First of all, great article. The most important point you make is to stop believing in quackery and start determining one's own life through action, rather than 'thinking' that life will mystically happen through intention.

As a convert to reason and science (I was sucked into The Field at one point in my life because I was desperate and hadn't made the connection between my own effort and success) I fully agree books like this are a dangerous route to go down. They disempower the reader and make the world appear far more opaque than it really is.

Several criticisms come to mind(your pardon if they've been discussed) and I will enumerate them here:
1) Psuedoscience has a tendency to think so little of its material that it must answer every possible criticism to be taken as truth, whereas the scientific method refines what we don't know by repetition of experiments. The scientific method encourages criticism rather than trying to quell it.
2) Psuedoscience refuses to acknowledge Occam's Razor, generally taking the more complicated/outlandish conclusion that fits the evidence, and ignores the (generally more)mundane conclusion that fits the facts.
3) Psuedoscience is always more about what one wants to be true rather than what the facts say, and include conclusions which far overreach the facts where proveability is concerned.
4) Cherry-picking is rampant. No scientist worth his or her salt would ignore the vast array of evidence to say something new without also allowing his or her own evidence to be rigorously challenged.
5) Standard scientific rigor is ignored in favor of conclusions that make good feelings.
6) It is not science if it asserts secret doctrine or personal energy.

Now I'm rambling and repeating myself. Suffice to say, claptrap like "The Field" shoots itself in the foot, and people generally prefer to delude themselves anyway. It's sad.

Not that I agree with Lynne McTaggart nor the full spiritual implications of Randy's post above but to comment on your question to him:

"why does it have to be outside the scope of scientific inquiry?"

I believe what he was implying would be that if something was greater or not of this universe (Unitary mind, GOD, etc) by definition couldn't be explained by tools,concepts,languages,etc built on principles from this universe.

If assumption one is taken (Unitary mind exists) AND it is implied that this mind is infinite and eternal, then by definition we can not describe nor test this mind that lies outside of space and time (because that is all we know both conceptually and physically). Therefore this statement is "outside the scope of scientific inquiry".

The statement in and of itself can not be proven nor dis-proven and derives its neutrality from the original position (ie; Do we start with the assumption or not?). No matter where we start we can NOT prove the other side.

JC

Your article is excellent, but I think you misunderstood Malby (March 9, 2009) whose reply to Johanna was dripping with irony. The miracle drink he recommends is chlorinated water which indeed has saved more lives than homeopathy in its wildest claims.

In the last 10 to 15 years Christian fundamentalists, new age healers, business success seminarians and heaven help who else have latched on to the words "intention" and "intentionality" and peppered their book titles with them. They have conflated two different meanings and glommed on to prestige that the word "intentionality" acquired in 20th century philosophy, but in a sense that had nothing to do with "will power," which is what they mean by it. The philosophical sense goes back to a mistranslation from the Arabic of Avicenna into Medieval Latin: the word should have been translated as "intelligible" or "mental." Thomas Aquinas uses "intentio" equivocally both for a purely mental image and in the legal sense of the part of the will which is either blameworthy or praiseworthy: the words are only accidentally homonyms. Twentieth century German phenomenology and British analytic philosophy used the term "intentionality" to death. Mid-century the liberal theologian Paul Tillich said that "intentionality" should replace the word "spirituality." Rollo May gave Tillich's innovation to the hippies in his immensely influential but horribly misguided book "Love and Will." But the word didn't really catch on till the middle nineties. Now, as Lynne McTaggart herself admits, it is a new age buzzword. Too bad John Searle and Daniel Dennett, your favorite word has been reduced to tasteless mush in the mouths of mental midgets. Time to quit using the word all together.

Marxley

I doubt you'll be returning to read this reply, but I still feel compelled to respond to some of your points:

Open-mindedness and critical thinking are essentially the same thing. The difference is that the second term is used by skeptics and the first by believers.

Spoken like a true believer!

Perhaps you have not considered the physicists whom the book was written about, the people who dedicated more than half of their lives to the subject.

The fact that they spent "half of their lives" on the subject doesn't mean that any of their research is valid. Many scientists spend their entire lives on research that leads nowhere. That's one of the realities of being a scientist. Most scientists also have the fortitude to admit when a certain research track is no longer worth following, instead of spending the rest of their lives beating a dead horse.

Many of the scientists who conducted the research were highly respected as conventional scientists, but lost their careers and were alienated from the scientific community for the knowledge they brought.

If the "knowledge" brought by these scientists were useful in any way, they wouldn't have been alienated from the scientific community. The scientific community really isn't as evil as you think! If any of their alternative theories actually produced meaningful results, the theories would become mainstream!

The studies claimed that people had an influence of roughly 52% on a random coin toss. Literally, 2.5 million studies were conducted on this phenomenon and the chance of this having occurred by probability alone are 1,000,000,000,000 to 1.

An undergraduate course in statistics will make you understand why this is not a valid conclusion.

To quote Einstein: “Simplicity over complexity"

It's interesting that you're quoting Einstein -- the man who replaced the "simplicity" of Newtonian mechanics with a vastly more complex and bizarre theory. In fact, the actual quote you're looking for is this:

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -Albert Einstein

Think about the above quote, for it applies on a deep level to your reasoning.

Hal Puthoff and his assistants discovered that gravity and mass are products of the zero point field acting on particles, and the new science constructed from this discovery enabled physicists to apply Newtonian laws to the quantum world, so long as they discarded mass and gravity as products of zero point field resistance.

The above sentence is meaningless. Hal Puthoff hasn't "discovered" anything. If he actually discovered something new or meaningful, he would have received an invitation to Stockholm by now. He might have theorized about alternative approaches to GR and QM, but he hasn't produced any actual results to that end. Again, the reason it's called fringe physics is that it hasn't produced any results or made any testable predictions.

