It's an
interesting phenomenon that although we received mainstream science education from
childhood to adulthood, the nonmainstream areas, such as astrology and
fortune-telling, is still active today. It's true that mainstream sciences is
stronger and more powerful, the nonmainstream areas play a unsubstituted role
on the stage of contemporary society.

 

Once, the
nonmainstream areas today mentioned above were the real mainstream ones in
history. As the progression of human society, the modern science boomed up and
expanded its domain in the field once belonging to the traditional
"science", because the modern sciences, the mainstream ones today,
brought myriad of progression and benefit to people in almost all the material
fields and some spiritual fields. With the development of biology and medicine,
we found the way to have a healthier body and longer average life span. With the
progression of physics and mechanics, powerful engine and useful mechanical
tool were invented to liberate us from burdening labors. With the discovery of
chemistry, more and more new materials applied, such as Teflon and Lycra, and
brought us excellent experiences in daily life. All these achievements
come from the mainstream sciences.

 

But with the
further development of mainstream sciences, they faced many unsolved questions
and mysteries. Maybe it’s the factor inside the mainstream sciences that accelerated
what described above. One reason of the success of mainstream sciences is the
very strict proving steps. This axiom of sciences constrain the mainstream
sciences from expressing any opinions about the mysteries they cannot explain.
In front of the unsolved questions, sciences ask themselves to keep neutral.
With the topics that can be neither proved nor unproved accumulated, more and
more living space is leaven to the nonmainstream areas. For example, the
existence of soul is still an outstanding question. But in the eyes of psychic,
the conclusion is very clear and certain. So, even in contemporary society,
nonmainstream areas still have their own reservation.

 

In fact,
many nonmainstream areas are not sciences, but they still play an important
role at the margin of the mainstream science. On one hand, nonmainstream areas
fill the gap between the questions which cannot been explained by mainstream
sciences and the human's desire of knowing. As too many unknown things make
people feel powerless, anxiety even afraid, having an explanation for
those mysteries is a comfort to people. Nonmainstream areas' conclusion may be
subjective or unsound, but it really satisfies the need of human's curiosity
and nature. On the other hand, nonmainstream areas satisfied the anti-science
mood inside human mind at some level. Many mainstream sciences' conclusions are
impersonal, cold and cruel. It's difficult to accept sometimes. Astronomy tell
us that stars are just big rock balls or huge flame balls and have little thing
to do with us. But astrology encourage us talk with the constellation which we
are belong to.

 

As a result
of history's advancing, mainstream sciences and nonmainstream areas both
construct our system of awareness. When we face a problem or a strange phenomenon,
we firstly come to mainstream sciences and try to dig out the truth of everything.
When the first one keep silent, most of us may turn to the nonmainstream areas
to seek for a comfort or more personal answer. Mainstream science is pragmatic
and powerful, but nonmainstream areas just stand behind it and provide another
choice. At the current level of awareness ability of human, we should use
mainstream sciences as a main tool and do not discard nonmainstream areas.