From: xzh@eddy.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Xiang Zhou)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Re: Yan Xing and Qi Gong, Is It Science?
Date: 3 Jan 1993 19:44:33 GMT
Organization: Brown University Center for Fluid Mechanics
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: eddy.cfm.brown.edu

In article <C0AJFM.DrL@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, xlli@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (xiao-lin li) writes:
|> In article <X5b=V-+@engin.umich.edu> chen@caen.engin.umich.edu (Jian Chen) writes:
|> >
|> >Yan Xing came to Ann Arbor to give a Qi Gong lecture last year.
|> >I attended his lecture. During his lecture, I followed his instruction
|> >and, after 30 minites, my arms keep shaking and I can not control
|> >my arm. When I went to restroom and left the lecture hall, the
|> >Qi Gong effect disappears. I also saw many people lost their control
|> >and laugh or cry. From my personal experience, Yan Xing's Qi Gong
|> >is a real thing although I do not understand it. Probably, it is 
|> >something beyong today's science.
|> 
|> I am sure your arm shaking has a biological explanation as a kind of
|> muscle fatigue :-). Ancient people considered rain as the will of
|> dragon. I also noticed that some people in the room had crazy movements.
|> I had video record of some of them. But I also noticed that these people
|> did not come from local area, instead they all came from remote
|> places. I suspect it is a kind of political society. Because Yan
|> Xing seemed to know all of them. It would be interesting if some
|> people who had recorded Yan Xing's lecture elsewhere compare with
|> each other and see if these laughing and crying people all have the
|> same faces.
|> 
|> Yan Xing spent first four hours bragging. Nothing scientific and
|> nothing could be considered as scientific report. No data, no
|> graphics, no explanation. It was a political report. It recalls me
|> the report of Mr. Li Yanjie and Mr. Qu Xiao, only in a different
|> format.
|> 
|> I am sure many Chinese people are crazy about Qi Gong and Yan Xing.
|> Chinese have been crazy for many idiological things during the last
|> few decades. To name a few: the water drinking movement (one drinks
|> three bowl of water in the morning and can heal every desease),
|> the magical "red tea" (hong2 cha2 jun3), the throwing hand movement
|> (shuai3 shou3 cao1) and so on. Not to mention the political craziness
|> of Mao's time and thereafter.
|> 

   
     You didn't make comparisons properly here. The Qi Gong has lasted 
for thousands of years has numerious solid evidences to support its existence.
The point is that people should not overdo anything. Kong3 Zi1 said that
too much is like not enough. It applies to everything, including Qi Gong and
yes, Science. From your messages, it seems to me that you are making
too much of the current science. Two hundred years ago, people would think
what we have now were impossible and crazy. Two hundred years from now, there
will be many things that we may think crazy. The point is that on the
one hand you have to be careful about what you are doing, that is the attitude
of science, on the oher hand, don't be rigid, use your imaginations,
this is the source of discovery. Like UFO and other mystries, Qi Gong is
something which can not be explained properly by the current science. Let's
accept its existence and I don't believe it will be beyond the future
Science.


|> >He made some strong claims about remote control on nuclear decay,
|> >molecular reactions. From my limited knowledge, I do not believe
|> >it. However, I only can say it has not been proven to me. I do
|> >not want to say it is not true or anything else. If I did not
|> >go to Yan Xing's lecture, I would not believe that he can make
|> >my arm shaking beyong my control.
|> 
|> I respect people's sincere believe of religion even I myself
|> don't believe them (because I was trained and educated in this
|> way). But don't claim it as science. Science has its integrity.
|> Science is not popularity, prestige or person. Science is a
|> continuing human understanding. Scientist may suffer political,
|> religious persecution, but he is honest. He never, ever brags!
|> 
|> >J Chen
|> >Department of Chemistry
|> >University of Michigan
|> 
|> I am sure you know how chemists discovered H2O. How it is made.
|> How much binding energy among these atoms. Otherwise how could 
|> yourself believe your papers are scientifically publishable?
|> 
|> 
|>