By Wang Yusheng, a research fellow with the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences of the Academy of Sciences
Recently, a Chinese newspaper based in the United States opened a column called "Window on Dafa," and published in the column an article titled "It Is Not Superstition, It is Profound Science" signed by "some Falun Gong practitioners at the Chinese Academy of Sciences." Its subtitle was "Our personal experience as scientific researchers in practicing Falun Gong." The article also listed a dozen references to make itself more like a "scientific essay." But there are obvious mistakes, such as "jumping over 20 quantity grades from 10-14 cm to 106 cm" and "diseases curing themselves without medical treatment," and its listed references of God's Fingerprints and Trial of Darwin give rise to a feeling that we were back to the medieval Dark Age in Europe, when Galileo was tried by the Inquisition. This article simply does not read like one written by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is obvious that it usurps the name to concoct a "scientific" basis for the heretical Falun Gong cult. However, science and heretical cults are irreconcilable. Science adheres to materialism and atheism, and pursues objective truth to push forward the progress of human civilization, while Falun Gong advocates idealism and theism, and spreads false reasoning to confuse and poison people's minds and jeopardize social stability. That newspaper's action of opening the "Window on Dafa" column to give voice to a heretical cult is simply dishonorable and inglorious.
In recent years, some extreme, fanatical and heretical organizations have shown up all over the world, and brought about a number of tragedies that have stunned the world. Their perverse acts are held in abhorrence by the international community. It is a common call and a necessary action of the world community to crack down on and abolish heretical cults to safeguard social stability and world peace. Just two days before the publication of the article mentioned above, the massacre of about a thousand of his followers by the founder of a cult known as the "Movement for the Restoration of God's Ten Commandments" in Uganda was exposed, and the world once again realized how abominable a heretical cult is! Now, facing the 1,000-odd bodies in Uganda, the fact that the cult founder fled with money and the wanted notice that the Ugandan government has issued worldwide, everyone with a conscience, whether Chinese or not, will support the Chinese government in its efforts to unveil and suppress the evil cult of Falun Gong in accordance with the law.
The article tries to prove the so-called "profundity" of Falun Gong from the perspectives of prehistoric civilization, the origin of mankind, "other" spaces, materialization of the energy attained through practicing "Falun Gong," different ways to develop science and even with stories more fantastic than science fiction. After analyzing these claims, we say that Falun Gong is sheer superstition (strictly speaking, Falun Gong is not a simple issue of superstition but an ill-intentioned cult to bully people). And do we wrong them by saying so? Let's look at it from the following aspects:
First, is there anywhere on earth a so-called "other space"?
Li Hongzhi, founder of "Falun Gong," says that in the outer space of the first universe we live in are second and third universes: that Li himself stands at the highest point while all other humans are trash which has fallen onto the earth from other universes: and that the earth will explode from time to time. Li Hongzhi repeatedly talks about the universe, yet in fact he doesn't know a thing about it either in a physical or in a philosophical sense. The article talks a lot about the existence of "other space" but at the same time fails to provide any evidence. Since the time of Galileo, human beings have realized that the earth is a planet revolving round the sun in the solar system. The sun itself revolves round the Galaxy, with each cycle lasting 200 million years, while the Galaxy is only a common member of millions of galaxies that break up and reestablish the universe rapidly. Li Hongzhi, on whom the article lavishes praise, claims that he himself controls the whole universe, which completely denies all the achievements in the field of astronomy since Copernicus, and brings people's outlook on universe back to the dark medieval age.
According to Newton's law of universal gravitation, to sustain an object thrown into mid-air speed is needed: the speed of a man-made satellite that revolves round the earth should reach at least 7.9 km per second (the first universal speed); the speed of a rocket to the moon or a space shuttle to Mars should reach at least 11.2 km per second (the third universal speed). If intelligent life exists on other planets outside the solar system and if it wants to visit earth, it must have the same or more advanced science and technologies than ours to break away from the gravitation of its planet. Otherwise, no matter how good it performs in meditation, it is impossible to "flee" its planet and come to our earth.
Modern science proves that life on the earth and birth of mankind were natural outcomes when the universe had developed to a certain stage. A great amount of evidence shows that about 15 billion years ago, the universe was in a state of high temperature and high density. It was impossible for life, even the basic molecules and atoms that shape life, to exist then. Later, following the expansion and cooling of the universe, light elements like helium and hydrogen appeared, and then stars were born. Following the birth of stars, particles of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and iron, the necessary elements of life, took shape. Species of different shapes appeared, and finally intelligent life -- human beings endowed with the ability to understand the universe -- gradually evolved. Although humanity hopes to find life similar to its own on other planets in the universe, no reliable information about life outside the earth has been found yet. But the development of space science and the invention of rockets and space shuttles provide better means for human beings to observe outer space and explore the universe. In the field regarded by theists as controlled by "God" only, human beings have left their footprints.
