Here's the way it looks to me: * In my impressionable youth, an Indian guy wearing a dress tells me that mediation is the "highest path" in the universe, and that learning and practicing it every day will make me not only a "better person," but really, really, really SPECIAL.
* I am so naive and so wanting to be SPECIAL that I choose to believe him. * Later, to sell this same idea to more people, the Indian guy wearing a dress talks some of his students (who have no bias or interest in proving themselves SPECIAL, of course) into doing shoddy research to "prove" his claims that meditation will make everyone a "better person" and really, really, really SPECIAL. * I read this research, look at all the pretty charts that I don't understand, and renew my belief in what the Indian guy wearing a dress told me. I call this process "Science." * Later, the same Indian guy wearing a dress tells me that not only am *I* a "better person" and really, really, really SPECIAL because *I* practice this meditation that he sells, I am *SO* SPECIAL that me sitting on my butt practicing it (or bouncing on that same butt) affects the *whole world*. I am, in fact *SO* SPECIAL that I control the weather, whether there are wars or peace, and the future of the entire planet. * I am so naive and so wanting to be SPECIAL that I choose to believe him, again. * Later, pretty much the same completely unbiased students of the Indian guy wearing a dress are coerced into doing *more* shoddy research to "prove" this second set of claims true. * No one in the entire field of science believes this, but I do, because *again* I don't have to change the beliefs I formed in my impressionable youth. Again, I call this process "Science." Am I wrong about this, Doug? This is what your use of the word "Science" looks like to me...
