4 ms·

I'm not sure how much scientific value can be found in texts written before the scientific method was developed. Aristotle's writings on biology and cosmology a

I'm not sure how much scientific value can be found in texts written before the scientific method was developed. Aristotle's writings on biology and cosmology are almost entirely nonsense, for example.

klodolph 4y ago
MBIs are based on pre-scientific practices to begin with. Wouldn't it be a bit weird to say that MBIs are effective, but then say that all of the associated literature from 3,000 years is probably nonsense and not worth investigating? We like to talk about how smart the ancient Greeks are. Greeks invented geometry, Greeks theorized that the Earth is round and measured its diameter, Greeks theorized that matter was made of atoms. Dalton gets credit for proving atomism experimentally, but he started out by gathering information from previous thinkers and experimenters. The same is true of other cultures besides the Greeks and other theories besides atomism. It's easy to pick on Aristotle. He said some really stupid things; he said that men have more teeth than women. We can find plenty of quacks from the 20th century like Freud and Jung, plenty of barbarism like when Egas Moniz who cut up people's brains to change their behavior. Meanwhile, we keep discovering practices performed by various "primitive" peoples that are effective, and with investigation, we can understand the reason why it is effective. You don't need to read a 2,000-year-old Sanskrit text and take it at face value, but if you are studying the effects of meditation, it seems completely natural that you might want to do a literature review!
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  MBI?
  - klodolph 4y ago
    Mindfulness-based intervention.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      Ah, thanks. I managed to miss that somehow.
      - klodolph 4y ago
        I don't think I explained the acronym. I've been reading a lot of papers that use the acronym so it must have slipped by.
        dredmorbius 4y ago
        You did, though not immediately preceding the first use: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31591072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31591072

klodolph 4y ago

MBIs are based on pre-scientific practices to begin with. Wouldn't it be a bit weird to say that MBIs are effective, but then say that all of the associated literature from 3,000 years is probably nonsense and not worth investigating? We like to talk about how smart the ancient Greeks are. Greeks invented geometry, Greeks theorized that the Earth is round and measured its diameter, Greeks theorized that matter was made of atoms. Dalton gets credit for proving atomism experimentally, but he started out by gathering information from previous thinkers and experimenters. The same is true of other cultures besides the Greeks and other theories besides atomism. It's easy to pick on Aristotle. He said some really stupid things; he said that men have more teeth than women. We can find plenty of quacks from the 20th century like Freud and Jung, plenty of barbarism like when Egas Moniz who cut up people's brains to change their behavior. Meanwhile, we keep discovering practices performed by various "primitive" peoples that are effective, and with investigation, we can understand the reason why it is effective. You don't need to read a 2,000-year-old Sanskrit text and take it at face value, but if you are studying the effects of meditation, it seems completely natural that you might want to do a literature review!

dredmorbius 4y ago
MBI?
- klodolph 4y ago
  Mindfulness-based intervention.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Ah, thanks. I managed to miss that somehow.
    - klodolph 4y ago
      I don't think I explained the acronym. I've been reading a lot of papers that use the acronym so it must have slipped by.
      - dredmorbius 4y ago
        You did, though not immediately preceding the first use: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31591072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31591072