Man, I go away for a couple of days and all my co-bloggers choose to take a siesta. I’m going to have to give them a good talking-to, I tell you.
Now I’m stuck in Philadelphia for one night more than planned, due to an unforeseen outbreak of weather back in Chicago. The City of Brotherly Love has greatly come up in the world since I grew up in the suburbs a couple of decades ago — the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood, where I’m staying, is a really lively and engaging downtown environment.
Nothing of substance to report, so I’ll point you to this takedown of astrology by Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy fame, which is worthy of some contemplation. We all know that astrology is nonsense, but it’s worth the exercise to try to explain to people who aren’t well-versed in science why we know that astrology can’t work even without doing elaborate double-blind tests. Phil’s argument is the same one that I’ve given before: we really do know something about the forces of nature, and there is absolutely no room to fit paranormal phenomena into what we know. There’s much we don’t know, and much we do; sometimes we even have a pretty good idea of where the boundary is.
Hey, thanks for the plug! 🙂
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~eesmf/eicrspe.html
Since we haven’t gestated and raised humans outside the Schumann irradiances (7.8, 14, 20, 26, 33, 39 and 45 Hz) that overlap human EKG frequencies, (beta 14 to 30 Hz, alpha 8 to 13 Hz, theta 4 to 7 Hz, and delta 1 to 3 Hz), I’d say there is potential slack in the gears for Gaia getting her hands dirty with brains. That said, astrology in all its various flavors and odors is a variable mixture of fetish, bunko, and religiosity.
Plait’s rejection of astrology is well-organized and flawlessly reasoned. He must be a Virgo.
Yeah – screw your city buddy!:) I’ve been missing posting because I went off to give a colloquium in Madison (I’ll try to post about this trip soon) and ended up stuck at O’Hare for a night due to Chicago weather. Flew back ridiculously early in the morning in order to teach.
Sean — if you haven’t eaten yet, go check out Mama Palma’s. Wood fired pizza close to where you’re staying. Tasty!!!!
Sorry, Sean, in the past couple days my Mom had major surgery, I’m catching a cold, and the dog ate my post.
Uh I’m a double Scorpio with my moon in Aires? Wanna party?
Oh shoot now I guess that won’t work anymore…
From my experience, it’s almost impossible to convince people who are into astrology that it is nonsense, just by telling them it’s incompatible with physics.
What I tried some time ago with someone is to go along with him and ask questions like: How would you calculate the horoscope of someone born on Mars? And could you calculate the time and place of birth given someone’s biography?
I had a painful experience regarding astrology a few months ago. A stranger over email made a statement to me that if he knew my birthday and birthplace, then he could tell me everything important about me. In a rare response, I tried my best to demonstrate why astrology isn’t supported by science, but the conversation got increasingly aggressive on his side, to the point of name-calling (towards me and to scientists in general), and so I wondered how my communicative skills could be so bad. Or maybe he was having a bad day(s). My usual high sensitivity nature really went numb from his words, though.
My first line in response to him was that if he was referring to astrology, then I didn’t believe any of it, and that I can show him with physics. But for that I need a way to write an equation and draw a picture on a piece of paper for him to see, so my demonstration wasn’t going to be easy over the long email distance. I told him the equation is just a few algebra terms to show the force of Jupiter or Mars or another planet on a human standing on the Earth and that he can google on Newton’s Gravity equation to see what it looks like ahead of time. I told him that I would be depending on gravity, unless he thinks that that there are other forces I should include.
In response, he told me of a Nobel prize (for chemistry) winner named Kary Mullis who wrote a chapter supporting astrology in one of his books, and so why don’t I believe Nobel prize winners?
My answer was that if Mullis was referring to astrology, then probably I would lose some respect for him. More, I would wonder about Mullis: where did he learn his science? Did he take a physics course? The influence (force) of planets on an object (person) is something that a person learns in their first physics class, which for a professional scientist, usually happens in high school.
I tried to joke a little too by saying that maybe Mullis got a D in physics in high school like my D in chemistry in high school, and so maybe Mullis never went back…
And to continue, I told him that in any case, a Nobel prize in one area does not mean that the person has an expertise in another area. Clearly they are smart about something, so if a Nobel prize winner says something about one area of science that is not his specialty, it’s worth to at least read the premise of what he’s proposing.
