求拍：issue 41

rainiusUID: 2361453

提纲
1.    非主流领域，比如。。。的产生根源于主流科学理论不能给人们一个满意的解释。
a.    人类历史早期，这些非主流领域曾经是主流学说。（中国商代，占卜Augury）
b.    随着科学的发展，到了现代，占星术、算命等被一套科学的、逻辑的体系所替代，而成为非主流的领域。但是科学尚未发展到能够解释任何关于自然和精神的问题的程度，因此，有时后有的人仍然求助于非主流领域。
2.    非主流领域经过数千年发展，已经成为文化的一部分。诚然，即使在科学发达的今天，我们也不能断然(arbitrarily)排除非主流领域存在的积极意义
a.    Bring comfort and encourage to people who are puzzled by current or future problems. Education and scientific knowledge, of course, usually lack to those people who seek comfort from astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits.
b.    非主流领域也为文学艺术的创作提供了想象和创造的空间。作者将思想、价值观融入(integrate)到作品中，能够引起读者的兴趣，相比单纯的道德、伦理说教（Didactic）更容易被人们接受。
c.    非主流领域的神秘色彩充满想象力，也激发人们对未知世界的好奇心(curiosities)。对于一些猜测和假说，这种好奇心激发（arouse）人们去探求（seek）真相。
3.    However, 与主流科学向人们提供具有洞察力和逻辑性的解释相反，非主流领域主要建立在模糊的猜测、不切实际的幻想基础上，对人类的负面作用大于积极作用。
a.    一部分人在通过非主流方式寻求慰藉和启示的同时，也容易因此陷入对超自然因素的依赖甚至盲目崇拜。
b.    一些即使看上去合理的非主流领域的解释，尚未经过科学方法的证明，如果盲目采信，则会导致错误的认识。（占星学，Statistics）

With the great improvement of science, human being in contemporary society usually use scientific and technological methods to discover and understand the world. Under such a pre-condition, one question on how to satisfy human needs that are not addressed by mainstream science arises. Should those nonmainstream areas of inquiry such as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits be looked as another way to understand those issues which have not been explained by scientific theories? Admittedly, some people turn to nonmainstream areas to seek for answers. However, in my perspective, nonmainstream areas cannot be raised to a equal position with mainstream science, and be depended on for understanding the world of material and spirit.

It is a fact that astrology, fortune-telling, psychic and paranormal pursuits, or other nonmainstream areas originate with the lack of scientific knowledge. In the early age of human being history, people could not give scientific explanations to some natural phenomena such as thunder, earth quake, or dream by their poor understanding to the world. As a result, supernatural power was regarded as the origin of various phenomena, and then people asked gods, ghosts, or other supernatural beings to help them to make decisions. In fact, augury, astrology and other paranormal pursuits had ever played main roles in politics, military, and even daily life in history. For example, in Shang dynasty of China, about 17th century BC. to 11th century BC., augury is the most import area of people's life, either the kings or the aristocrats or the civilians. People always make augury by baking shells of tortoises or bones. The most early Chinese characters were discovered from such shells and bones about 3000 years later. However with the development of society and science, science has become the mainstream way to explain the questions about nature and spirit, instead of those mystic means, although some people still ask for help and advice from astrology, fortune-telling, etc.

Admittedly, the value of nonmainstream areas should not be arbitrarily denied, although science has taken  the main position of contemporary social life. First, nonmainstream areas bring comfort and encourage to some people who feel puzzled on current or future problems. Education and scientific knowledge, of course, usually lack to such people who seek comfort from astrology or fortune-telling. Second, nonmainstream areas usually appear with mystery and imagination, which arouse people's interest and curiosities. These can provide people driving-force to seek the truths of the world. Third, nonmainstream areas provide abundant subject matters and imagination to literature and art. The authors can integrate their ideas and values into their works which include nonmainstream facts. Such works sometimes have more educational effects than directly moral and ethical indoctrination. Harry Potter, a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling, is a representative example. The readers can feel the spirit of love, friendship and braveness advocated by the author while they are deeply attractively by the beautiful magical world represented from the novels.

However, on the contrary of mainstream science that provide insightful and logical explanations to people, nonmainstream explanations always base on some fuzzy and logic-lacked conjecture or even fantasy. They bring more negative influences than positive effects to human being. On one aspect, while people seek comfort from astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits, they usually lose their independences, and then give up fighting by their own efforts. On the other aspect, we cannot assert whether those nonmainstream areas of inquiry are correct or not, even if some of them seem reasonable, such as astrology, which appears can be explained by statics，because such views have not been proved by scientific methods and evidences. For example, even for the well-known heliocentrism which is supposed by Aristarchus, an ancient Greek astrologist, it was no more than a hypothesis before Nicholaus Copernicus proved it to be a rule of nature with mathematical method.

As a conclusion of previous discussion, although nonmainstream areas of inquiry keep valuable in some cases, they are not able to play a vital role in society by satisfying human needs as additions to mainstream science. The reason to such an assertion is that science help people to seek the truth of the nature and human's spirit word, but those nonmainstream areas of inquiry, contrarily, do not have such a function. Confronting problems that cannot be given scientific explanations, people need to seek the answers and prove the disciplines by developing contemporary scientific theories.