一個氣功科學工作者的札記: 氣功科學的問題與思考

Notes by a Worker for Qigong Science: Reflections on the Problems of Qigong Science

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

修煉氣功大有益於人的健康。但對於氣功那些令人震撼的效應，還沒有提出一套比較完整的氣功科學理論來加以解釋。然而，無法用當代已接受的科學理論來說明的現象不應一概斥之為迷信。當我們說“氣功科學”時，我們並不是說氣功已經是一門科學，而是說要以科學的態度、方法、手段和精神來對待氣功，研究氣功，努力開創一個科學探索的新領域。在這一探索中，還要注意從氣功的理論、世界觀和方法論出發來設計氣功科學實驗，而不是以常規科學的方式為萬能的或唯一正確的研究方式。

Many people have noticed that practicing qigong is beneficial to human health. However, how does it work is not quite clear. Especially, there is no way to use the contemporarily accepted scientific theories to explain some strikingly impressive effects and phenomena that qigong practitioners have brought out. But we should not take all of them as superstitious simply because they cannot be brought to light by currently accepted scientific theories. Instead, we should seriously explore qigong science.

When we speak "qigong science", we do not mean qigong is already a science. Rather, we mean that we ought to study qigong through scientific methods and in scientific attitude and spirit in order to open a new area for scientific inquiry. The basic spirit of science is honesty: truth is truth, and false is false. Science is not static. It is always developing. In scientific investigations of qigong, we must take notice to the special characteristics of qigong: its own theories, worldviews as well as methodologies. In designing scientific experiments on qigong, we should not take currently common scientific designing procedures and rules as absolute and universal standards. Rather, we should adapt them in ways of suiting the peculiar features of qigong practice so that useful information and results can be brought about.

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