Wow, its weird how oblivious people are to the thousands of years of intellectual ground that they cover in a few sentences.
To be fair, we don't know what we don't know, however its a capital mistake to simply assume that you know all there is to know. Things that we take for granted like private property was actually something that had to be argued for at one time:
Mind-Manual » Beliefs, Beliefs, Beliefs, Beliefs
In the same way, Descartes' and Hume's philosophical postions heavily influence our society today, but we just don't consciously recognize that. I don't think most people can even point out the name for their philosophical position (usually its empirical skepticism, or empirical positivism), so they probably haven't studied it. I'm a pragmatist. If it works well enough to get me the results I want, I'm happy. I care about whether its the truth only in so far as knowing the truth can make osmething work better for me. IM appears to be working just fine for me so far. There could be other factors at work, sure, and alternate explanations, but that doesn't change th fact that I'm getting results.
Its like those randomized studies on weight loss products (and other pharmacuticals). There's usually a control group that is given a placebo, and the other group (s) is given the drug. The thing that a lot of people don't know that is that people who are on the placebo ALSO lose weight. There are usually some alternate explanations for this, but that doesn't change the fact that placebos often work better than the weight loss products. What does it matter if its a "real" medicine or not.
I dunno why I wrote this post. Perhaps I'm trying to change my sleep schedule and I'm just cranky. Its certainyl full of holes. Yar.