Addiction and Self-Medication

[Fang]

Spot on Rie. yeah when someone is opened up to the possibility of there being "more out there" there's a very popular tendency to completely dismiss popular views or models of interpreting reality (such as science) as they may not account for such possibilities at the present moment.
I continue to be amazed at Spiral Dynamics, I almost brushed it off when I found out about it, but then I realized such disapproval for labeling people fell under the green vmeme

[zenmaster]

Spot on Rie. yeah when someone is opened up to the possibility of there being "more out there" there's a very popular tendency to completely dismiss popular views or models of interpreting reality (such as science) as they may not account for such possibilities at the present moment.

Regardless of meme, the intuition (and to a degree emotional feeling) will always suggest something is off balance with respect to one's worldview sensibilities before there is actual acknowledgement and appreciation for exactly what is or is not being adequately served with respect to that balance.

Through honesty, the function of intuition, as it is actually able to inform intelligence, may be given more respect and guidance (through a consciously applied evaluation that is able to discern truth). You can clearly see that if how we inform ourselves is balanced, then it follows that how we may interpret experience becomes much more effective.

As far as I know, that honesty (as it supports interpretation of perception) is available as a natural consequence of a degree of acceptance of self and for some reason is not available, ignored, or actively bypassed without this acceptance. So one must eventually come to terms with, respect, and take responsibility for one's claims and actions which may be prompted by that intuitive suggestion, just as the rebellous child must eventually become a responsible adult.

The green meme is largely in a grey zone where such acceptance is being learned by the nature of that vibration. And until that acceptance is forthcoming, its constituents will draw upon collective and subcollective notions and ideologies which serve to reinforce and to amplify prejudices to a point where their recognition, acknowledgment, and acceptance, rather than their projection, is finally demanded from self.

[Fastidious Emanations]

Reverting is like regressing backwards.

I don't think regression is necessarily the concept which is happening, as there is always some form of growth. (Perspective on duality)
Reverting to lower rays isn't bad, it's balancing.
It seems like most wanderers would be here to balance the lower rays again after 'long' periods of meticulously balancing love/wisdom, etc as the more frequent vibrations.
Also realise Ra states that one may choose to learn/balance completely alone in 6D positive. In my opinion this would result in a great harmony amongst the upper spectrum and a great possibility of kinks to work out in the lower spectrum that a 3D Earth incarnation during harvest might present just the harshness of catalyst necessary.

I think what is interesting is that small areas in the scientific (analytical) community are starting to appreciate ideas of 'consciousness', etc as fundamental to the experience, as well as finding that the experiences actually reactive to the thoughts of he who experiences.

[xise]

There are real issues with the way in which the scientific community is perceived that extend beyond the labeling of green meme mentalities (labeling can be useful, but sometimes one can pigeonhole an issue in order to fit a label). I think a lot of the distrust of science you see in the public has factors outside of the green meme as it has been discussed here.

A Criticism by a Nobel Laureate of the Most Prestigious Science Journals

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"I am a scientist. Mine is a professional world that achieves great things for humanity. But it is disfigured by inappropriate incentives....

We all know what distorting incentives have done to finance and banking. The incentives my colleagues face are not huge bonuses, but the professional rewards that accompany publication in prestigious journals – chiefly Nature, Cell and Science....

These journals aggressively curate their brands, in ways more conducive to selling subscriptions than to stimulating the most important research. Like fashion designers who create limited-edition handbags or suits, they know scarcity stokes demand, so they artificially restrict the number of papers they accept. The exclusive brands are then marketed with a gimmick called "impact factor" – a score for each journal, measuring the number of times its papers are cited by subsequent research. Better papers, the theory goes, are cited more often, so better journals boast higher scores. Yet it is a deeply flawed measure, pursuing which has become an end in itself – and is as damaging to science as the bonus culture is to banking....

In extreme cases, the lure of the luxury journal can encourage the cutting of corners, and contribute to the escalating number of papers that are retracted as flawed or fraudulent. Science alone has recently retracted high-profile papers reporting cloned human embryos, links between littering and violence, and the genetic profiles of centenarians. Perhaps worse, it has not retracted claims that a microbe is able to use arsenic in its DNA instead of phosphorus, despite overwhelming scientific criticism....

Just as Wall Street needs to break the hold of the bonus culture, which drives risk-taking that is rational for individuals but damaging to the financial system, so science must break the tyranny of the luxury journals. The result will be better research that better serves science and society."

