The question is in the title. What physical phenomena can science not explain? (Yet? - I should add optimistically).
Standard of proof for this thread: sufficient to satisfy me. I am not a scientist though I am reasonably educated layman. I am a christian though I fully accept Darwin’s theory of evolution (yes, it is possible to do both; no, let’s not discuss it in tbis thread).
There are scientific theories out there which - while not yet quite proven - are so adequately convincing that, to me, they certainly ‘explain’ this or that phenomenon. However, there are other theories that are so incomplete that they do not prove anything to me. I am thinking of the current status of the unified field theory which - so I believe - reconciles Newtonian physics with Einsteinian physics.
So - what verified and commonly observable physical phenomena can science currently not explain?
Yes, that is true. Or, at least, they have not yet explained it in such a way that I understand. I do understand that electrons - apparently - can appear and disappear into and out of nothing - but I don’t understand how.
13 things that do not make sense. I got the link from a previous thread. I don’t know how well-respected newscientist.com is, so I can’t vouch for what is there, but I thought it was interesting enough at the time to bookmark it.
That’s an excellent link - and just the kind of thing I was looking for. The New Scientist is a trustworthy and well-circulated magazine in the Uk - rather like the Scientific American in the US, I imagine.
I am no scientist - as this entire post will prove - but I can certainly explain ball lightning; it’s the emanation of static electricity around tiny, weightless motes of dust that are consumed when the electricity is released in contact with some earthed object. There. Explained.
I can also explain cancer. Cancer: it’s some kind of ultra-severe allergy to something we haven’t identified yet.
Consciousness cannot come close to being explained by science. I went to graduate school in behavioral neuroscience. I naively thought that people there would have some insights on how in arises. Nope, the work in neuroscience is way more primitive than that and there is no indication that an answer is on the horizon.
I recently read (Slashdot, maybe?) that scientists finally explained how bumblebees are capable of flight, but I can’t find a link at the moment. I mention this because bumblebee flight is the old standby answer to the question posed by the OP.
Isn’t there something called The Encyclopedia of Ignorance which is a general compendium of questions scientists consider important but can’t answer yet?
I did an Amazon search but the only entry I could find dates from 1978. Surely it’s been updated since then?
On the offchance you’re being serious, the answer is that the best ones are created by very clever and artistic people with boards on ropes, 1930s grass rollers, sometimes wearing stilts, and other stuff, in the middle of the night.
I think there are many physical processes that we can describe very well on a large scale basis, but don’t know all the details way down at the sub-atomic level.
Gravity is one that fascinates me. And although I’m sure much of the mystery is due to my lack of knowledge, it’s an almost magical thing. Two objects are attracted to each other by virtue of nothing more than they both exist. Fairly cool! Is there a “graviton” particle? I don’t think it’s been proven one way or the other yet. And if we find one, what is the mechanism by which a particle makes two objects fall toward each other?
Although x-ray vision has already addressed this, I’ll expand a little.
While creationism might be seen as ‘something from nothing” (depending on the particular version of creationism), evolution definitely is not.
You make a fairly common mistake. This mistake is to assume that evolution addresses the beginnings of life.
I’m not a biologist, but my understanding is that when used correctly in regards to biology, the word “evolution” refers to one of two things:
The fact that there are changes in the relative frequencies of genetically controlled traits in populations that can accumulate over time, and that these changes can accumulate enough so that not only do new physical traits appear, but that one population can be become two populations which can no longer interbreed.
or
The collective theories that explain the above facts.
Neither of these address the beginning of life in any way. You are confusing “evolution” with “abiogenesis”, the idea that the first living organisms came from non-living material through some as yet unknown process.
Really though, abiogenesis isn’t ‘something from nothing” either, since it isn’t thought that life came from nothing, just from some mix of non-living material.