Remote viewing doesn't exist. Water memory doesn't exist.
If you can demonstrate otherwise, there's a million dollars in it for you.

Good luck to you, too!

Open-mindedness and critical thinking are essentially the same thing. The difference is that the second term is used by skeptics and the first by believers.

I should think that someone as dedicated to "critical thinking" as you would have read the book more carefully. You already began reading the book with the idea that it was "putting religion on a pedestal". If you do not interpret this as prejudice, you are mad.

You then attacked the book with the premise that Mctaggart is not a physicist. Perhaps you have not considered the physicists whom the book was written about, the people who dedicated more than half of their lives to the subject. Many of the scientists who conducted the research were highly respected as conventional scientists, but lost their careers and were alienated from the scientific community for the knowledge they brought. Is it "critical thinking" to assume that all of these scientists suddenly decided to, together, become involved in a giant pyramid scheme, when pursuing their science was in fact the most dangerous path they could take? Essentially, if you do not accept their results you are claiming deception. They are too clearly outlined and too decisive to be products of wishful thinking. (I'm assuming you read the paragraphs on remote viewing, REG influencing, water memory, and healing; the book basically). In conclusion, your assertion that the book should be written by a physicist instead of about physicists is analogous the claiming that a biography is not valid because the author is not the subject.

I might also add that by claiming that this science insults anyone with a scientific background you are insinuating that the people who developed these theories do not have a scientific background. This to me, seems much more insulting.

Your section about "analogies taken too far" is also flawed. On the contrary, you take Mctaggart's assumptions too far. If we can determine whether quantum particles act as matter or energy on a quantum level we can do so on a large scale. By influencing the building blocks we influence the whole. And if you "think critically about it" matter and energy behave very similarly. The nature of our world does not change perceptibly on a large scale because the particles of energy and the particles of matter are so similar.

Also, claiming that different rules apply in the subatomic world as opposed to the large world is a fundamental misconception of conventional science. If you had read the section where Mctaggart describes the alternative theory you would understand this. Hal Puthoff and his assistants discovered that gravity and mass are products of the zero point field acting on particles, and the new science constructed from this discovery enabled physicists to apply Newtonian laws to the quantum world, so long as they discarded mass and gravity as products of zero point field resistance. It is a theory that makes much more inherent sense than to claim that all matter possess a ghostly property called "mass". To quote Einstein: "Simplicity over complexity".

As for your claim that Mctaggart asserts that we can get anything we wish for...it reeks of idiocy. Your assumption inflates the evidence presented to ridiculous proportions. The studies claimed that people had an influence of roughly 52% on a random coin toss. Literally, 2.5 million studies were conducted on this phenomenon and the chance of this having occurred by probability alone are 1,000,000,000,000 to 1. Needless to say, the influence is small, but it is still there. This does not mean that the thousands of people in Africa will get food simply by wishing for it, and that if that does not happen then the whole theory flies off the hook. The effect that intention has on our lives is far too complex to measure, but by altering probability even slightly it makes sense that we could make it change for the better.

"This reminds me of a discussion among a group of French Scientists, vehemently arguing that meteorites do not exist. Their argument, of course, was 'rocks do not fall from the sky because there are no rocks in the sky." - Jaques Benveniste

I would like to end this by saying that I wrote this, not to convince you of "the Field's" validity, but to debunk your false observations in case others happen to be passing by. You, clearly, are not thinking critically enough for this to have any effect. Please digest these words. Maybe I'm wrong.

Good Luck!, - Johann

I am grateful for at least this much skepticism, where little or none seems to be present on the web. Someone mentioned this book to me, and used examples of at least two cited studies from this book that I had known were debunked very simply by placing some basic controls in attempting to duplicate the cited results. I have read books both mysticism and science for years, and each has it's uses, but forcing a marriage is not good for the bride or the groom. It seems there is no one else even voicing a question on the web, so you are a necessary voice.

I would not consider a sober opinion to be a pessimistic one, and I can tell you how this affects me in my own life. I have a son who is severely autistic, and am very active in a community of hardworking community of parents who are doing all they can to try to improve the lives of their children. Some of the most energetic, however, in their difficulty in living without answers, have resorted to some very severe treatments and therapies, some which I believe border on child abuse. The prime example of this is Jenny McCarthy, who in her insistence that vaccines caused her child's illness has done more to damage the fight against disease than almost anyone before her. Dr. Paul Offit does a wonderful job of spelling out the damage of an anti-vaccine crusade in his book “Deadly Choices, How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All,” but it seems being a celebrity and optimistic can combat science most days of the weak.

I don't know the cure (and I can guarantee you Jenny McCarthy does't either), if it's fair to even think of autism needing a cure. We muddle through because it is a part of our lives. We will do what we can to aid our son to become whatever person he may become, but this is no different than we do with our other "typical" child. Misplaced optimism is a procrustean bed for our efforts, and an unnecessary burden for our son.

We may need the answers to things, but it doesn't mean we will get them. Still gotta make the donuts.

There seems to be a widespread misconception that, once we understand something scientifically, it necessarily has to lose all of its romantic or mystical properties.

As an example, consider the emotion of love. I feel love for my significant others, as I'm sure you do. However, let's suppose that tomorrow scientists will figure out the exact neural pathways and electrochemical processes responsible for "love." Will that somehow make my love any less genuine? I'll still have these emotions, just like I did before, and understanding them scientifically doesn't make them any less real. In fact, to me, understanding something scientifically makes it all the more real.

Why is it so important to cling on to the notion that we'll "never" understand certain things using science? Why is it necessary to reserve that little corner of ignorance in your mind where you stash things like "consciousness" and "soul", and protect them at all costs from rational scrutiny?