Fringe: intriguing scientific mysteries that don't make sense

By Ian McCoy

Science is the most splendid artefact of the human imagination. Beginning in the 17th century the scientific revolution set in motion profound discoveries such as Newtonian mechanics, electromagnetism, relativity and quantum mechanics. The world has been transformed. Science however has not solved all mysteries – indeed it has made the world more mysterious than it ever was.

We know how the universe began. We don’t know why it is there. Furthermore over three quarters of it seems to be missing in the form of “dark matter” and “dark energy”. Recently scientists have deduced that, strange as it may seem, all the laws of physics that govern this universe are the precise ones necessary for human beings or any life for that matter, to exist. Charles Darwin talked speculatively of life emerging from a “little pond”. The pond is gone. We have little idea how life emerged. We also cannot reconcile the human mind with any trivial theory about the manner in which the brain functions.

On these and many other points the great scientific theories have lapsed and in so doing have enlarged and not diminished our sense of the sublime. The universe, life and consciousness are anomalies.
But in giving deeper explanations for such things -more and more people within the science community are moving away from a position of strict philosophical materialism and scientific reductionism. The study of quantum mechanics has been a driving force and increasingly the role of human consciousness is given a central explanatory role. But mystery is all around us. Science depends on identifying mystery, those things that don’t make sense. Our attempt to explain such anomalies are exactly what drives science forward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian McCoy
• Release date: Sep 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310203992

Ian McCoy

Ian McCoy (www.ianmccoy.com) is a master magician and mentalist, a motivational speaker and teacher, a published author, a musician, singer/songwriter and a writer/journalist.For over a decade he was one of California's top magical acts and performed all around the world for blue chip companies, Hollywood celebrities, a cruise line, Las Vegas hotels and thousands of private individuals. . He also set up magic classes and camps teaching children of all ages throughout the Bay Area of San Francisco. He relocated back to the UK seven years ago and has performed around Britain and on TV.Ian is also a credentialed high school and junior college teacher in both the UK and USA. He has degrees in history and politics and post graduate degrees in education and theology. He is the published author of the book Magic in the Center : God Consciousness and You a work in Philosophy that examines the concept of the Soul. He has also developed an online environmental news and information service with his brother and sister called just4theplanet . Ian is lead writer.Ian's keynote speech Magical Values is a call for people to be their best. It is truly inspirational and incorporates entertaining magic and mentalism to illustrate some perennial wisdom and motivate his audience.In his Kindle books on the art of Mentalism and Mindreading, How to be a Mentalist , How to be a Mentalist II, How to be a Mentalist: Time Flies and In Mind, Ian takes his 35 years study and experience to teach this fascinating art. Every technique and performance has a video link. So as well as reading, the student gets to see both performances and live explanations.His related book Memory teaches incredible techniques to develop your mind to it's full potential.Ian has also published two books on the art of card magic under the title McCoy's Miracle's: World Class Card Magic and one book on mentalism with cards: McCoy's Miracles: World Class Mentaism with Playing Cards. As with his other work - they all have video links to performance and explanation.Ian's book Angels: An insight into their Existence, taps his academic insights from theology, science, philosophy and history. It is a fascinating study.Ian has two publications on the person of Jesus Christ.The Historical Reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ examines just that and argues that historians while agreeing with the historicity of Christ's life and death - have been blinded from the historical truth of the Resurrection by a philosophical stance that can not be justified. His other work Jesus Christ: Magic Man? examines the ministry of Jesus through his miracles.In his book the Atheism Myth Ian gives a robust defence of Theism - as a response to the militant atheists led by Richard Dawkins.Ian's largest and most ambitious project The True Magic: God, Mind, Consciousness and You is an all embracing piece drawing on all disciplines in defence of Theism.

Book preview

Introduction

Science is the most splendid artefact of the human imagination. Beginning in the 17th century the scientific revolution set in motion profound discoveries such as Newtonian mechanics, electromagnetism, relativity and quantum mechanics. The world has been transformed. Science however has not solved all mysteries – indeed it has made the world more mysterious than it ever was.

We know how the universe began. We don’t know why it is there. Furthermore over three quarters of it seems to be missing in the form of dark matter and dark energy. Recently scientists have deduced that, strange as it may seem, all the laws of physics that govern this universe are the precise ones necessary for human beings or any life for that matter, to exist. Charles Darwin talked speculatively of life emerging from a little pond. The pond is gone. We have little idea how life emerged. We also cannot reconcile the human mind with any trivial theory about the manner in which the brain functions.

