit 0, although it does approach it asymptotically. Some thermodynamicist has studied the question of how much energy is needed for a computation and the answer is there is no minimum, but the less you use the slower it is.

In Steven Weinberg’s First Three Minutes, I had the impression that as much happened between 10^{-43} seconds and 10^{-42} seconds as happened between 10^{-42} seconds and 10^{-41} and so on. There was, from our point of view, nearly infinitely large energy and things, including computations, were happening at near infinite speed. It was so fast that perhaps there was some kind of life, even intelligent that evolved and disappeared and to whom we represent the entropy death of their universe.

How’s that for a totally off-the-wall theory? And yet I do not know that it can be refuted.

My theory is that time is a collapsing dimension.

I think we are falling into a singularity of a collapsing forth dimension of space. Gravity is caused by curved space time, (per Einstein) mainly time is curved. The other three space dimensions are only curved close to the event horizon. Due to frame dragging of the Higgs field. I think that the Higgs field can’t collapse and mass is the energy trapped in that field. Now is the event horizon where we are trapped. We can’t escape the event horizon into the past. But we see the past looking out in all directions. We can’t see the future on the other side of the event horizon.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Crafter_Man

I believe most people on disability are not disabled, and are simply taking advantage of the system. Same goes for people on welfare, food stamps, WIC, etc.

“Most” is a dangerous word. I believe everyone knows someone that is cheating disability or welfare or unemployment, but I don’t believe that number would rise to “most” of the people in those systems.

[Mangetout]

@jayrey

I mostly agree but, as with most everything in life, there are many points on the continuum. I know two men who are rabidly homophobic. They both say that they hate gays because the very idea of men having sex with men is disgusting. But if you listen very closely to their stories, you’ll learn that both men were intimately touched while asleep, became quite aroused, and only upon awakening (“Just in time!” as one of them put it), discovered that they were being fondled by another man. Each incident happened separately, years apart, on navy ships with all male crews.

It is clear to me that both men were/are deeply disturbed by the idea that a man touching them could be arousing. Both of these men hold fast to their image of themselves as virile, manly, and very straight men. Becoming aroused when touched by a man simply does not fit into that view of themselves. So to maintain the facade, they must take the position that homosexuality wrong, evil, and disgusting.

Then again, they could be straight men who were touched whilst asleep and really didn’t like it.

I’m not saying the closeted hypothesis has no merit (we’ve got enough examples of anti-gay folks coming to lend it at least a little weight) - but what would the end result be if the two men described above were actually straight? Pretty much the same, I think.

[KRC]

Hitler founded American punk. If it wasn’t for him DeeDee Ramone wouldn’t have been born. And we wouldn’t get to hear “Blitzkrieg Bop”

[Harvey_The_Heavy]

@Shakes

I believe the reason MJ is considered to be a gateway drug is because it’s illegal. If it were legal, I think a significantly less amount of kids would be willing to experiment with breaking the laws with things like cocaine or heroine.

Not to mention that they have to buy pot from shady characters who are more than willing to push them toward something more profitable. Wouldn’t be the case if weed was sold by legitimate merchants with a state license at stake.

[Flywheel]

If students were allowed to do laboratory work on their own, instead of with a lab partner, enrollment in college-level science courses would double.

[Tante_Dillie]

I have a theory that autism isn’t overdiagnosed. Most of the cases are genuine and the reason that we’ve seen such an upswing in recent decades is that autistic people are the next step in human evolution.

[Smeghead]

Well, let’s see where we’re at so far. I am a biologist, with an autistic daughter and a stepson with ADHD.

My theory is that if most of the people in this thread were to live in my shoes for a few days, they would completely change their minds on some of their half-assed personal theories.

[CLee]

@Smeghead

Well, let’s see where we’re at so far. I am a biologist, with an autistic daughter and a stepson with ADHD.

My theory is that if most of the people in this thread were to live in my shoes for a few days, they would completely change their minds on some of their half-assed personal theories.

I think there will always be doubts about behavior issues, food allergies, the autism spectrum etc from people with no direct experience with the problems. Remember we don’t notice the kids thriving under successful treatment, some parents with poor parenting skills will lean towards meds or a diagnosis in order to displace blame for sloppy parenting and for the most part some skepticism towards medical community is prudent if for no other reason than because there is so much money in it. But anyone observing a child with either of these disorders who recommends discipline in place of medical intervention ought to be ignored, anyway.

[Sattua]

@Lumpy

I believe some people are the human equivalent of Easy keepers, and can only lose weight on a strict low-carb diet, which works great for them but not necessarily for “normal” people.

I don’t know about strict scientific studies supporting this, but sure sounds like the books I read about insulin resistance. And it works for me. Low carb means less insulin means I am less hungry and can lose weight. Not super low carb, just fairly low and distributed throughout the day.

[monstro]

I think a lot of the neurological/neurodevelopmental/neuropsychiatric disorders and diseases (including obesity, diabetes, fibromyalgia) that we’re faced with in modern society are the result of toxic organic chemicals interacting with our immune systems. There’s some research supporting this, so maybe this isn’t my “pet” theory as much as a hypothesis that I find intriguing.

But my pet theory is that the FDA won’t issue a warning about this until we have a cheaper and safer alternative to plastics. In the meantime, they will pretend we don’t know what’s causing, say, the autism or the obesity epidemic. What’s the point of alarming the public when the market doesn’t have a solution to the problem? You can’t escape plastics. The Powers That Be probably comfort themselves with the idea that this is a “self-correcting” issue. The crazies and the retards and the fatties will die off without leaving offspring, leaving behind those who can withstand the toxic stew. Evolution will save us.

[TBG]

I have a lot of theories about the soul (which I won’t go into here) but obviously, the soul is not something you can study scientifically at all.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Smeghead

Well, let’s see where we’re at so far. I am a biologist, with an autistic daughter and a stepson with ADHD.

My theory is that if most of the people in this thread were to live in my shoes for a few days, they would completely change their minds on some of their half-assed personal theories.

Which doesn’t preclude autism and ADHD from being overdiagnosed.