THE FAULT, DEAR BRUTUS...
Jun. 22nd, 2004 02:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerScientists sometimes irritate me.
I don't mean scientists in the original sense of the word, people who work to advance knowledge through the use of scientific method...though there is some overlap between that set and the one I'm talking about. The people who irritate me are the ones who Believe, not in a myth or a religion or a moral code, but in Science. They aren't usually even aware that they're doing it, which might be funny under other circumstances. They take the pronouncements of real scientists, and rather than testing them out, they Believe them, set them up as some kind of techno-gospel (which will probably be a new kind of music some day soon). They ignore whichever of Clarke's laws it was that said "When an eminent scientist says that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong." Scientists, to them, are never wrong. Science is never wrong. Science is infallible. Never mind that the progress of science down through the ages has been an ongoing process of making mistakes and learning from them.
And by the same token, to this kind of scientist (sciencian? Sciencite? Whatever), anything that is not science (by their definition) is worthless mumbo-jumbo. Evidence is irrelevant. The testimony of ordinary, sensible, level-headed people is so much babble from the padded cell. To them, we are all ignorant savages trembling before our crude altars. Only they have the secret knowledge. Only they see the Truth.
Astrology. There's a case in point. Sorry, I do beg your pardon, I mean "that astrology nonsense." Of all the things that sciencites love to dump on, this must be one of the biggest, on a par with believing in a deity, or maybe even better. After all, science has so far given us absolutely no reason to discount the possibility that a deity of some sort exists. There's no proof either way. Astrology, however, is easily disproved. All you have to do is assume that the human race is congenitally imbecile, and look at the phenomenon backwards.
Astrologers, you see, and the stupid sheep who believe them, think that great whirling balls of rock and gas are alive, intelligent, and take an interest in whether Mrs Doris Fnord of 123 Wibbling Way, Wibbling Parva, should or should not be careful in dealings involving a friend. They think that there are gigantic animals up in the sky looking down on us and making us stubborn or optimistic or fond of beauty. And the funniest thing is that the animals have moved in the past two thousand years, they're not where the astrologers think they are any more, and the astrologers haven't changed their charts and tables to agree with this movement. So that proves it's all rubbish. Doesn't it?
This is a very old and time-honoured game, and it's called Aunt Sally. Astrologers don't actually claim any of that. They use the signs and the planets and the houses, ascendant and midheaven and aspects, as a shorthand to describe the effects of influences that have been extensively researched and codified over the past two thousand years. That's not so easy to make look silly, though, so you can understand why sciencians prefer to put up the straw men.
I mentioned looking at the phenomenon backwards a while ago. This is because I believe that sciencearians have the origin of astrology exactly reversed. I think what they think happened is this: somewhere back in the dim primitive pre-Science ages, The Priests (a handy all-purpose villain and general bugaboo) decided that the gods were in the sky, and assigned them to various planets and constellations, pretty much at random. Then, having nothing better to do, they devised a complex system by which anyone born when the sun was in front of a particular constellation could be said to be ruled by that constellation's god, who would thereafter govern that person's future. They did this, of course, to bamboozle and dominate the people, keeping from them the light of true science. The fact that (being The Priests) they already had as much power as they could possibly want or need is neither here nor there: after all, everyone wants more power, don't they?
Just one minor point before I offer an alternative hypothesis: how exactly does it occur to anyone to check which pattern of stars is behind the sun at any given point? You can't see it. Short of an eclipse, you can't see any stars at all when the sun's up, and when it's down-you get the idea. To go through all the charting and calculation required to work out the zodiacal position of the sun, I think you have to be looking for something, something a bit more substantial than a way to boost the tithes this month.
Let's try it this way. Ancient scientists (and if you don't know in which sense I'm using the word, you haven't been paying attention) observed that people exhibited a range of different personality traits, not explicable in terms of heredity or environment. They studied, and collated, and sorted out twelve distinct personality types, linked somehow to the time of year at which the subject was born. They gave these types names based on their natures-one is impetuous and belligerent like a ram, one slow and stubborn like a bull, and so on-and found correspondences in their religious myth-cycles, because after all these scientists did not discount the possibility of deity purely because they had not proved it yet. Then, being scientists, they sought after a cause. They discovered the zodiac, the belt of star patterns through which the sun passes, and worked out where the sun was at the time when each personality type was being manifested, and then-and only then-they applied the types to the constellations, perhaps the most far-fetched part of the whole thing. (Have you looked at Taurus? Does that look anything like a bull to you?) Then, having theorised that the position of the sun had some influence, they went on to develop the theory with respect to the other planets, and astrology as we know it was born. A scientific exercise, working from observed effect to possible cause, and adapting the theory to fit the facts. Some people could maybe learn a thing or two.