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I don't know if the trust/reliance concept was the best way to convey what I'm trying to say, but it cannot be ignored that the mainstream public is beginning to become aware in its own way of the "escalating number of papers that are retracted as flawed or fraudulent." This impacts on how people view the scientific field, right or wrongly, and in my opinion is an important aspect of the issue.

I couldn't have been the only one who has walked into the office, hear some smalltalk about a recent media article about a study that changes a health/childrearing/insert some other science related recommendation here, and then hear people say "next thing you know they're going to say oranges are bad for you <or insert other random statement about conventional science recommendation turned on its head here>." Man I've experienced such smalltalk so many times. Or maybe I am the only one here who has experienced such talk? That would explain a lot. And if so, I'll be quiet now!

[zenmaster]

I think what is interesting is that small areas in the scientific (analytical) community are starting to appreciate ideas of 'consciousness', etc as fundamental to the experience, as well as finding that the experiences actually reactive to the thoughts of he who experiences.

Why is that interesting?

[reeay]

We have a list of problems and no suggestions of alternatives or potential ways to improve research... nor acknowledgment of the benefits of research. Suggestions?

[zenmaster]

We have a list of problems and no suggestions of alternatives or potential ways to improve research... nor acknowledgment of the benefits of research. Suggestions?

I don't think we have a well defined list of problems.

[GentleReckoning]

We have a list of problems and no suggestions of alternatives or potential ways to improve research... nor acknowledgment of the benefits of research. Suggestions?

Empower the individual to research whatever they're excited about. It's already happening, but it could certainly use a kickstart.

[Fang]

In regards to the scientific community it should be understood that the rise of naturalistic science in the 19th century is what forced apart philosophy from science, many would say social reasons dictated how this took shape (rejection of the church and the image of deity carved out by such an authority). This is what has led to the reductionist and specialized outlook of modern science, utilizing occums razor perhaps a little to enthusiastically but it must be recognized that this has had so many benefits as well and I personally would say has been an overall boon for humanity, we would have not likely developed certain fields of knowledge to their current degree without this change of direction. However, as humanity progresses, awareness expands and people start to realize how each specialized field interacts to collectively produce the world we all interact with and this allows once again for philosophical inquiry hand in hand with scientific investigation.

[reeay]

We have a list of problems and no suggestions of alternatives or potential ways to improve research... nor acknowledgment of the benefits of research. Suggestions?

I don't think we have a well defined list of problems.

No we don't, we have personal catalyst around the issue of research/researchers/psychologists (or what is externalized as such).

Put this into historical context, you do see the area of research changing. We speak of quantitative/modernist paradigm of research but not about lesser know, alternative paradigms that came out as a response to the limitations of modernist/reductionistic paradigm. Like paradigms that are 100x more transparent about biases, both personal and theoretical.

[xise]

We have a list of problems and no suggestions of alternatives or potential ways to improve research... nor acknowledgment of the benefits of research. Suggestions?

I don't think we have a well defined list of problems.

No we don't, we have personal catalyst around the issue of research/researchers/psychologists (or what is externalized as such).

Put this into historical context, you do see the area of research changing. We speak of quantitative/modernist paradigm of research but not about lesser know, alternative paradigms that came out as a response to the limitations of modernist/reductionistic paradigm. Like paradigms that are 100x more transparent about biases, both personal and theoretical.

I don't think you can do anything with personal catalyst, other than encourage people to explore learning how to process personal catalyst so that anything labelled similarly will not produced a biased response. In short, it's similar problem whenever you deal with biases, prejudices, and stereotypes of any kind. A public awareness campaign or meme that each study (just like each person) should be treated fairly and without prejudice might help. (Btw, psychologists only upset me a little these days - maybe only a deep breath away from acceptance whenever they come up - but I wanted to draw an illustration from a personal catalyst that was much more significant in the past).


