Science Magazine's 25 Questions: What Don't We Know?

[jma2001]

The July issue of Science Magazine features a list of 25 questions that highlight critical gaps in current scientific knowledge. The final list of 25 was selected from a longer list of 125 questions based on "how fundamental they are, how broad-ranging, and whether their solutions will affect other scientific disciplines." The feature can be read online here (scroll down to access the PDF files):

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol309/issue5731/

I found it interesting that, out of the 25 questions, the overwhelming majority are from the life sciences, versus only three from physics and cosmology (to be fair, the longer list of 125 contains many more pure physics questions). Perhaps life really is the most mysterious facet of the universe?

 

[Jelfish]

I guess it's not surprising that most science questions are of biology. Perhaps it's not so full of 'unverifiable intellectual baggage' or possibly part of a 'fool's quest' like for us poor physicists.

 

[neurocomp2003]

thats because all of physics comes down to 1...what is fundamental. everything else is grown from it.