The next thing he wrote to me was that “No one has a firm grip on Truth.”
My respose to him (now quoting):
“I don’t know how you define Truth. Perhaps you don’t like the word facts, so I will say that there exists a large body of human knowledge about physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences that are accumulated knowledge over some couple thousand years, especially the last few hundred years since The Enlightenment period. The Scientific Method was not applied consistently, however, the scientific principles gained and the engineering implementation of those principles lets you turn on a light switch, use your toaster, have running water in your home, turn on your car engine when you turn the key. Within ten kilometers of you lives a scientist I know who receives images from an instrument that is on a spacecraft that is in orbit around Saturn by the same principles that let you turn on a light switch, and by the same principles that keeps your feet on Earth while the Earth is rotating once per 23 hours and 56 minutes and orbiting the Sun every 365.25 days and while the Sun is dragging the Earth and the rest of the Solar System with it while the Sun orbits the center of mass of the Milky Way galaxy once every approximately 250 million years. The ‘facts’ are tried and tested again and again and if they were not ‘true’ to the best of our knowledge, my colleague would not be able to look at her computer screen and see images of Hyperion and you would not be able to enter a room and turn on a light.”
My response didn’t go well on his side at all. The next several email messages from him to me were long strings of name-calling; it surprised me, shocked me too. I know that my writing style sometimes can get very dry (especially if I am having a stressed day, myself), but I didn’t see how any rational person could be so deeply offended with what I said.
On my side, astrology is one of the least interesting topics to talk about, I would much prefer to talk with strangers about music or art or volcanoes or watching the stars.
I hope that those of you addressing astrology-believers have better experiences than me. Outside of my students, astrology is not a topic that I am willing to discuss with strangers any more (or at least for a long time until I recover from this experience).
Amara,
Maybe you should have told the person that you consulted your astrologer who said that you should have no further contact with that person.
How could they argue with that?
Sorry,
Elliot
(!! thanks for the smiles, Elliot!)
#9 Amara: The world is full of nuts. There’s nothing wrong with your communication skills; you may have been communicating too effectively, threatening his belief system.
If you don’t want to offend somebody who’s peddling nonsense a good technique is to refrain from presenting counter-arguments; just ask questions that guide him/her to a contradiction, then stay on the contradiction until s/he tires. (‘Gee, I’d really like to buy your argument.. if only we could work out this pesky contradiction.’) Of course, when you’re dealing with somebody whose beliefs are irrational, that person’s reaction to having his/her beliefs threatened may be irrational (unpredictable).
Comb his messages for indications that he’s a physical threat; if you find something, call the cops. Other than that.. who cares? The world is full of nuts.
P.S. His point about scientific progress being made during periods when The Method wasn’t strictly adhered too may have some validity. And Mars is still fairly close, isn’t it? We all know how Mars can exacerbate hostilities. Maybe when Venus takes over again he’ll e-mail an apology.
To counter those who don’t buy anti-astrology arguments based upon the fundamental forces, I have another approach.
If the pro-astrology person believes the system based on the Zodiac sign based on the day of the month you were born, I point out that there may well be criminals serving life sentences, people on life support and those who are in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s who share your b’day. Surely not all of these people are going to have the same fate as you within a given time?
And Sean, what are you? May I guess a multi-faceted Gemini forever trying to reconcile your many personalities?
Citrine,
there is also a ”relativistically covariant” version of astrology in which place of birth also matters 🙂
citrine, nope, I’m not a Gemini. But I’m sure I’ve given away more than enough about my personality so that some expert astrologer could match it precisely to my sign.
I once met a person (a physicist, mind you) who liked painting (as I do), poetry (as I do), the same music that I like, the same flavor of ice cream that’s my favorite, the same color that’s my favorite, the same furniture store that I like, the same city that I love, could not cook or play music or dance (like I can’t), etc., etc. And then, I found out that he was born in the same month I was, only eight short days before me. Not only that, but even in the same year, so even by chinese standards, we must be in the same sign. If this is not proof that astrology is right, I don’t know what it is!
(And of course for whomever didn’t get it, I am in a teasing mood 😉