So a lot of people have been discussing this paper, that shows that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to think that it is, but I question its results because the methodology seems flawed. They should have first asked the question: “Do you understnd the difference between astronomy and astrology?” Because there’s a possibility that some of the respondents were simply confused, and thinking the latter was the former. Which is a form of ignorance, but nowhere near as bad as knowing what astrology is and thinking it scientific.
5 thoughts on “Is Astrology Scientific?”
Comments are closed.
I would have to say that “sort of scientific” is actually correct: the planetary mechanics are valid but the predictive theory is bunk. In the same way, alchemy’s theoretical foundation was wrong, but alchemists did perform some valid empirical chemistry.
Over on Volokh there’s a post about this, and it appears that the preceding question was roughly “Do you get/read a horoscope or astrology report?”, thus making the context much more firmly “astrology” than one might otherwise think.
I suspect there’s still some confusion, though.
(Of course, the other issue is that various astrology proponents like to pretend to the mantle of science, and a lazy [and rationally ignorant] person who isn’t very interested in it might not bother to look too close at their pseudoscience… and thus answer “somewhat scientific” without also believing It Tells The Future.)
I don’t find astrology any less logical or faith-based than most of the stuff “liberals” (i.e., “tax-happy coercion addicted State-fellators”) believe.
It’s been my experience that a lot of young people have a shocking vocab, so I suspect your guess is correct. Many simply didn’t know what they were being asked, because they didn’t understand the words. I also suspect that the same is true of that study that said that 25% of Americans think that the sun revolves around the earth. I suspect that some of them simply didn’t understand the question (and of course some of them just got it wrong, but others just didn’t care enough about the study to carefully read the question before shooting out an answer.) A language professor commented to me that you’ll lose a lot of students the moment your language register gets elevated just a little above casual spoken English.
Recently I’ve thought of a way that astrology could be “predictive” but just barely, in a “post hoc ergo propter hoc” kind of way, and not at all relevant to modern day.
Over the course of a year, the nutritional quality, quantity and variety would naturally vary for hunter-gatherers, and arguably even more so for early agricultural societies. Since human gestation is only nine months, a baby born in a certain time of year may be exposed to increasing or decreasing amounts and types of pre-natal nutrition, based on what the mother can obtain. The variations might be slight, and I don’t think anyone has checked the effect of pre-natal nutrition on personality development, but it seems likely that it would have some effect. So, a child born in late summer, say, would have been concieved during a time of decreasing variety of food, but over the course of its fetal development would have started getting better and more varied nutrition, and so might be healthier and stronger, and possibly more likely to have the mental development and temperament for leadership (Leo). A child born in late winter would have had slightly decreasing nutrition over time until birth, with less likelihood of developing the same traits.
Early cultures not being nutritionists might not have made the connection between what the mother eats and what happens to the child before it’s born, but many cultures study the stars and planets in order to try to predict planting and harvest times, at least to the gross estimate of when the seasons are changing. So, I think it might make sense for these cultures to try to determine a causative relationship between what they see in the sky and the kind of children that are born “under” certain stars, just like they try to make such a relationship with harvest and hunting.
Note that there are a lot of “maybes” and “possiblies” there, and I grant that it’s totally off the wall with no scientific backing whatsoever, but it seems like it might be a rationale to explain why the idea of astrology developed, even though it was misguided as to being causative rather than indicative.
If you’ve read my blather this far, thank you.