Previous Next Index Thread
Previous Next Index Thread
On Fri, 28 Jun 1996, Ed Faith wrote: > paschal wrote: > > > There are lots of ways that we could investigate this sort of thing - but > > we DON'T. Why not? > > Well, I think you're skating on thin ice with this business about dowsing. > If this is the prime example of a phenomenon science causes us to neglect, > then in most eyes (I venture) you've just bolstered the case that > science is a wonderful thing. In any event, I wouldn't blame this neglect > of dowsing on science per se at all, because the suppression of superstition > goes way, way back. And scientists are known for going out on a limb. > Two words: cold fusion. Um, I think you've just proved my point. The tendency to believe that we know, at any given moment, whatever there is to know - and to reject out-of-hand as "superstition" whatever doesn't fit our current knowledge of the principles governing physical reality - *is* the "tunnel-vision" I'm referring to. I chose dowsing because it is a widespread and traditional technique that appears to exhibit a versatile principle which also shows up in a lot of other, less definable, "paranormal" phenomena; in some of its forms it lends itself more easily to study and experimentation. (Dr. Rhine, at Duke University, back in the 'sixties, did a lot of work studying related things; but I'm not aware of anyone studying them under similar auspices since then.) At any rate - (and I realize it's getting far afield) - I'm suggesting that the scientific establishment exercises its own kind of tyranny. (And again, I'm not saying that this is an argument for the pm-camp; it's just a fact that I perceive, whenever we're talking about 'intellectual tyranny'.) I have a friend who is a microbiologist. After twenty years in the field, he is so convinced that most immunization is dangerous and in serious error, he and his wife home-school their children to avoid having them immunized. He isn't alone in feeling this way - but he and those colleagues who share the view, are definitely a minority at this point. While this may be more an example of a kind of "politicization" of science, the use of science to "authorize" mass-immunization could be seen as another kind of "tyranny" of the scientific establishment. We've done all kinds of things, on the word of "science", that have turned out to be disastrous in the end. Science is not the infallible method of 'getting-at' reality that many people seem to think; and I suspect that both the method, and the scientific world-view, will evolve to look very different in the few centuries ahead (if we survive current *science*, and its errors, to live that long!) -Paschal ObBook: Declaration of a Heretic, by Jeremy Rifkin