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Comment by Simon321 | Hacker News Reader

Meditation, such a scam. I can't believe so many intelligent people are fooled by it. It's nothing more than a relaxation technique and that's it.

The studies about meditation are mostly of dubious quality and origin, and people draw unwarranted conclusions from them.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/21/quacks-eve...

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Oh well.. you have a blog to backup what your are saying... pro-meditation "quacks" have been told! Internet: 1 Meditation: 0

I think you have to pause and reflect for a minute when you say things like: "I can't believe so many intelligent people are fooled by it". Maybe they aren't the ones being foolish... ?

Even without any knowledge about meditation it should be clear that attention control = brain activity, brain activity = brain rewiring (relearning). Rewired brain = different behavior and different thoughts. One meditation may yield insignificant rewiring, but make it routinely, and the effect adds up. Science will catch up later, because we all know it is difficult to quantify and measure anything related to brain.

I think, just like a religion, it's not really the skeptics job to 'disprove' the theory. I think the job of the ones promoting it is to prove it.

A link to skeptics dictionary: http://www.skepdic.com/tm.html

TM recruiting literature is full of charts and graphs demonstrating the wonders of TM. Things like metabolic rate, oxygen consumption rate, bodily production of carbon dioxide, hormone production, brain waves, etc. are measured and charted and graphically presented to suggest that TM really takes a person to a new state of consciousness. Some of the studies done by TM scientists simply show that some of the same physiological results you can achieve by relaxing completely are achievable by TM. Nevertheless, according to TM advocates, tests have shown that TM produces "neurophysiological signatures that are distinctly different from relaxation and rest "[Judy Stein, personal correspondence]. Critics disagree.* The particular value of these physiological changes one can achieve by meditation have not been shown to be unique to transcendental meditation.

EDIT: Another interesting read: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/03/08/r...

"The Transcendental Meditation movement publishes scores of "peer-reviewed" articles in minor journals attempting to prove the medical benefits of their seated chanting. Reputable studies show that there are, however , no benefits beyond standard relaxation techniques." Source:http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation

Umm... what about non "Transcendental Meditation"? Or are you just finding one perceived misuse and applying it to everything? (Does skepdic.com have an entry on that particular fallacy?)

TM is one of the most widely practiced, and among the most widely researched meditation techniques.[7][8][9] Source: Wikipedia

So it just makes sense to talk about that one. The others ones aren't really researched that well. Which variation would you prefer?

If you're going to call meditation a "scam," it's your responsibility to survey the field and know what you're talking about.

Do you derive "mostly of dubious quality" from this angry blogger's "I've read some of these studies?"

These anti-quackery people aren't really operating in full scientific rigor mode.

For more information, see my post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6284735

Saying meditation is a scam is sort of like saying religion is a scam. It may be true objectively, but if it works, it works.

And why would you want to bring religion into this discussion?

The benefits of meditation is well documented. In fact, a Scientific American article published Oster's research papers on brainwave entrainment in aiding meditation way back in July 1973 - http://neuroactivator.com/blog/brainwave-entrainment/

There are dubious claims about the benefits of meditation floating around though. I've seen a business peddling a "meditation-based program" which claims to cure cancer. Made me sick to the stomach.

> I've seen a business peddling a "meditation-based program" which claims to cure cancer.

That's more than shocking and depressing -- i's often illegal. If a person makes such a claim within the covers of a book, it's legal, but if he makes the claim as part of an advertisement, promotion or speech, he can be prosecuted for (among other things) practicing medicine without a license.

Please get lost with your shallow unscientific attitudes that are devoid of any critical thinking or logic. Yes, people with Nobel prizes, intelligent people, professors, scientists are being fooolish while you with a blog have disproved all of them. Huzzah.

Life Pro Tip: If a bunch of people smarter than you believe in something, maybe it is time to stop and critically think.

In this post, i give more information:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6284735

The specific location of the fallacy demonstrated is probably in the definition of meditation as relaxation. Probably a better definition would be something along the lines of practicing a mix of self discipline and self awareness introspection.

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