As we all know, everything goes through three stages of birth, development and death, but it takes an extremely long time, about several hundred million years, for a star to go through these stages. Li Hongzhi claims that he can postpone the explosion of the earth for 30 years. This is simply the raving of a lunatic. It is extremely farfetched for the article to use scientific terms like "dark matter" to "Falun Gong." Astronomy is a serious science. Only after long period of observation with advanced apparatus and strict analysis of first-hand materials can a tentative conclusion be made, but never an absolute statement. Therefore, all ideas not based on scientific research are unreliable, and all viewpoints not tested by practice are unbelievable. The article mentions time and again the theory of the so-called "multiple spaces" Li Hongzhi advocates, yet this proposition cannot stand the test of science at all.
Second, is the theory of "prehistoric civilization" representative of the mainstream ideas in the field of science?
The authors of the article not only usurp the names of some staff members of the Academy of Sciences but also try to force heretical ideas upon the whole scientific world. They abuse the evidence of natural catastrophes to explain the theories of "Doomsday" and "Creationism." In fact, "catastrophes" and "big explosions" do not mean the end or the rebirth of the biological world; they are different natural processes during the evolution of species.
According to scientific research, since life appeared on the earth some three billion years ago, biological events have fallen into the categories of reform, radiation, spread and extinction. Extinction refers to drastic succession and changes of species. During this period, a category of species gradually or suddenly becomes extinct in a long or short time, but other categories still exist. Many things may trigger this kind of sudden extinction, some from the outer space and some from the earth itself. The former includes: (1) the solar system changing because of changes in the Galaxy; (2) collisions between stars; and (3) supernova explosions. The latter include : (1) the species itself changes; (2) geological, geographical and climatic changes take place, such as volcanic eruptions, rise and fall of the sea level, fluctuating climate (cold and warm, ice ages and inter-glacial ages) and the changes of the distribution of sea and land. The time these changes take determines the time a biological event lasts. For example, scientists have provided dozens of scientific hypotheses to explain the extinction of dinosaurs. Disconcerting as it is, this is but a phenomenon of evolution, and led to the birth of another species -- birds, which were derived directly from dinosaurs and came into being 65 million years later, in the Cenozoic Era.
In general, of all the extinction cases, even the most intriguing and sensational ones are actually not so dismaying, since they are normal in the natural process of evolution. It is a common scientific law that the new will replace the old. The so-called records of prehistoric civilization the article quotes are basically the unverified suppositions of certain scholars concerning some unsolved puzzles, which do not represent the mainstream scientific ideas. Li Hongzhi propagates openly that "our universe, after long, long years of development, will face a universal catastrophe…which will destroy all life in the universe." This is totally groundless from the scientific point of view. Explosions in the universe, just like the extinction of certain species, are not miracles created in the blink of an eye by a "god" or "guests from the outer space."
Third, shall Darwin's theory of evolution be tested by a "god?"
Science never claims that it is the guardian of all truth, but it provides a means for people to find out more about truth through practice. Also, science should continuously strive to attain new knowledge to ratify and improve itself. There is no perfect, absolute truth, be it Darwin's theory of evolution or other theories on the origin of mankind. However, science's theories so far are rational and powerful enough to refute Li Hongzhi's theories of "Doomsday" and "Creationism." Darwin's Origin of Species, published in 1859, explains the evolution of species with his theory of "survival of the fittest." For the first time in history, biology became a science. Nearly 150 years have passed since the publication of the book, yet no other scientific theory can match it in its far-reaching and profound influence on all aspects of human society. The theory of evolution was not only a great scientific achievement but is of philosophical significance. For the first time in history, it challenged the religious theory of Creationism, idealism and teleology of natural science and provides scientific evidence for the outlook of dialectical materialism.
The origin of life began with simple inorganic compounds turning into primitive organic matter -- hydrocarbons and their simplest derivatives. This primitive organic matter gradually developed into complicated organic compounds such as nucleotides, amino acids, polymers and other organic substances. Following the evolution of natural conditions, these substances interacted in a complicated way and finally produced primitive life matter that could grow and reproduce with the features of metabolism, variability and heritability.
Human beings evolve from apes -- a fact amply proved by the large number of human fossils and cultural relics discovered down the ages. To date, the earliest human fossil is one found in Africa, dating from about four million years before the present (BP). The main stages humans have passed through in their process of evolution are apes, homo erectus (apeman), homo sapiens and modern man. Here we'll just take newly discovered fossils to illustrate the point. Longgu (Dragon Bone) Mountain at Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District in the southwestern suburbs of Beijing has preserved cultural sites left by Peking Man to Upper Cave Man. The fossils and cultural relics represent the long and continuous history of human evolution from 600,000 BP to 10,000 BP. Carbon dating of the geological strata and studies of the cultural relics and the concomitant animal fossils demonstrate that human evolution has been continuous over the past several million years, especially the past 600,000 years, similarly with the evolution of the concomitant animals. None of the fossils shows that "human beings have suffered 81 total annihilations in the course of their evolution," as claimed by Li Hongzhi.
