Issue41

41"Such nonmainstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play a vital role in society by satisfying human needs that are not addressed by mainstream science."
(540 words)
With the development of the science and technology, as science can explain many questions we meet everyday, no matter material or ideological ones, there are more and more people are beginning to think that the science can solve every setback during our lives. However, there still exist a host of persons who hold the nition that science can't help human being out of everything. In my point of view, the two facets are not mutually exclusive, what the achievements of the elites means is just the welfare of the people.The nonmianstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling and psychic and paranormal pursuits have a long history. Before science's value was recognized by most people, they maneuvor the society for thousands of years. They did many good to the development of human being, as long as the bad things. For example, Copernics, astromer and founder of the heliocentric ordering of the planets, wrote many great masterpieces on astronomy and mathematics. However, thank to the pope then, who insisted that the earth is the core of the universe, the books Copernics wrote had not be read by public until his death. It is said that no great book of western intellectual history circulated less widely and was read by fewer people than Copernicus's Revolution. Nonetheless, it has come to be considered a seminal text of modern astronomy. We can also learn from this story that some so-called non-mainstream pursuits today may become mainstream fields of science tomorrow.Admittedly, non-mainstream areas have survived for thousands of years and still hold considerable influence over the masses for several reasons. To begin with, people are born curious. For people with such an anxious propensity to know their fate and the future, whether good or bad, astrology, fortune-telling and psychics serve as comfort. Ignorance, which largely originates from lack of education, allows for acceptance of such metaphysical research. Our civilization and culture has survived since ancient times, when people were ignorant of the true causes of natural phenomana. The only way to explain events was to resort to areas like astrology, which held respected roles as the sources of truth. Even with thousands of years of social evolution, some portions of those traditional cultures remain intact as non-mainstream elements in our present day society.While non-mainstream pursuits might help some people feel better about themselves, their choices and their consequences, speculation is of no tangible value to either individual or society. First, such pursuits are not rooted in reason. Second, without means to evaluate the legitimacy of these avenues of inquiry, participants become vulnerable to self-deception, false hopes, fantastic ideas, and detrimental delusion. So-called insights gained from these pursuits can easily serve as a convenient excuse for dangerous, irrational and unreasonable actions.In sum, the explosive development of science and technology has more or less brought about many chance to conquer the problem, as well as some new challenges and problems that people cannot solve using science only, which means that the nonmainstream areas is to some extent relevant to their daily lives and can them accomplish their goals more successfully in modern society. Those nonmainstream areas do play a vital role in society by satisfying humab needs that are not addressed by mainstream science.