# Is There Anything Known To Be Real That Science Cannot Explain...At All? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 30, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315 "2012-03-30T20:14:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/41 "2012-03-31T13:51:42Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Tides. You can’t explain that! > [@Max\_Torque](#): > > F\*\*\*in’ magnets, how do they work! > [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Somehow, some way, I just KNEW when I started this thread that this reply would be generated. Awesome! > > ETA: although science cannot explain how I knew. > > 😃 > [@pravnik](#): > > I am literally angry at myself for not thinking of this first. What, no love for [O’Lielly](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bill-oreilly-you-cant-explain-that)? It’s even using the exact words of the thread title! ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/42 "2012-03-31T14:01:30Z")
When I was a kid, I remember hearing and reading in more than one source that physics “can’t explain” why a bicycle stays upright, or how a bumblebee can fly. Have these pressing mysteries been explained since then? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/43 "2012-03-31T14:32:43Z")
> [@benbo1](#): > > 1. Why we have gallbladders. It’s sole function in life, to secrete bile, is handled just fine by the liver alone (which is why people who’ve had it removed live perfectly normal lives post-op). Speaking as a gall-bladderless person who is currently posting while sitting on the toilet in fairly unpleasant distress, I can assure you that we do NOT live perfectly normal lives post-op and that the gall bladder certainly has a function. It stores a reservoir of bile that can be released when the liver is overwhelmed. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/44 "2012-03-31T14:55:34Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > We don’t know why [there is gravity]? I thought it was understood to be a function of mass? We can model gravity quite precisely mathematically, but we have no idea what it really is. There is a theoretical particle called the graviton which has not actually been detected. As to the OP, no matter how far we dig down with science, there are still going to be unanswered questions. We determined that particles were made of quarks, but we don’t know what a quark is made of (at least I don’t think so; I am quite the layman). > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Gravity is a very serious subject and we don’t know why people are so solemn about it. Truly. It has a lot of grativas. > [@dataguy](#): > > Love Love is an evolved adaptation to support pair bonding that encourages mating and increases the probability of offspring surviving to reproductive age. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/45 "2012-03-31T14:58:58Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > True, but don’t quantum field theories give more accurate predictions than General Relativity? The accuracies of the predictions are limited by how well we can test them experimentally. Since it’s a lot easier to do QED-sensitive experiments in the lab than it is to do GR-sensitive experiments, QED happens to be tested to many more decimals places. But the underlying precisions of the predictions are not in competition, as one can (in principle) get arbitrarily precise predictions out of either class of theory. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/46 "2012-03-31T15:01:07Z")
Toward the OP: [Lists of unsolved problems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems) (from wikipedia). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/47 "2012-03-31T15:03:39Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Love is an evolved adaptation to support pair bonding that encourages mating and increases the probability of offspring surviving to reproductive age. Further reading: > **[Biology of romantic love](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_basis_of_love)** > > The biology of romantic love has been explored by such biological sciences as evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience. Neurochemicals and hormones such as dopamine and oxytocin are studied along with a variety of interrelated brain systems which produce the psychological experience and behaviors of romantic love. > The study of romantic love is still in its infancy. As of 2021, there were a total of 42 biological studies on romantic love. > The meaning of the ... > [@](#): > > Neurochemistry > > Studies in neuroscience have involved chemicals that are present in the brain and might be involved when people experience love. These chemicals include: nerve growth factor,[6] testosterone, estrogen, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin.[7] Adequate brain levels of testosterone seem important for both human male and female sexual behavior.[8] Dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin are more commonly found during the attraction phase of a relationship.[citation needed] Oxytocin and vasopressin seemed to be more closely linked to long term bonding and relationships characterized by strong attachments. > > The conventional view in biology is that there are two major drives in love — sexual attraction and attachment.[9] Attachment between adults is presumed to work on the same principles that lead an infant to become attached to his or her mother or father– or both. > > The chemicals triggered that are responsible for passionate love and long-term attachment love seem to be more particular to the activities in which both persons participate rather than to the nature of the specific people involved.[9] > > Anthropologist Helen Fisher also adds lust to the experience of love. Lust exposes people to others, and is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. That’s right, your sweety is dealing oxytocin. ---
