> Are we going to say that any sort of spiritual practice (which can be seen as form of unscientific therapy that can provide value to people) is "post-theory s

> Are we going to say that any sort of spiritual practice (which can be seen as form of unscientific therapy that can provide value to people) is "post-theory science"? Are we going to say that a thousand year old medicine which did not understand placebo effects is "post-theory science"? Are we going to say that when people meditate to understand how they feel, and then they can't accurately explain the biochemical processes is "post-theory science"? I mean, we kinda do - in the sense that, yes, there is a lot of knowledge about actually effective medicine in those, but a lot less why particular remedies work and why others don't work. This can easily lead to "cargo cult" like behaviour, where all you can do is blindly repeat certain rituals and hope they work, but you cannot really refine your methods or develop new methods. (Actually, that's not quite correct. A lot of pre-modern science absolutely tried to develop theories and models behind their observation - as even the original "cargo cult" did - but those were wrong and didn't allow predictions)