13 Things That Don't Make Sense ~ Michael Brooks

4 of 5
A pretty well-written book outlining the abberations faced by science today.  From gravitational issues to free-will, no topic is off limits.  Many of those things that people see today as simply being, are laid out for review and question.  Today's issues may be leading up to a new scientific revolution, on par with the discoveries of the a round Earth and one that revolves around the sun.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book.  It was incredibly interesting, every one of the 13 things taught me something new.  My only issue came, with the one issue the author was obviously impartial on.  That's where I got hung up.  While the gravitational anomolies, life in space, the craziness of water, and even the questions of life, death and sex were treated without definitive answers; one issue, that of free-will, is written as a foregone conclusion.  He believes we are at the mercy of our body and any free-will we percieve is an illusion.  I wonder how someone that wrote a book, had it published, ended up with it on a library shelf until I came along to read it, could possibly believe that it all happened because of chemical reactions.

My favorite part, the one that I will be quoting far into the future, is Philip Anderson's "More is Different" essay.  Simply put, more is different.  "In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us abot the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science."  The scientists, according to Anderson, are missing the forest for the trees.  Rather interesting that there are already numerous sayings warning against this behavior.  It took another scientist to remind the others of this.  According to the author, "the idea that a whole new branch of science is opening up is certainly inspiring and exciting...  we might not merely solve the enigma of life but also discover the true nature of dark enery and from whence come the variations in alpha."

To expound upon "variations in alpha," let me add that there are issues with the constant "omega" and most of the unanswerable issues in science are those covered in Genesis.  To my Christian friends, you may get a few good giggles out of this book, when you realize that those things still confounding scientists are the things that pose little question to readers of the Word.