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Comment by cyberpunk | Hacker News Reader

Things that don’t get concrete results for people tend not to survive 2000+ years, like meditation, taichi/qigong/whatever; so i don’t think some things really need scientific proof. Even then, how do you scientifically prove if something makes you feel better who really cares if it’s x or y receptor or brainwave pattern or whatever?

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This is simply an "Appeal to Tradition" fallacy. People do lots of things for thousands of years that are worthless, wrong, or pointless. However, this also doesn't mean that just because we've done these things for a long time that they are in fact pointless.

There are methods to prove subjective things like "feeling better." There is in fact a lot of research that shows that meditation and exercise like Taichi is good for you.

Astrology is more than 4000 years old, what concrete results did it provide?

One could claim it is a self reflection tool where the point is not the claims at face value, but the value lies in the activity itself of focusing, of directing your mind to look at and feel your existence from a different/wide perspective. Which is true about many pedagogical tools.

The concrete results would thus be highly specific to the subject and their learning process on what they themselves deem relevant.

This has been my answer too, to more analytical minded friends who asked (sardonically).

I-ching / tarot can be looked at strictly as systems for structured introspection.

It gives people some comfort and motivation, same as religions do. I’m not saying everything that lasted so long has scientifically verifiable benefits, but they clear have some societal or mental benefits otherwise people wouldn’t do em

This sounds like saying "Everything that human beings do is good, because if it wasn't, they wouldn't continue to do it!"

it may sound like that to you , to me it sounds like survival of the fittest has nothing to do with what we humans choose to define as fit

Survival of the fittest is "that which reproduces more successfully, continues". In biology, this is genetics. In ideas, it's memetics. I suppose this means that our most powerful ideas from the internet generation are Rickroll, Doge, and Grumpy Cat.

one reflection on that would be the nvc phrase "violence is the tragic expression of unmet needs"

Ok, then let's put it all together and say that people are interested in whether or not yoga has concrete benefits above and beyond comfort and motivation, which, while obviously valuable, are not the stated benefits.

Forgot the ground rhino horn to make your dick hard. What's the thing shark fins are supposed to do? I can never remember.

Prayer has been around a lot longer than that, and no objective blind tests have ever been able to prove any verifiable results.

Longevity of ideas is not correlated with usefulness. Our belief systems are not optimized; they are, like genetic evolution, just 'good enough' to allow survival.

Like, praying? Or maybe one feels good after sincere prayers, perhaps…

I’ve heard too many stories of people stopping the scientific backed medicines because they’ve thought that prayer was enough.

Humans will not be able to evolve until we eradicate religion from the earth.

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