**Author:** ![scamartistry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@scamartistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scamartistry)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/48 "2012-03-31T15:18:19Z")
Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can explain why the tide goes in… PERIOD. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/49 "2012-03-31T15:49:54Z")
{sigh} There’s so much bullshit in this thread, I don’t where how to begin. Why don’t some posters do a minimal research before posting such inane questions? Just Asking Questions doesn’t cut it at SDMB. So I’m going to cherry-pick some items that I know about to comment on. > [@benbo1](#): > > Re: Easter Island - there’s no proof of the natives having any tools that can move such heavy stone. There are many of them too, and the age of the stones is much older than Notre Dame - presumably meaning that by the time Notre Dame came along, we were far more advanced in machinery and technique. We have no reason to believe the Easter Island natives DIDN’T move them. Thor Heyrdahl’s expedition ca. 1957 transported and erected a statue using only the tools available to the natives at the time. Others have demonstrated how the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, South American temples, etc. were likely constructed. It’s impressive work, but not a mystery in the slightest. As far as the age of the stone, what makes you think that a stone becomes a different age because it’s carved? The shape makes no difference whether it’s part of a church or a statue. Chiseling it doesn’t make it younger. > [@benbo1](#): > > 1. The magnetic disturbances in the Bermuda Triangle. We know that they’re there, and the probable explanation of why some of the planes & ships got lost. We don’t know what’s causing the magnetic anomaly. There’s no hole in the ozone over there, like at the South Pole. Maybe not coincidentally, the Triangle is directly opposite from the Marianas Trench, the deepest point on Earth (where James Cameron just went down in a sub). Absolute nonsense. No more ships have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle, no matter how you define it, than any other highly-trafficed area in the world. There is no “anomoly.” There is no mystery. I suggest you google for [Larry Kusche.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle) > [@](#): > > 1. Artifacts found in the jungles of South America from ruins of ancient civilizations - that look like helicopters (minus blades), delta-winged fighter planes, and I think armored vehicles. And I look like an alien if I dress up for Halloween, too, but that doesn’t make me one. Imagination runs wild – it’s one thing that makes us human. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/50 "2012-03-31T16:00:37Z")
> [@Iggins](#): > > Consciousness? This. Not that it cannot be explained . . . but that there are too many explanations, no two in agreement. And introspection in general; consciousness conscious of itself. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/51 "2012-03-31T16:09:17Z")
I don’t think scientists (or anyone else) understand the variety of sexual attraction. Why is one person attracted to tall, skinny men with aquiline noses and heavy eyebrows . . . and another person is attracted to pear-shaped women with frizzy red hair, an overbite and a limp? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/52 "2012-03-31T16:34:24Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Not that [consciousness] cannot be explained . . . but that there are too many explanations, no two in agreement. There are tentative first steps _towards_ an explanation, but actual scientific models of what consciousness is have not been arrived at yet. Unless you count the denialist hypotheses of Dennett et al (which I wouldn’t, but some people might). ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/53 "2012-03-31T16:43:35Z")
> [@benbo1](#): > > a) pinging - the moon pinged for several hours after the lunar modules landed on it. This would suggest the interior is hollow, like a basketball. Since there’s been done extensive seismic studies of the moon I’d like a better cite than “here’s what I remember from some list”. > [@](#): > > In 2010 reanalysis of the old Apollo seismic data on the deep moonquakes using modern processing methods confirmed that the Moon has an iron rich core with the radius of 330 ± 20 km. The same reanalysis established that the solid inner core made of pure iron has the radius of 240 ± 10 km. The core is surrounded by the partially (10 to 30%) melted layer of the lower mantle with the radius of 480 ± 20 km (thickness ~150 km). These results imply that 40% of the core by volume has solidified. The density of the liquid outer core is about 5 g/cm[sup]3[/sup] and it can contain as much 6% sulfur by weight. The temperature in the core is probably about 1600–1700 K. > **[Internal structure of the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_structure_of_the_Moon)** > > Having a mean density of 3,346.4 kg/m3, the Moon is a differentiated body, being composed of a geochemically distinct crust, mantle, and planetary core. This structure is believed to have resulted from the fractional crystallization of a magma ocean shortly after its formation about 4.5 billion years ago. The energy required to melt the outer portion of the Moon is commonly attributed to a giant impact event that is postulated to have formed the Earth-Moon system, and the subsequent reaccretio... ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/54 "2012-03-31T17:15:30Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I don’t think scientists (or anyone else) understand the variety of sexual attraction. Why is one person attracted to tall, skinny men with aquiline noses and heavy eyebrows . . . and another person is attracted to pear-shaped women with frizzy red hair, an overbite and a limp? Giving specific, case by case, explanations might be difficult, but I do not see anything particularly mysterious or incomprehensible in principle here. Probably your first person was treated kindly by a tall, skinny man with an aquiline nose and heavy eyebrows when they were a child, or perhaps they happened to see such a man (or even a picture of one) at some crucial moment in puberty when they were just beginning to become conscious of their sexuality, or… well it might be a million other things that caused them to associate such men with niceness and sexiness. To discover the specific details in each case, for every person, might well be beyond the reach, and, perhaps more importantly, beyond the will, of science to discover, there is just too much contingency and variation, but that does not mean that the general principles by which such things work cannot be discovered, or, indeed, that they are not known, in broad outline, already. Actually, I think it rather more mysterious just what it is about the female body (never mind idiosyncratic preferences for specific types of female) that makes (most) men sexually attracted to women (and vice-versa). Why are boobies a turn-on for men, for instance, but not for women (who, after all, also suckled on them as babies).\* I expect science knows something about this, but I am fairly sure there is still a lot we don’t know. \*Hmmm. I am now seriously regretting that I didn’t in for boobie science when I was setting out on my career. I could have had a Nobel Prize by now! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/55 "2012-03-31T17:18:15Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > What, no love for [O’Lielly](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bill-oreilly-you-cant-explain-that)? It’s even using the exact words of the thread title! I hadn’t heard that one before. I’ll have to work it into the act. ---
**Author:** ![Carptracker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac91a4/32.png) [@Carptracker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carptracker)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/56 "2012-03-31T17:39:04Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > When I was a kid, I remember hearing and reading in more than one source that physics “can’t explain” why a bicycle stays upright, or how a bumblebee can fly. Have these pressing mysteries been explained since then? These are the kind of stupid things that creationists use to make the impression that god is active in all things and scientists don’t know shit. Fact is, though, that these are just BS. There was a time when we didn’t really understand how a bicycle worked, until someone did the research. I saw a science special on that research when I was a kid. It just took some cool thought processes and experiments to figue out some key questions. There is a published paper that noted that, given the size of a bumblebees wings, and the maximum speed that nerves a can fire and reset and fire again (thus, maximum number of muscle contractions/wing beats) that the bees would not be able to get airborne. Shortly after, someone looked at the problem and noted that bumblebee wing muscles beat twice with every nerve impulse. No more question, but people who love to point out the fallibility of science don’t look any farther. My entomology prof went over this 35 years ago, so it is not new. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/57 "2012-03-31T17:45:55Z")
Women. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/58 "2012-03-31T18:27:00Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > Women. Or, according to female scientists, men. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/59 "2012-03-31T19:08:40Z")
> [@Carptracker](#): > > These are the kind of stupid things that creationists use to make the impression that god is active in all things and scientists don’t know shit. Fact is, though, that these are just BS. There was a time when we didn’t really understand how a bicycle worked, until someone did the research. I saw a science special on that research when I was a kid. It just took some cool thought processes and experiments to figue out some key questions. > > There is a published paper that noted that, given the size of a bumblebees wings, and the maximum speed that nerves a can fire and reset and fire again (thus, maximum number of muscle contractions/wing beats) that the bees would not be able to get airborne. Shortly after, someone looked at the problem and noted that bumblebee wing muscles beat twice with every nerve impulse. No more question, but people who love to point out the fallibility of science don’t look any farther. My entomology prof went over this 35 years ago, so it is not new. Except that the bicycle thing really still hasn’t been explained. We thought we knew, but some people proved our old explanation wrong. I don’t remember all the details, but we really don’t know. Plus, we kinda know that bikes were created by a higher power–us. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315/60 "2012-03-31T19:21:33Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > Women. Specifically, what women _want._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-known-to-be-real-that-science-cannot-explain-at-all/617315.md?page=4)