From: david@edenroad.demon.co.uk   
      
   On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 23:52:05 +0000, LH wrote:   
      
   >>> Let's talk experience, have you ever adjusted someone's assemblage   
   >>> point?   
   >>   
   >> Nope. When I attempt to perceive it, I feel nothing.   
   >   
   > I fear that your belief system won't allow you to percive it.   
      
   I fear that your belief system has led you to perceive something that   
   _isn't_ there.   
      
   Which of us is right?  Only good science will tell!   
      
   >> Being right once, about the assemblage point (which is nonsense,   
   >> scientifically, as I'm sure you realise, being an engineer) - does not   
   >> mean   
   >> that everything he ever wrote was true.   
   >   
   > From a mainstream science perspective of course this is true.  We're   
   > talking about something that by current understanding shouldn't exist.   
   > That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.  What that really means is that very   
   > few will ever look to see if it exists.  Fewer still will investigate   
   > what it actually does.  Someone has to be the first and the first always   
   > meets ridicule and dogmatic skepticism.   
      
   All true; but also true of any old nonsense. Now if you could make your   
   adjustments through a screen, so your victims, er, patients couldn't get   
   feedback from you as to when to react, you'd have the first steps to some   
   sort of vaguely scientific trial.   
      
   > There's also no reason to investige it when all one has to do to feel   
   > better is load up on half a dozen (or a dozen) drugs that may make you   
   > feel better.  Drugs and the drug mentalitly have come about as a direct   
   > result of what you hold so dear.   
      
   Not so.  What the drug companies do is pretty far removed from real   
   science: they perform badly controlled and badly designed experiments,   
   hide their failures, exaggerate their successes, make wild extrapolations,   
   and lie to just about everyone.   
      
   Very bad science, motivated by greed rather than the search for knowledge.   
      
   It'll end in tears.  Ritalin anyone?   
      
   > Even you would concede it's hardly good science.   
   >   
   > Good science or not, I've seen the results first hand.   
      
   But only good science will determine exactly what is causing those   
   effects, and make whatever is more effective and safe.   
      
   > No amount of skepticism will change that.  I've also use Reiki to   
   > remove/heal people with chronic pain for months on end, if not   
   > permanently.   
      
   Pain, especially chronic pain, is a very strange thing.  It's very   
   strongly affected by psychological factors, so your success doesn't really   
   surprise me.   
      
   I'm not saying that relief to the suffering is not a good thing; just that   
   you need to be careful about what you infer from your success.   
      
   > Pain that medical science could only throw narcotics at.   
      
   Narcotics are great!  They are incredibly successful - if doctors were   
   less squeamish about prescribing opiates they'd be even better.   
      
   They do have their (well known) limits though.   
      
   > Is this scientific, no.  Do you   
   > think it matters to someone who's suffered from chronic back pain for   
   > many year whether it's scientific or not?   
      
   IMO, it matter to the species as a whole.   
      
   >   
   >> Science is, generally, self-correcting. Mystical science is not.   
   >   
   > I'm glad you used the word "generally."  Sometimes it's over corrective.   
   > :-)   
      
   Sometimes; but even so, it's made more progress than any other method, by   
   orders of magnitude.   
      
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