issue 41 <永不言败小组>第四次作业

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41. "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." [05/71; 06/5]

1, 这些非主流领域确实在影响着我们的生活，在科技领域，一种得体的方法论深入人心，在人们情感上也会有负面影响。
2，我们需要这些领域的慰藉，因为我们不仅作为一个成员在这个社会上，为社会服务，我们的情感也会受到社会的影响，有时由于生活压力，我们会对这些领域的研究抱有极大兴趣，事实上它们可以给我们很大的鼓励，如果没有这类领域在社会上的存在，人们可能会变得精神失常。
3，我们不能被这种生活所主宰，因为这些领域的研究可能并不符合事实


Does such the non-mainstream areas of inquiry ,as mentioned by the authors, play a vital role in society by satisfying human needs that are not given by mainstream science. To illustrate this point clearly, we should focus on what we human needs really are and what the needs are the mainstreams science couldn’t meet.

In the first place, human beings desire to live a more convenient life and admittedly, the mainstream sciences provides society with efficience and effectiveness in many industries, including business, astronomy, medicine and so forth, with which human beings could solve problems intrinsically. Also, they endue us with deeper insight to judge the world and the nature, that is, not ostensibly. We begin to learn to cite examples and statistics, a due and even consummate methodology, to justify an unknown outcome or phenomenon. And this amounts to bring significance and credibility to what we have done and are doing nowadays. Charles Darwin, renowned for his findings of the theory of natural selection, soon flashes in my mind in that it did the generalization and founded the theoretical basement upon which the following researches could be carried, even to more significant extent, ones that emended the former theory. Maybe his findings is famous, however, we could possibly ignore his world trip in 1931-1935 during which time he collected the specimens of plants and animals for his research. And Franlin even risked his life to testify the theory of electricity in thunderstorm. All the facts serve to denote the methodology’s status in our mind, which do service to give impetus to our brighter prospect as we desire.

However, is convenience only what we acquire? With more scrutiny, we could find the more advanced  technology is, the more burdened people feel. In fact, with the skyrocket of high-tech and growing convenience , many byproduct appeared. With ever-larger workload and the ensuing more acute suppression and competitiveness in jobs, a great amount of compaint disseminate among the servants in society. To make matters worse, they do become more gloomy and morose, which often causes depression, remarkably normal to appear in society, and might be concomitant with dysfunction or mania medically and psychaitrically. Put it another way, it is spiritual space that people need.

What makes sense are non-mainstream subjects. With tunnel vision, these subjects could alleviate the servants’ pressure, for they found a stage upon which a more craving life style and a more harmonious evironment are established. People who accept the treat might find a self-owned space for themselves, which thus resulted as a kind of placebo. Yet there’s no alternative for them to be made exempt from such an ever-growing competitive society, they have had a space for mattress and buttress for the challenges.

Even these non-mainstream subjects do exert positive effects on our mental health, we should not extend it too far- insofar as we rely ourselves on the mainstream science to survive. No basic substance for survival lead to no mental space. Even for religious conventions, we respect them meanwhile we should recognize their essence. We couldn’t see how silly and absurd such subjects’ contents until it’s illustrated in a medical case that a patient who suffers from a tumor was obliged to have a surgery on the spot, but he insisted that he could not have the surgery until his priest came and had a talk with him. Although this is a kind of loyalty he showed for his conviction, he commited a fallacy in the recognition of religion, which is denounced by science ambivalently. The mainstream sciences make our society thrive and the non-mainstream subjects could only be regarded as the catalyst or the placebo for the arduous and torturous process.

On balance, I fundamentally agree that the non-mainstream subjects do have a significant role in society due to their function of mental placebo and catalyst. However, due reliance on them counts, and more profoundly, the true science determines the substantial development of human society.

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[ 本帖最后由 zhouding3000 于 2007-12-16 11:46 编辑 ]