In a recent Smithsonian magazine article, we were given yet another opportunity to open our minds and examine our views and conclusions. In money, and in life, we derive comfort in science, facts and clear conclusions. These conclusions enable us to feel secure and make confident decisions. This way of operating is not wrong, it is simply partial. This article discussed a recent analysis of a 150 meter long ice core; the analysis revealed that a long held belief and conclusion about the catalyst for pollution was wrong. Our belief, that human activity had little effect on the atmosphere until the 1750s when the industrial revolution commenced, is false. The ice core revealed that 100 BC, during the Roman and Han dynasties (they occurred at roughly the time), there were significant greenhouse gas emissions. For scientists, the baseline for determining a pollution free environment from human activity has been pushed back almost 2,000 years. For the rest of us, besides being of interest and maybe good trivia, we can learn another lesson about perspective taking and assumption making, we must investigate with our own mind. What other disciplines carry the same opportunity?

Not that long ago, the medical profession believed that ulcers and stomach cancer were caused by modern lifestyle. In the 1980s, billions of dollars annually were spent (or medical profits generated) removing ulcers by Gastroenterologists in the US. During the same period an Australian doctor noticed that a bacterium appeared to be the cause of both ulcers and stomach cancer. The fellow spent years in a futile attempt to find a medical journal to publish his findings. Most publications refused because the medical establishment disagreed with his premise but more importantly enjoyed the multibillion dollar industry around the mistaken conclusion. Even more stunning is the lack of a current study to prove that modern society and current lifestyle contributed to or caused ulcers. A conclusion developed from an observation that ulcers are more prevalent in developed society than in undeveloped ones. You will be pleased to know that the incidence of stomach cancer and ulcer operations has fallen 85% since the introduction of a drug to deal with the bacterium.

During the last few years, two hundred years of paleontology has been rewritten. The number of species has dropped by close to two thirds because dinosaurs are now identified accurately from infancy to adults. Originally, dinosaurs were categorized as different species because they looked different as infants, adolescents and adults. It was never considered that at different stages of dinosaur development they might appear differently. With hindsight, the view seems ludicrous because humans and all mammals appear different in each of those stages; the same view was never applied to dinosaurs. The long held belief was dinosaurs appeared similar as soon as they hatched from an egg, even though we know that insects, birds and reptiles appear different as they age from hatchlings to adults. Scientific rigor was missing for better than two hundred years before the present view was adopted.

In our modern world, viewing any aspect, what conclusions are solidified and how do these conclusions affect your decisions and well-being? There are many conclusions about money, finances, markets and world economics. Our job is to hold these conclusions with intelligence and insight, while integrating your unique way of being, thus manifesting with you and your deepest desires.