Peking Man lived in the area around Zhoukoudian for about 300,000 years. The brain capacity of this species gradually grew larger. And their cultural relics -- stone tools, fire sites and hunting tools -- also showed progress in technology. For example, the materials from which they made stone tools were sandstone, conglomerate, breccia and even granite in the early stage. But in the later stage, the materials changed to flint, quartz and crystal. The tools also developed from being crude, heavy and simple to being fine, accurate and sophisticated, and from one tool for multiple uses to many varieties of tools, each with its specific function. For instance, their small and handy stone-awls and stone-carving tools were quite "advanced" compared with tools of other hominids of the same period in other parts of the world. And the stage represented by fossils of New Cave Man (early-stage homo sapiens) and accompanying relics was the interim link between Peking Man (homo erectus) and Upper Cave Man (late-stage homo sapiens). This point effectively refutes the heresy of Li Hongzhi and his like, who peddle the idea that there was no interim stage in human evolution.Rich materials about the continuity of human development have been found in China's geological strata. From about 30 million years BP, they show the progress, step by step, from primitive apes to dryopithecus, then to Lufeng Ape, Yuanmou Ape, early hominid, late hominid, early homo sapiens, and finally to late homo sapiens. In recent years, new human fossils and materials of the early stage of the Paleolithic Age have been discovered in places including Mount Wushan in Sichuan Province, Tongling in Anhui Province and Yangyuan in Hebei Province. The fossils and materials date from about two million years BP. And the findings of world paleoanthropology over the past century have filled almost all the missing evolutionary links between apes and modern humans. The false claims of the article are by no means different from the ridiculous actions of those who strongly opposed the evolutionary theory when Darwin first proposed it. They demonstrated by showing a group of monkeys from a zoo! Such a demonstration was destined to failure.
Fourth, the article extols Falun Gong as "scientific," but is Falun Gong really compatible with the law of universality and repeatability required of modern science?
The article says, "Practicing Falun Gong can indeed bring great changes to the human body. That is completely scientific." Yet, it doesn't pinpoint what kind of science that is.
The article holds that "those who practice Falun Gong will feel their bodies being purified after a very short period of time, and their former illnesses will disappear of themselves with no need for treatment." Then it gives the following example: "A middle-aged woman who had been bed-ridden for 16 years completely recovered after practicing 'Falun Gong.'" So it concludes, "Therefore, the practice of hundreds of millions of Falun Gong advocators sufficiently proves that Falun Gong agrees with the law of universality and repeatability required of modern science." What kind of logic is that? On the one hand, how can a woman confined to bed for 16 years stand up to practice "Falun Gong?" On the other hand, even if this was possible, how can this individual case fit in with the law of universality and repeatability of science so as to be applied to "hundreds of millions of people?" If an individual case (whether it is true or not is still doubtful) is enough to substantiate a general principle, then all the paralyzed patients in the world should be able to stand up and regain their walking capability by practicing "Falun Gong." Maybe they can all "recovered completely!" If so, wouldn't Li Hongzhi make greater contributions to mankind by setting up a "hospital for curing paralysis?" But the facts are not thus! More "repeatable" cases are called for. The article equates individual with universal, and exceptional with general. What kind of "modern science" is that?
Contrary to "miracles" of "paralysis cured," we are well aware of reports of an astonishing number of deaths and injuries throughout China. Some of the reports are appalling. A great number of Falun Gong believers clung to Li Hongzhi's fabricated teachings and refused to have their illnesses treated promptly. So they either ended up disabled or dead. What's more gruesome, many believers even intentionally killed themselves or others for various reasons related to "Falun Gong," ruining families and destabilizing society. So far, Falun Gong has caused more than 1,500 deaths across the country. Such dire tragedies make clear the tremendous danger of "Falun Gong." Are we still going to believe that Falun Gong can work "miracles," and that it "agrees with the law of universality and repeatability of modern science" so as to allow such miserable cases to "universally" "repeat" themselves again and again?
A century ago, Heckel, a German scientist, pointed out in his book, Enigma of the Universe (1899), "The essential difference between superstition and 'rational faith' is: Superstition acknowledges the existence of supernatural power and phenomena, while science does not. Supernatural power and phenomena come from false perceptions and imagination. Therefore, superstition is incompatible with clearly defined natural laws. Superstition is irrational." All claims such as the one that Li Hongzhi can cure hunchbacks in an instant and Falun Gong can make all diseases disappear of themselves, are purely fabricated superstition, just like the absurd arguments of religious theology in the Middle Ages -- that God created Eve from Adam's rib and there was a "resurrection bone" in every human being. That bone could never be damaged and it would bring a dead person back to life. How ridiculous!
