The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #72996 Message #1264694
Posted By: *daylia*
05-Sep-04 - 10:55 AM
Thread Name: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
Subject: RE: BS: Science and New Age: Bridging the chasm
Some interesting points of view from a few of the scientists and researchers who contributed to the text Biological Psychology (4th edition; James W. Kalat)I studied at university:
Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function are perfectly correlated ... There is no separate soul or life-force to stick a finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise ... It is quite conceivable that some day the assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet ... One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and chemistry and biology, and a mystic in psychology.
- Donald O. Hebb (1904-1985)
(Well, there's our "chasm").
*sigh*
I have learned as much from outside academia as from within. Many industrial firms have great research equipment and the money to apply to a problem. For instance, for some of my odor studies I needed extremely pure, highly expensive chemicals. The cost would have been prohibitive in a university laboratory, even with a large research grant. But industrial firms are willing to support the research if the information might help develop products that they can market.
- Susan S. Schiffman
(Substitute the words "pharmaceutical firms" or even "Reiki firms" for "industrial firms", and you get an idea how the cards are stacked against honest and credible scientific research into energetic healing modalities).
*another sigh*
People are too easily influenced by negative data. It is often hard to make things work right. If you can never prove your idea, maybe the idea was wrong, but maybe you never did the experiment right.
- Candance Pert
(Another reason why it's not advisable to put one's complete trust in "empirical evidence", even if it IS honest and unbiased).
*triple sigh*
How many interesting facts fail to be converted into fertile discoveries because their first observers regard them as natural and ordinary things! .... It is strange to see how the populace, which nourishes its imagination with tales of witches or saints, mysterious events and extraordinary occurrences, disdains the world around it as commonplace, monotonous and prosaic, without suspecting that at bottom it is all secret, mystery, and marvel.