[ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False?

[The Avantguardian]

----- Original Message ----
> From: Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Mon, March 15, 2010 3:12:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] DNA - The Next Internet: True or False?

Thanks for your post Stuart, really 
> informative. So in summary you
think this effect is real, and western 
> scientists are ignoring it,
basically for cultural reasons?

What effect? I do think that the phenomenon of weak biophotonic emittance by cells and organisms has been independently confirmed in multiple labs for decades now. I do not think that think a lot of the effects attributed to those photons are real. For example, I don't think they can turn a frog embryo into a salamander embryo. I do think it is unfortunate that so many quacks and wannabe new age gurus have latched onto and, by association, discredited what is potentially an important line of scientific inquiry.
 
Whereas the woo factor probably plays a large part of the reason why western science is ignoring the phenomenon, I am sure at least a portion of it cultural. A social psychologist named Richard Nisbett conducted some experiments in the beginning of the decade that demonstrate quite profound differences between ingrained western and eastern psychology. People from the two cultures *literally* see the world differently. Westerners tend to be reductionistic individualists. Easterners tend to be holistic collectivists. Westerners tend to fixate on singular points of reference and analyze them to great depths. Easterners tend to place those points of reference in a larger context and analyze the context. Here you may be interested in his work:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=americans-and-chinese-dif
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/35/12629.full?sid=4346428f-a6a4-49a3-a73c-ac9dd382980b
 
Stuart LaForge 

"What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight." - Joseph Joubert