On these and many other points the great scientific theories have lapsed and in so doing have enlarged and not diminished our sense of the sublime. The universe, life and consciousness are anomalies.

Closer to home we have the Placebo Effect: carefully planned, rigorously controlled experiments repeatedly show that the mind can affect the body’s bio chemistry in ways that banish pain and produce startling medical effects. Bizarrely, like dark matter, no one is quite sure that the placebo effect really exists.

Science, of course forms theories which are then proved by applying the scientific method and finding evidence. One of the biggest science theories of the past 150 years is the theory of evolution. Darwinism is accepted by most of the scientific community. There have been some cracks in edifice. Although the evidence completely supports the theory of micro evolution within species – some are questioning the theory of macro evolution (the main thrust of Darwinism) involving species change. And the problem? No evidence. Darwin predicted that millions of inter species would be found in the fossil record. And how many have been found? Zilch: the proverbial giraffe with a half neck is like the dragon that George slew. It doesn’t exist.

Science still has plenty to be humble about. But mystery is, and always has been its driving force. The mystery of coincidence – or synchronicity which most of us have experienced - the unlikely conjunction of events, the startling serendipity. Who hasn't had it happen in their life? The study of meaningful coincidence is interesting in terms of what might be a scientific paradigm shift. More and more people within the science community are moving away from a position of strict philosophical materialism and scientific reductionism. The study of quantum mechanics has been a driving force and increasingly the role of human consciousness is given a central explanatory role. But mystery is all around us. Science depends on identifying mystery, those things that don’t make sense. Our attempt to explain such anomalies are exactly what drives science forward.

1. The Mystery of Life

Science, despite its best efforts, has never been able to create life from inanimate matter. Yet according to the traditional view – this is what happened on planet earth about 4 billion years ago – without the scientists of course. One could go further and say that as well as not being able to take something from the not alive state and turning it into something that is alive, no scientist can tell you where the fundamental difference lies between life and inanimate matter.

We are composed of molecules whose individual behaviour and properties can be described by science (Quantum Mechanics) – however these molecules are put together in a way that results in properties that defy explanation by any theory.

Of course most scientists, while agreeing with this would argue that life is nothing mystical and that there is no reason to think we can’t find an answer – it’s just that at the moment we are not sure where or even how to look.

There are a few ways to unravel the essential nature of life. One is to find out how it started: trace the tree of life back into the past when all that existed was chemistry. Another is to try to build something that is alive from scratch – that is take some chemicals and put them together in such a way that they might then come alive.

According to theories of modern astronomy and cosmology, the Universe began about 13.5 billion years ago with a massive explosion of a tiny atom. After a billion or so years, great clouds of steamy gas formed into galaxies and eventually the whirls and eddies of this spinning gas concentrated into stars. Until this point there was only hydrogen and helium – but as the stars contracted, the pressure became great enough to crush together these simple atoms to form carbon – the basic building blocks of life.

But life cannot exist without various heavy elements such as iron, phosphorous and sulphur and these are also locked up in the core of gigantic stars. Billions of years had to pass until the original stars gave off most of their energy in the form of radiation, then collapsing and exploding before the essential elements finally began to float free.

So how did life arrive? The true answer is that we don’t know. Science textbooks give us a story which disingenuously reads as true. According to this – the various elements – carbon, phosphorous, oxygen, hydrogen, iron – somehow came together in the great cauldron of the cooling earth – were fused by lightning and formed complex molecules called amino acids, the basic constituents of all life.

There is an alternative view held by a minority of scientists (including the late Fred Hoyle) that the necessary elements where in fact deposited on earth from deep space by comets.

Needless to say there are problems with such explanations. Life begins with protein chains each made up of many amino acids with 20 possibilities to each link in the chain. In his book Human Destiny the French biologist Lecombe de Nouy pointed out that even if a new combination were tried every millionth of a second; it would still take longer than the life of the earth to form a chain associated with life – the odds against this being a one followed by 95 zeros.

In 1963 American scientist Stanley Miller conducted an experiment in which electrical discharges (artificial lightning) were passed through a mixture of water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen – elements held to have formed the primitive earth’s atmosphere. By the end of the day the mixture turned pink – and by the end of the week success was being claimed as Dr Miller found the simplest amino acids had been formed.

The experiment was flawed. The gases Miller (and his colleague