Little Hawk,

I am sure your way of thinking is comforting for you. I have always had the impression that you have difficulties dealing with doubts. You seem only to have replaced the authorities/securities of your youth by others.

Empirical testing is a way of gathering knowledge and a way of testing whether what you consider correct may turn out to be wrong. This is not the way for the lazy thinkers and for those threatened by finding out they have been wrong. It is not your way and so it is no wonder you have forgotten this as a reason for a change of opinion in your 20 Aug 04 - 11:57 AM post.

Completely contrary to what you seem to believe, science is open for a change of opinion or theory given a good reason to do so. Carol's experiment done in a convincing way and found repeatable could of course change all thinking in science. Not necessarily in an individual scientist, for these people are as conservative or stubborn individually as all others, but there are always enough of them grasping at the new findings and trying to get famous with new theories. The individual scientist may be immune against change, science in a broad sense isn't.

Look at what has happened after an experiment seemed to show that eihter ether is moving with the earth or the speed of light is independent of the frame of reference. Unthinkable that was to ageing scientists for it warranted such a big change in thinking they were not ready for it. But young scientists did think the unthinkable and came up with new theories for that. Einstein for instance. The old camarilla was strong enough to prevent him getting the Nobel prize for the theory of relativity and so he got it as a compromise for a minor contribution, the explanation of the photoelectriy effect and 'for his other contributions'. But his theory has won.

As immune each individual scinetist may be against new facts and theories, the endeavour 'science' is extremely open to changes. That is by the weayy much different from faiths or belief systems which are unchanged since centuries. This vitasl difference you are unable or unwilling to grasp, for if science is 'just another faith' you feel less threatened in your world view.

It would take two decades or so, but a repeatable experiment demonstrating spiritual action upon matter would change the thinking of science. But a mere assertion of individual experiences will not change anything. The other side of the medal, of course, is that a well controlled experiment may repeatedly confirm the null hypothesis of no effect of thought upon matter.

Doing convincing empirical reasearch has a big prize that may be won: a result necessitating completely new theories may be found. But this is only the way for those strong enough to face that their pet theories may be found wrong and not for those not willing to give up cherished beliefs.

For thousands of years, the spiritual way of thinking has never changed. The same concepts have been expressed in different words. Nothing has been added to our knowledge. Compare to that how radically our thinking about the world and our knowledge (and accompanying that, our technology) has changed and you'll see that science is not just another of many faiths but simply a method to empirically test ideas about the world. The endeavour 'science' doesn't make scientists materialists (there are scientists who believe in a supreme being or/and in a soul/spirit) though scientists according to surveys are more likely to be atheists (and the more so the more successful they are). It is a method of knowledge gathering and a very successful one. 50,000 years of belief in spiritual communication haven't been able to provide a reliable mean of communication between people far apart, but science has.

Wolfgang