Scientific revelation still fails to convert the masses

While the holistic perspective that New Agers have is a good thing for the world, it is not all love and peace. When claims such as cancer being caused by a bad attitude are believed, then New Age ceases to be harmless. The mind-body-spirit faith can reach ludicrous heights when the disappearance of a disease such a diphtheria was supposedly due to it simply going out of fashion and had nothing to do with vaccination.

I have noticed that mind-body-spirit advocates seem to gloat when the media report that some fault has been exposed in a scientific theory. When a fault is found in a scientific theory, it is found by scientists and not by lawyers, priests or the gurus of self-fulfilment as they rake in the dollars. The finding of the error simply improves the scientific understanding. Nothing will ever happen to cause a scientifically literate person to declare it all to be baloney and walk away - as millions have done with their religion.

Since that first release of energy from the atom, the DNA molecule - the book of life - is being restructured so that we will create new species of plants, be able to defeat all disease in humans and even halt the aging process. How much more do the masses need to be witness to before finally appreciating that evidence-based knowledge is the only knowledge upon which decisions are to be based?

As science writer Carl Sagan once warned; "If the accepting of anecdotal evidence is raised to become the dominant faith, a modern nation could slip back into another dark age." It may not become dominant, but this new faith is spreading as fast as any religion has in the past.

(Of course, not helping the cause of pure science is the stupid and even immoral way governments use the technological applications of pure science.)