Talk:History of qigong

Historians believe that Chinese civilization goes back 4,000 years, not 5,000 years. Recently historians and archeologists within China have claimed to have found evidence that Chinese civilization goes back 5,000 years, however they have been unwilling to show this evidence to historians outside of China. Also, when asked questions about this evidence by colleagues outside of China the Chinese historians and archeologists haven't answered, or have seemed uncomfortable or embarrassed. As a result, western scholars of Chinese history have dismissed the 5,000 year old Chinese civilization claim as being a government bid for increased respect or prestige.

The existence of a system of writing is a normally good indication of what we can call a civilization. For most scholars the existence of a system of writing defines civilization. As mentioned in Wikipedia itself, "Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations.[1] The written history of China can be found as early as the Shang Dynasty (c. 1700 – 1046 BC),[2] although ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and Bamboo Annals assert the existence of a Xia Dynasty before the Shang.[2][3] Oracle bones with ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been radiocarbon dated to as early as 1500 BC.[4] Much of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BC)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China I might add that these oracle bones with Chinese writing on them don't necessarily indicate an actual system of writing. They may have been magical symbols that later evolved into a system of writing, but we can give it the benefit of the doubt.

Therefore, any claims that Qigong is 5,000 years old seem insupportable, so the number should be changed. Nacken (talk)NackenNacken (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC).

Orphaned references in Qigong history
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Qigong history's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Palmer": From Qigong:  From Falun Gong: David Palmer, Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China (2007), Columbia University Press 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:05, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

America's Earliest Knowlege of Qigong
The article states the following:

"The American public’s first exposure to qigong was in the PBS series Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers in 1993."

However, the television series That's Incredible, which ran from 1980 to 1984, did a segment on qigong. Though the series may not satisfy the need for documentary content, it did in fact introduce the concept, and produced a quigong master to demonstrate various aspects of the practice. I did not edit the article, as I am unfamiliar with the proper way to cite the information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luthier1963 (talk • contribs) 12:26, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Luthier1963 (talk) 21:50, 23 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I have checked that fact is true but clips on "That's incredible" are more for entertainment purposes and does not describe the potential of qigong. On further research, there is also credibility issues with the subject matter.  ottawakungfu (talk) 02:43, 24 April 2012 (UTC)