Issue41 3.16 倒计时了

longxuUID: 2290268

TOPIC:ISSUE41 - "Such nonmainstream areas of inquiry as astrology,fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play a vital role insociety by satisfying human needs that are not addressed by mainstreamscience."
WORDS:548          TIME: 0:45:00          DATE: 2007-3-16

Do such nonmainstream areas of inquiry playan important role in our society by the means of satisfying human needs whichcannot be met by mainstream science, as the speaker claims? I concede insofaras in some cases the nonmainstream can indeed bring out some impacts on ourlife. However, under most circumstances the nonmainstream areas bring anobstacle in the progress of human beings, such as scientific research,political measures and so forth.

Nonmainstream can satisfy human needs whichare unreasonable and thereby out of ability of science in that there are somany choice for individual daily life. When the majority of human areconfronted by a confusing problems, the first reaction, as the case may be, isto turn to somebody for help and to solve or avoid them. However, the objectivereality is not so comfortable in most cases that theywill be so helpless and no one could assist them in making a choice in thedilemma. Thus, the confused persons will turn to fortune-teller for a decisionwhich is bound to be an illusion for them and makes little sense in the laterlife. Needless to say, the fortune-teller know nothing more than us, but theycan know something from people's appearance and mental situation, which is thereason for the confused persons can obtainrelief from the fortune-tellers.

Most of people living in our world shouldhave their own belief and stick to it all of their life. Given that somethinghas happened to them and destroyed their belief, they could be lost for a longtime and lead a meaningless life. For instance, the Bubonic Plague, whichdecimated the Europe, was such a disaster formany people in the Middle Ages. When it was before the Bubonic Plague, a greatnumber of people believed in the Christ. Nevertheless,in the disaster there was no help from the Christ and religious community who,in fact, did not know how to deal with the disaster. Consequently, the peopleno longer believed in the Christ after the disaster and turn to a blind worshipfor sorcery that was popular in that time but still could not be a mainstreamculture. Though the sorcery could help the people face the serious problems inthe daily life, the sorcery is able to, in aqualified sense, meet their psychic pursuit.

It is correct that the nonmainstream cansatisfy the needs of human who are in the confusing situation or have no beliefin their life. However, the nonmainstream areas of inquiry cannot indeedproduce great changes to our world.

On the individual level, nonmainstream areasof inquiry bring an obstacle to the process when human study and research theobjective world. For supporting examples, one need look no further than ascientific worker. There are so many difficulties on the way to truth and thenature of fact that scientific workers must spend a long time on researchingand doing experiments from which the results may cannot be explained by theextant knowledge. Thus, one scientific worker may turn to another extreme, suchas the astrology, for help and explanation. The results from experiments couldbe explained by the astrology, but we, of course, cannot accept the reliabilityof the conclusion.

One the social level, there are manydynasties in ancient Chinawhen the people believed in the astrology. Before any decision, such as war,policy, ceremony and so forth, they would ask the persons who were familiar theastrology what they should do and when they should take measures. As a result,there were so many disasters which could be avoidedif they did not turn to the astrology and thought over the facts and madedecisions and solutions to the problems on their own.

On the whole, the disadvantages from thenonmainstream areas far overweigh the advantages.