Sima Nan believes that an honest scientific evaluation of qigong would be a useful way to settle the debate. Even street vagabond con artists now claim scientific validation for their craft. The trouble is that the qigong industry has everything to lose and nothing to gain from real scientific scrutiny. Many believers of this hoax could not fathom how young children would ever be capable of fooling grown adults, claiming that they lacked the means and motives for such deception. The China Psychological Institute, affiliated with the CAS, tested these children and found that none of them could perform under testing conditions set up to prevent cheating.
Some children like to attract attention by pulling pranks.
Some popular writers claim that because some masters volunteer to treat patients for free, this proves that they are genuine and sincere. Sima Nan said that he would also gladly volunteer to take control of the nation's gold reserves and money supply, but he would certainly be prevented from doing so. Some might wish to volunteer to protect the nation's top leaders, or perform surgery. The fact that someone volunteers to do something does not mean that they are qualified for such tasks. In Sima Nan's view all of the qigong masters that he has observed are exactly alike in one respect-they are all mainly interested in money.