I have gone into astrology: not as a career, but in enough depth to conclude that the personality types are there. Not always to the same extent, since the influence of astrology is only one of a hundred other factors working on the developing personality, and seldom in the same way, but everyone manifests to whatever degree some characteristic or tendency attributable to their "star sign." That this influence has anything to do with the actual stars I think has been convincingly disproved by the precession of the equinoxes: but the system continues to work for its practitioners, and until some effort is made to isolate the true cause it will, I think, do.
I am not making any extravagant claims for astrology: while it is an exact science as far as it goes, it can never provide utterly reliable or wholly comprehensive data either about personality or future events, any more than the study of sunspots can tell us exactly what the weather will be tomorrow. I do not believe this is a valid reason for abandoning the study of sunspots. In a world filled with variable factors each impacting on our lives, it is wise to take account of as many of those factors as possible.
As for the rantings of the scienceadelphians, well...as long as they continue to ignore the evidence, impugn the intelligence of their predecessors and spout dogma instead of asking intelligent questions, we will never run the risk of taking them too seriously when they declare anything else to be impossible.
Which is no bad thing.
I don't mean scientists in the original sense of the word, people who work to advance knowledge through the use of scientific method...though there is some overlap between that set and the one I'm talking about. The people who irritate me are the ones who Believe, not in a myth or a religion or a moral code, but in Science. They aren't usually even aware that they're doing it, which might be funny under other circumstances. They take the pronouncements of real scientists, and rather than testing them out, they Believe them, set them up as some kind of techno-gospel (which will probably be a new kind of music some day soon). They ignore whichever of Clarke's laws it was that said "When an eminent scientist says that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong." Scientists, to them, are never wrong. Science is never wrong. Science is infallible. Never mind that the progress of science down through the ages has been an ongoing process of making mistakes and learning from them.
And by the same token, to this kind of scientist (sciencian? Sciencite? Whatever), anything that is not science (by their definition) is worthless mumbo-jumbo. Evidence is irrelevant. The testimony of ordinary, sensible, level-headed people is so much babble from the padded cell. To them, we are all ignorant savages trembling before our crude altars. Only they have the secret knowledge. Only they see the Truth.
Astrology. There's a case in point. Sorry, I do beg your pardon, I mean "that astrology nonsense." Of all the things that sciencites love to dump on, this must be one of the biggest, on a par with believing in a deity, or maybe even better. After all, science has so far given us absolutely no reason to discount the possibility that a deity of some sort exists. There's no proof either way. Astrology, however, is easily disproved. All you have to do is assume that the human race is congenitally imbecile, and look at the phenomenon backwards.
Astrologers, you see, and the stupid sheep who believe them, think that great whirling balls of rock and gas are alive, intelligent, and take an interest in whether Mrs Doris Fnord of 123 Wibbling Way, Wibbling Parva, should or should not be careful in dealings involving a friend. They think that there are gigantic animals up in the sky looking down on us and making us stubborn or optimistic or fond of beauty. And the funniest thing is that the animals have moved in the past two thousand years, they're not where the astrologers think they are any more, and the astrologers haven't changed their charts and tables to agree with this movement. So that proves it's all rubbish. Doesn't it?
This is a very old and time-honoured game, and it's called Aunt Sally. Astrologers don't actually claim any of that. They use the signs and the planets and the houses, ascendant and midheaven and aspects, as a shorthand to describe the effects of influences that have been extensively researched and codified over the past two thousand years. That's not so easy to make look silly, though, so you can understand why sciencians prefer to put up the straw men.
