> > You've picked a field of study I know nothing
> > about, but I wonder how accurate your summary of
> > the matter is.
>
> Please, try not to form an opinion on a topic before understanding it... that's how science goes bad.

Hmm? Based on my reading of Stephen's comments, he formed no opinion on neurofeedback at all. What he said was that your argument - which is to say, that part where you said that no legitimate research in the field has been conducted in years due to hippie associations dissuading scientists from looking at it - was suspect. One need not know bean one about neurofeedback to make that assertion; I, for example, don't even know what it is, and yet I contend that your argument was poor. Many many many many things that have been embraced by hippies and other new-age sorts have subsequently been heavily researched by real honest-to-gosh-darnit scientists. Stephen, in fact, provided a handy list of such fields, and you commented on several of them.

All this gay banter requires not one single micron of knowledge about neurofeedback.

> I don't believe in it, I don't understand how or why it works... but I also don't stick my head in a hole and pretend that it doesn't exist. I just don't understand it. I wish that *somebody* would do some serious legitimate research into those areas, and find out what the heck's going on.

Lots of people have. Lots and LOTS of people have. There is a huge mass of legitimate, reproduced, supported research done on every single one of the things Stephen mentioned. Some of them - alchemy, perpetual motion, crop circles - don't get investigated much nowadays because there's simply no point. Impossible, Impossible, hoax, in that order. How do I know this? Because legions of dedicated scientists have already done this research you call for and already demonstrated that.

The other topics on the list are in no better shape, save one tiny exception (I'll get to that). They've ALL been researched by real scientists using real methods, and they've ALL been debunked conclusively. Not one scrap of real evidence has EVER been turned up in a properly-performed, controlled, reproducable setting to indicate that any one of these "alternative" ideas has anything to it but the power of positive gullibility.

The small exception I mentioned is parapsychology. There are good parapsychologists and bad parapsychologists. The good guys are the ones who know that it's an empty field; they realise that the entire history of their chosen discipline does not contain one single repeatable experiment, but they continue to probe new ideas. That is science. The people who insist that ESP was proven by tests run on Uri Geller in the seventies are morons relying on embarassing non-science to float a shaky philosophy.

> Now that I think about it, there are actually three separate problems:
>
> 1) Fields of research (or researchers) that are shunned, resulting in a loss of knowledge

Name one field of research that is demonstrably shunned. By "demonstrably" I mean you can provide evidence that people actually shy away from investigating this field for any reason under the sun OTHER THAN "there's nothing left to investigate." Continuing to investigate the field of Alchemy, for example, is a tiresome waste of manpower.

> 2) Fields of research that are ignored (not even researched enough to be disproved, which is a bad thing for the general public)

Again, name one, under the same conditions.

> 3) Research that gets distorted by internal / external influences. (Please refer to the link for one way in which this can happen.)

THIS time, I agree. That is a major problem in science. It is demonstrably responsible for the overwhelming majority of non-negative studies in paranormal fields, for example.

> Question everything, and assume nothing. That way leads to objectivity.

Incorrect. That way leads to being the annoying kid in the back of the classroom who just says "why?" and "you can't PROVE that" in response to everything anyone says. Unless you're convinced that you have enough free time to do all investigation into all disciplines yourself, the correct path to objectivity is to learn who and when to trust for your information. And as a rule, it's safe to trust studies that have been reproduced several times by independent researchers.

Unless, of course, the Science Illuminati is just trying to trick us all into overlooking how important and fundamentally applicable astrology really is. But YNCFT.