However, institutional issues with research are probably more than personal catalyst in the sense that they represent communal biases or communal catalyst (assuming that article is accurate); for example in the article referenced above about the major journals seeking flashy or 'impact' studies over reliable ones. I think couldn't hurt to try to balance institutional issues involving fame, impact, or whatever else it may be. Similar CNN article on impact distorting studies and reporting: Issues with Sugar studies and media reports


Another big institutional issue concerning the areas of research is that research often follows the money, and so our areas of most research are often the ones with reliable profit potential (I realize that you probably are using the phrase of "area of research" to refer to something else rie, but I do see room for improvement in this arena). I think we can make a real difference if we work upon the institutional issues present in the research community. For one random example of change (not necessarily for the better)- delinking money so that research is more curiosity driven than profit driven would shift where most of the research goes. For example, one possible way to delink money to research is decrease the duration of patents across the board by 50%. You'd probably decrease the amount of overall research, but you'd probably have a more representative range of research projects that accurately represent what most people are curious about as opposed to what areas of research corporations find the most lucrative. You often see a concern about the origins of the money for research play back into distrust of studies, especially drug-company funded studies - it's probably an intersection of personal distortion and institutional distortion.


As far as theoretical improvement to the scientific paradigm, I do fundamentally believe that one day we'll be able to prove scientifically and repeatedly recreate "spiritual" things which we cannot today. I think zenny is right when he's said in other threads that telepathy hasn't been proven because we have not sufficiently understood the mechanisms at work to able to do it reliably. An ancient soothsayer could try and predict hurricanes based on the movement of birds (birds have now been studied and scientifically proven to sense changes in air pressure and change their behavior before major storms), but until we really understood meteorology and utilized radar created through the scientific method we couldn't really predict hurricanes with much accuracy or warning. Many of these 'spiritual' abilities are like that soothsayer trying to read the birds. There might be some sort of connection, but it's not reliable enough to be reproduced in the laboratory because we frankly don't understand the mechanisms involved enough. But one day, I think that will probably change. For example, Tibetan Monks Raise Body Temperature Through Meditation Despite Being Wrapped With -25C Sheets

So in summarizing the potential issues with science in general, it seems there are at least three categories:

1) personal distortions
2) institutional distortions
3) theoretical distortions

Are we missing anything else?

p.s. Rie, I am not familiar with either the lesser known paradigms you mention or other paradigms with 100x more transparency you mention. What paradigms are you referring to?

This is an area that I have studied very little. But it's also an area I'm super fascinated with as I have repeatedly experienced people rejecting the scientific paradigm due to personal catalyst and so I'm interested in scientific paradigms as a whole (I am familiar with scientific reductionism and the issue of emergence).

[Fang]

Xise, science is essentially the myth of modern men (and women). It is simply the best we've ever had and the one that is allowing us to discover more about the universe and use that knowledge for the benefit of our race more so than any other myth has before.

I'm not saying people should just blindly follow science if that's what you're getting at, as that does happen, almost like a collective psychological transference of the church to the scientific community in terms of value. And yes, you can't expect everyone to be well versed in scientific knowledge as most scientists are only well versed in a certain field anyways lol. But the thing is, there is a difference between a pool of academic knowledge and a practitioner who is trained in that, I have no doubt that there are certain psychologists who are full of bs but they are hardly an accurate reflection of the field and it's practitioners as a whole.

My discussion has been about why two distinct subsets of people (those with scientific expertise in an area, and those without) can have trouble working with one another

Different strokes for different folks. I'll show myself out.

[xise]

My discussion has been about why two distinct subsets of people (those with scientific expertise in an area, and those without) can have trouble working with one another

Different strokes for different folks. I'll show myself out.

Please don't! I came in at the angle of adding non-green meme-exclusive factors as to why people might distrust science in general (non-green meme personal catalyst), but I'm totally interested in the broader potential problems and issues with the overall theoretical scientific paradigm as well.

I just don't have much knowledge in the theoretical area so my earlier comments were limited to what I know and what I've experienced.

[xise]

For anyone who is fascinated by people's reaction to studies that turn supposed conventional scientific recommendations on their head, here's two recent New York Times articles (past 2 days). I find the comments fascinating as people grapple with seemingly different pieces of advice.

"Vast Study Casts Doubts on Value of Mammograms"

"Why Vitamins May Be Bad for Your Workout"

Comments from some of articles that seem to have common themes:
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AH
Oklahoma 22 hours ago
Isn't it odd that all these studies are coming out now when governments everywhere are seeking to cut back medical costs? Naturally almost all the studies calling breast imaging into question emanate from countries with one-payer systems. For my part, I know several women whose lives have probably been saved by early detection as well as some who died because they waited too long before being examined. As Einstein said, 'The theory (in this case cost-cutting) determines what you see.'”

