Aummmmm

Yet another well-meaning but deluded individual:

At 9 a.m. Saturday [April 29, 2006] at Eden Park's Mirror Lake, tai chi teacher Vince Lasorso will kick off what he calls the Greater Cincinnati 30-Day Experiment for Peace. The goal: get at least 3,000 people - or about 1 percent of the city's population - to pray or meditate for 30 days, thereby creating a "peaceful field of consciousness" that he said would change "the energetic climate in which thoughts are formed." ... He says studies have shown that if 1 percent of a community practices meditation and other inner peace techniques, the crime rate can dip more than 20 percent.

It's the old Maharisihi crap being regurgitated yet again. Look at this way. Even if prayer has never been shown to work (with even the best and largest scientific studies showing it to be an utter waste of time and effort) the deluded will continue believing otherwise. Even a 100% failure rate does not disuade them from abandoning their delusion. My father used to say some people never learn until they crash into a concrete wall. Well, these nutcases have a 100% crash rate and still haven't learned and just will not learn. Why? Because admitting defeat would spell psychological death for them. Can you imagine the depression from that disillusionment? How much of themselves have they invested? How much of their worldview would crumble? What little would be left if they bite the bullet? Could they recover from it?

Lasorso has already prepped his mind for the inevitable: "'I'm confident this will have an effect (on crime),'" he said. "'I don't know how measurable it will be.'" That's faith for you. If no statistically significant decrease in crime rate occurs--patent falsifying, confuting evidence--he will still go on believing. Besides he has at least one excuse ready--he probably won't be able to attract 3,000 woowoos to Eden Park to join him in the practice of his delusion.

On the other hand, should there be a statistically significant dip in crime rate, Lasorso will no doubt make a big deal of his project's "success." Never mind how unwarranted that may be. Who in Cincinnati has ever heard of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, right?

Physicist Bob Park's shoot from the lip response succinctly describes Lasorso's pipe dream: "Pure malarkey."


(My brother works in Cincinnati. I wonder if he'll be anywhere near Eden Park tomorrow.)