The Party is the Mother and Leads the Way!

By way of my life circumstance and my professional, academic interests and expertise, I maintain an extensive network of connections with ethnic Chinese people both within and outside China. Not only across the UK, but in other areas such as Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. Regardless of economic or political model, there is a common thread of language and culture which links all these living expressions of ‘Chineseness’ together. Chinese people may differ in their socio-economic outlook around the world, but are united in a common ethnic understanding. This reality is no different to any other ethnic group around the world. To ‘study’ China is to study all these distinct strands of the expression of Chinese culture around the world, and recognise a coherent thread running through its core despite any difference that may or may not exist on the surface.  

The Science of Epigenetics Verses the Pseudo-Science of Epigenetics! (4.3.2018)

This is not an attack on religion or a denial that belief systems are useful for human existence. On the contrary, what follows is a short and concise explanation of a very complex biological process which strives to identify the subject of epigenetics as a material or ‘hard’ science, and epigenetics as a belief system. When epigenetics is interpreted as a belief system (and consequently serves the function of a religion) it still presents its ideas in the language of science, when the underlying ideology is one of theology. The battle occurs because religious epigenetics insists upon being interpreted as a ‘science’. This insistence by a religious movement to be seen as a science attracts the descriptive label ‘pseudo-science’, which we use here, but with no intended disrespect. Although we advocate a continuous search for good knowledge and self-understanding, everyone has the right to decide for themselves and make their own minds up. As practitioners of Chinese Buddhism, we confirm that meditation practise has a positive affect upon the health of the mind and body, but we do not assert that the mind ‘interferes’ with natural biological processes. Instead, it seems clear to us that a proper scientific understanding of biological processes enables the mind to ‘assist’ by making good and informed choices in life that aid the natural biological processes unfold in a positive manner. This is more a matter of not ‘getting in the way’ of naturally unfolding processes, rather than entertaining the mistaken notion that the mind can interfere in these natural processes. This is just our ideas – think for yourselves.

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