LaPortaMA
ROSELAND, FL 36 minutes ago
This is the same debate that took place the year I finished my training at an academic center in 1982 with truly thoughtful people who did not yet have an enormous stake and it had not yet acquired the enormous gravity of "standards". What goes around comes around.

The word "science " implies an orderly acquisition of knowledge and comes from the same root as scissors, dissection and discernment. The Greeks had two words for science: tekne , the knowledge to influence outcomes, and episteme , knowledge of truth.

We're a very long way from understanding. I, for one, have long believed that our entire approach was misdirected from very early on -- decades if not centuries -- and that fits the recurring vascillation in results statistics and and outcome assessments.

Professors will continue to do what they do.

Rev. E.M. Camarena, Ph.D.
Hells Kitchen, NYC 5 hours ago
Who is really behind the newly minted war on vitamins? And why? That is what I want to know.

Elliot
NJ 5 hours ago
It's amazing how studies like this get published. I actually wrote to the author of the study to ask a couple of questions. First of all they used a synthetic Vitamin E. For those who don't know the difference, vitamin E in it's natural state has 8 parts. The study used only 1 part (alpha) and that part was a synthetic version (dl alpha) of the vitamin, which has only around 25% of the potency of alpha. So you can see the researchers started off with a inferior form of vitamin E and concluded it doesn't work except to get headlines, which is becoming very common now. If that's not enough Dr. Paulsen concludes without any basis, that "It’s probably only concentrated extracts that are potentially dangerous". Some scientist!

David Michael
Eugene, Oregon 6 hours ago
Spare us from another vacuous article on the pros and cons of vitamins. Everything associated with these so called "Authoritative" works of research are suspect....

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Perhaps it's personal distortions of the media to create controversy that creates the appearance of potential institutional issues with study reliability? Curious stuff. Although it's been an effective meme to tap into when arguing to the jury to disregard expert testimony because it was based on a recent, and therefore unreliable, study.

Edit: Found another interesting article about the subject. "Chart of the Day: Conservatives Don't Trust Science". "Conservatives with high school degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and graduate degrees all experienced greater distrust in science over time [or decades]....In addition...conservatives with college degrees decline more quickly than those with only a high school degree."

[zenmaster]

We have a list of problems and no suggestions of alternatives or potential ways to improve research... nor acknowledgment of the benefits of research. Suggestions?

I don't think we have a well defined list of problems.

No we don't, we have personal catalyst around the issue of research/researchers/psychologists (or what is externalized as such).

Put this into historical context, you do see the area of research changing. We speak of quantitative/modernist paradigm of research but not about lesser know, alternative paradigms that came out as a response to the limitations of modernist/reductionistic paradigm. Like paradigms that are 100x more transparent about biases, both personal and theoretical.

I was actually looking into this subject a few years back. The biases also include assumptions which tend to not be included in research data and can be difficult to elicit. At one point, I was intuitively intrigued with Gordon Rugg's "Verifier Approach", because the suggestion was to become more conscious of what constitutes knowledge behind our compelling claims. Unless we are willfully hiding that knowledge, the resulting elicitation of basis in experience would yield the same ends as "transparency".

[reeay]

The modernist, deductive research paradigm is not the only paradigm in social science research (and I'm referring mainly to the OP of this thread which was comparison between biologically based and bio+environmentally based investigation of a phenomenon called addiction). There are postmodern, inductive research paradigms that attempt to capture the complexity of a phenomenon like addiction. Biologically based, statistically based, modernist research misses out on the complexity of the whole addiction phenomenon bc it is reduced to several factors only (brain/neurochemistry, etc).

The problem is that it's difficult to learn - you either get postmodern/post-postmodern paradigms or you don't. I dunno why the schism but something as simple of observing how one's biases influences interactions with others is a difficult task for most. I've observed this among graduate students I've mentored as a teaching assistant and in the professional world. In postmodern research paradigms you have to basically lay out your biases, agendas, assumptions, - all the good stuff- and begin to notice how even asking certain questions to others can affect your findings. It recognizes that the person collecting data is a part of the result, too.

[kaamil20]

We also use the term in veterinary medicine when vets take medicines from their shelf rather than going to a doctor, so I would say it's taking medicines/drugs that have not specifically been prescribed for you. Obviously that doesn't include things you can get over the counter.