Fifth, can a person gain direct access to the truth of the universe by practicing "Falun Gong?"
Science enables people to understand, utilize, remake and preserve nature, so as to achieve coordinated development between human beings and the natural world. Science respects facts. Modern science was born in Europe after the Renaissance. It is a product of observation, experimentation and logical reasoning. Scientific achievements made prior to it belong to the category of ancient science. Before the birth of modern science, the world witnessed three climaxes in scientific development: ancient Greek science, Arabian science and Chinese science. The article talks exuberantly about the ancient scientific achievements made by the Chinese people. It complacently states that "the Zhou Yi, or Book of Changes, the Eight Diagrams, and the Theory of Taiji reflect the fact that ancient Chinese scientists' understanding of the laws of the universe had reached a very high level." Also, "in ancient China, there were no scientific instruments as employed by modern science, yet the people still realized the interconnection between the cosmos, heavenly bodies, society and individuals." And, "in fact, ancient Chinese science took a very different road from empiricism." Such claims actually distort the essence and facts regarding the development of ancient Chinese science.
The Chinese people have been living on their vast land in the east since ancient times. During their long history, they gradually came to know the world through careful observation and practice. They looked up to observe the heavenly bodies and looked down to learn geography. They took their own bodies as the frame of reference when observing something near, and different objects as the frames of reference for something in the distance. From perceptions, they induced rational thinking, which generated different branches of knowledge, such as agriculture, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and so on. At the same time, in the course of development, ancient Chinese science also had frequent contacts with and assimilated what was useful from the scientific achievements of other cultures. This assimilative tradition made ancient Chinese science at once profound, extensive and vigorous. It brought about fruitful results in astronomy, calendar, mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography, biology, medicine, architecture, ceramics, weaving and metallurgy. The most influential of these discoveries were the Four Great Inventions -- the compass, papermaking, printing and gunpowder -- which had a great impetus on the development of world civilization.
Different natural environments give rise to distinctive cultures and ways of thinking. The scientific tradition of the West emphasizes analysis and deduction, while China's stresses induction and synthesis. These two approaches have supplemented and reinforced each other in the course of their development. They have absorbed what was useful from each other, and of course they have competed against one another, too. But they have quite a few points in common, such as observation, experimentation and empirical verification. Although ancient China did not have modern scientific instruments, it still employed the same empirical methods, such as observing with the human eye, observing with the armillary sphere and seismograph, working out the calendar using mathematical principles and conducting experiments to test the working principles of light. A famous Chinese physician of the Spring and Autumn Period refused to treat patients under six conditions. One of the conditions was that those who believed in witches but not physicians would be treated. Isn't that medical science? Knowledge comes from practice. That is a basic principle of dialectic materialism, and the basis on which science develops. That one can gain direct access to the truth about the universe through practicing Falun Gong is sheer idealism. If it is not superstition or pseudo-science, what is it then?
Reading that infamous article, one couldn't help thinking of the book, The Interesting History of Frenzied Human Stupidity, written by British author Charles Mackay. A memorandum of human foolishness, the book records 16 notorious cases of mass delusion and fraud in continental Europe more than two centuries ago, including "witchcraft fanaticism," "South Sea Bubble," "tulip mania," "the Crusades," and others. The most notorious propagator was a man called Albert Aloes. Originally he was merely a scoundrel. Later he familiarized himself with some terms of alchemy and learned the trick of turning iron nails into gold and silver using a double-bottomed crucible. He visited many large cities where hordes of greedy persons swarmed to him. They tried every means to fawn on this "master." Some of them were even celebrated members of the royal family, immensely wealthy dukes and powerful local judges. Norman Stone, a professor of modern history at Britain's Cambridge University, made these meaningful remarks when recommending the book to readers. He said, "The Interesting History of Frenzied Human Stupidity carries the same importance as it did one and a half centuries ago, because human fallacies only vary in some minor details, but not in their scales." Please think carefully, dear readers, about the following activities of Li Hongzhi: He formed secret associations, organized a cult, fabricated heresies, accumulated great wealth through trickery, intimidated and cheated his followers with founder-worship…. Aren't his tricks more repulsive than those of his predecessor Albert Aloes?
From the experience of battling religious cults, we realize that they are in fact terrorism in a new disguise. They are able to do tremendous harm to the political and spiritual rights of the people, and they mercilessly trample on glorious human civilization. It is our sincere hope that the newspaper, as a powerful instrument of the mass media, will uphold justice. If it allows itself to become a mere mouthpiece of the Falun Gong cult, trumpeting lies, it would be opening the door to evil. What a pitiful thing that would be!
(Excerpts from a Xinhua News Agency dispatch, May 11, 2000)
