Resonate This

[liveonearth]

Lately I keep hearing people talk about what they "resonate with". It is how people choose their spiritual paths. "The Lakota (path) is the one I find I resonate best with." And it is how many in complementary medicine decide which modalities to practice. An intelligent and lovely young woman "resonates" with UNDA numbers and believes that homeopathic "drainage" is how she should practice medicine. She would take a patient off a proven medicine to give them what she resonates with. A charismatic professor "resonates" with muscle testing and so uses it to decide what medicines to give.

I take issue with this. If we rely on psychological resonance to help us make decisions, what are they really based on? The attractiveness of the proposition to our subconscious mind? The degree to which it fits with what we already believe? This method for making decisions about important matters is unscientific and terribly dangerous. It might be appropriate for chosing a metaphysical practice, but is it really suitable for making decisions about how to practice medicine? I think NOT. Intuition has its place, but it cannot and should not completely replace rational thought. Unconscious competence comes only after years of conscious education.

Comments

[b-vainamoinen.livejournal.com]

There's intuition and then there's BS.

The phrase that became my mantra when I was in grad school was:

"The truth is not 'whatever sounds right.'"