OK, I've tried to edit this fairly, but claiming this to be a theory in the scientific sense is just plain wrong, and an article proclaiming the Laws of Magic should have a disclaimer pointing out that it's not accepted by virtually any science, because otherwise by using such terms as "theory" and "laws" it implies some scientific credibility. -- Robert Merkel
Do theories actually have to be scientific? I thought the English language was a bit more ambiguous on that, but i'm no native speaker, so what do I know? However, I redirected the disclaimer to the magic page, in the (perhaps futile) hope that universal refutations et cetera does not have to be included in all pages about belief systems not normally accepted in western society. Sigh. Oh, and by the way, do look in on chinese medicine, you'll have a field day. --Anders Törlind
OK, I've had another go. I accept that there's no point in having the debate on every single page, but I believe that if we're trying to write an encyclopedia we should be precise in our terminology, and as theory does imply a rigorously tested hypothesis to a scientist I don't think it should be used here for ideas that haven't had the same approach to rigorous testing. I'm not trying to be a spoilsport here, but Western scientific beliefs have had the scrutiny of hundreds of years of people trying to test whether its tenets are correct or not, and provide the basis of our entire technology, and pointing out that other beliefs don't have the same rigor backing them up is entirely reasonable. I'm not saying that Mr Bonewits's laws are necessarily bunk (but obviously I believe they almost certainly are), but they're not consistent with current scientific beliefs, haven't been scientifically evaluated, and when similar claims have been evaluated no evidence has been found for them. -- Robert Merkel. As for chinese medicine, I'll certainly point out where the beliefs behind it aren't supported by science, but where there's empirical evidence that it works I'll happily concede that too.
Heh. Whereas I know that this is no discussion forum (and I do agree that we should be as precise as possible, and I do not in any way try do demean science to "just another religion" the way some foolish people have found very fashionable of late), the laws presentend here are actually more of anthropological nature: They have been synthesized from their native belief systems (for example voodoo and aboriginal beliefs) and bundled together in a cohesive form, that may be used to describe magical beliefs from around the world. Furthermore, in many parts of the world, and for a duration of millennia, subsets of theese guidlines have been the center of healing arts (indeed, chinese medicine may very well be described by mr Bonewits' "laws") and religious rites, so historically, science is a dayfly by comparison (not saying that science is bad or that magic works, merely stating that it is new compared to various forms of magic). Aside from that, this page does nothing to explain the "laws" and their meaning and the belief systems surrounding them, so i fail to grasp how you can say they clash with scientific beliefs...They are just words as of yet. Enough with the ranting :-) --Anders Törlind (oh, by the way, i'm not a believer in anything supernaturual so we have that cleared up)
Ah. Perhaps the material in the above "rant" (which was actually rather informative) should be in the main article, then :) One challenge deserves another. . . --Robert Merkel
Way ahead of you Robert! :-) Look on the parent page... --Anders Törlind
Perhaps the word you are looking for is conjecture (instead of theory)? I would try to revise the page but I don't have time right now.
-- Oliver Seet —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daggath (talk • contribs) 04:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Proposing a merge redirect
editThis article is a practical Orphan. Only redirects and lists of orphans link to this article. I'm proposing a merge of the content into the Isaac Bonewits article, and a redirection of this page to the that article. I will move ahead and do it if editors do not provide a valid argument against this deorfanizing effort. Thanks. --Legion fi (talk) 22:49, 23 March 2009 (UTC)