issue41

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“Such non-mainstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play a vital role in society by satisfying human needs that are not addressed by mainstream science.”
观点:对非自然科学的解释,从古至今都占人类思想的一席之地, 但主导人类生活的是主流科学, 而超自然的学科.
1 在古时候, 人们无法解释一些自然现象和社会规律，非主流的超自然解释的确十分重要的地位(即非主流思想产生的根源)
2 非主流在人类社会的作用       
3 非主流思想发展脉络:由兴盛到衰落  科学接下接力棒, 在人类社会发生主要作用
4 科学与非主流思想比较, 其特点和缺点
5总结

  At the first sight of this sentence, speaker’s opinion sounds some sense for the non-scientific idea has been going along with human being all the time. Nevertheless, as far as I am concerned, the speaker’s point is gently arbitrary because he refers a word vital. There are several arguments supporting my position as following.

  Long ago, when the human just appeared on earth, facing mass of bewildering things and phenomenon which is filled in the their life, the most direct reflection to the mass is creating another world which is similar to the earth in order to explain strange things and phenomenon around their life. The second world in forefathers’ mind is led by a god with a myriad of small angels who desperately control different fields on earth, such like army, marriage, money and so on. So, it is true that astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play an essential role in society by satisfying human needs in the ancient times.

  Why the non-scientific idea always exists until now? A piece of byword says that everything existing has its value and it will disappear when lacking its value, and so dose non-scientific idea. In the past, at first, it indeed helps people overcome their mental fears. For example, beasts in the forests often hurt persons in the caves until one day people found fire and knew how to set fire to defend them. From that time on, fire which is a natural product was admired to be a god. Meanwhile, this instance above indicates the second function of non-scientific things that could easily explain some strange phenomenon in nature for people who has limited scientific knowledge. Folk and supernatural stories are also good case in this point. The third function refers to escape unsatisfied facts. Finally, some belief in the non-scientific area is cleaning people’s great morality.

   Science was born with the non-science on the wane. The more advanced the science, the less attention paid on the non-science. The called scientific is proved by numerous investigations or experiments in the process of exploring the truth and hence science reaches or gets close to fact best in the world. For instance, science could explain why friction produces fire. Here, science explains that friction could create heat and then heat to higher degree will generate spark and finally a lot of spark gathers to be fire. While people understand the scientific principle behind the surface phenomenon, the fear and the oddity will almost disappear instead of rational recognitions. On the other hand, the improved and digital techs which bring about millions of benefits in people’s life at present should be attributed to the development of science. Therefore, in modern times, it is mainstream science that plays a vital role in society by satisfying human needs.

  Meanwhile, nowadays, non-science has not vanished yet. The main reason for the existing of non-science is that until now there is still some phenomenon that cannot be substantiated with all the existing scientific knowledge by scientists. So, in the blank aperture of the science, astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits will appear. For example, even in the USA, people often believe astrology and ask astrologists to select position and direction of houses. On the other hand, religion that also belongs to non-mainstream area reflects people’s benignity and some kinds of positive attitudes. Hence, part of beliefs is on the service of public morality.

  To sum up, taking into account all the factors above, the speakers’ point is not right completely. From my point of view, the more rational expression is that such non-mainstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play a part of role in society by satisfying human needs that are not addressed by mainstream science and meanwhile mainstream science is playing vital role in society now.