“13 Things That Don’t Make Sense” is an engaging book for scientific minded.
The world around us is a familiar one. Things work the way they have always. There are patterns that we have long learned and assumed to be the rules. Our intellect and observational skills prohibit us to examine them closely.
But, upon examinations, we learned some really do not make sense. Michael Brooks’s book highlighted 13 of those.
Honestly, why do we age and die? Biologically, animal should die right after the reproductive age, or not at all. If we have passed on the genes, we have served the purpose. Are we, genetically, programmed to die? If not, why?
The book talked about three theories. First, we have collected garbage genes over the generations, mostly be being affected by virus or bacteria, and dying is the toll of those impurities. Secondly, the energy source we chose — oxygen — is also intoxicating us. The ashes from the burn are accumulating in our bodies and they are killing us. Lastly, our cells’ replicating mechanism is flawed. They degrade a little bit each time they divide. Eventually, we lost all fidelity.
The other anomaly that intrigued me was the existence of gender. Half of the population cannot reproduce and that is a big reduction on efficiency. There appears to be two reasons. Gender promotes division of labors. With that, the species actually become stronger as a whole, although not necessarily individually. Secondly, genders necessitates sex as the way to reproduce and it evolves the species faster. This prevent a single natural disaster would have wiped out the entire species.
Other chapters talked about mysteries in the physic or astronomical worlds. I think those topics were too deep for non-scientifically inclined. This book is for adult geeks. Guess I am one.