I mentioned looking at the phenomenon backwards a while ago. This is because I believe that sciencearians have the origin of astrology exactly reversed. I think what they think happened is this: somewhere back in the dim primitive pre-Science ages, The Priests (a handy all-purpose villain and general bugaboo) decided that the gods were in the sky, and assigned them to various planets and constellations, pretty much at random. Then, having nothing better to do, they devised a complex system by which anyone born when the sun was in front of a particular constellation could be said to be ruled by that constellation's god, who would thereafter govern that person's future. They did this, of course, to bamboozle and dominate the people, keeping from them the light of true science. The fact that (being The Priests) they already had as much power as they could possibly want or need is neither here nor there: after all, everyone wants more power, don't they?
Just one minor point before I offer an alternative hypothesis: how exactly does it occur to anyone to check which pattern of stars is behind the sun at any given point? You can't see it. Short of an eclipse, you can't see any stars at all when the sun's up, and when it's down-you get the idea. To go through all the charting and calculation required to work out the zodiacal position of the sun, I think you have to be looking for something, something a bit more substantial than a way to boost the tithes this month.
Let's try it this way. Ancient scientists (and if you don't know in which sense I'm using the word, you haven't been paying attention) observed that people exhibited a range of different personality traits, not explicable in terms of heredity or environment. They studied, and collated, and sorted out twelve distinct personality types, linked somehow to the time of year at which the subject was born. They gave these types names based on their natures-one is impetuous and belligerent like a ram, one slow and stubborn like a bull, and so on-and found correspondences in their religious myth-cycles, because after all these scientists did not discount the possibility of deity purely because they had not proved it yet. Then, being scientists, they sought after a cause. They discovered the zodiac, the belt of star patterns through which the sun passes, and worked out where the sun was at the time when each personality type was being manifested, and then-and only then-they applied the types to the constellations, perhaps the most far-fetched part of the whole thing. (Have you looked at Taurus? Does that look anything like a bull to you?) Then, having theorised that the position of the sun had some influence, they went on to develop the theory with respect to the other planets, and astrology as we know it was born. A scientific exercise, working from observed effect to possible cause, and adapting the theory to fit the facts. Some people could maybe learn a thing or two.
I have gone into astrology: not as a career, but in enough depth to conclude that the personality types are there. Not always to the same extent, since the influence of astrology is only one of a hundred other factors working on the developing personality, and seldom in the same way, but everyone manifests to whatever degree some characteristic or tendency attributable to their "star sign." That this influence has anything to do with the actual stars I think has been convincingly disproved by the precession of the equinoxes: but the system continues to work for its practitioners, and until some effort is made to isolate the true cause it will, I think, do.
I am not making any extravagant claims for astrology: while it is an exact science as far as it goes, it can never provide utterly reliable or wholly comprehensive data either about personality or future events, any more than the study of sunspots can tell us exactly what the weather will be tomorrow. I do not believe this is a valid reason for abandoning the study of sunspots. In a world filled with variable factors each impacting on our lives, it is wise to take account of as many of those factors as possible.
As for the rantings of the scienceadelphians, well...as long as they continue to ignore the evidence, impugn the intelligence of their predecessors and spout dogma instead of asking intelligent questions, we will never run the risk of taking them too seriously when they declare anything else to be impossible.
Which is no bad thing.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 02:21 am (UTC)As for astrology, I look on it as a symbolism which some people can use to get at non-obvious truth. I don't think it's a science (except as that work originally meant 'knowledge', Anglo-Saxon 'in-wit' or 'in-wis' from the same root as 'wisdom'), because astrologers don't agree on the calculations even when they get the same results (which is a lot more often than would be reasnable by chance). I regard it as another form of "Visualisation of the Cosmic All" (or bits of it), as with other divination methods.
Unfortunately, these things are trivialised by the popular conception and misuse by the mass media. The 'horoscopes' in the daily paper are nothing at all to do with astrology (apart from the names), everyone born in a certain month is not going to have the same experiences on the same day. The same is happening to the Tarot, with web-based Tarot sites which use a dodgy numerological calculation to find your significator (and only out of the Triumphs, ignoring the suit cards).
(Oh, and as for the religion of science -- does anyone (apart from some physicists) actually believe in the existence of quarks? They seem to have forgotten Occam's Razor, "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily"...)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 02:30 am (UTC)I think part of the problem are dogmatic scientists as much as dogmatic priests, conflating their interpretations with *the* truth/*the* law/whatever. One scientific writer I have found very congenial is Benjamin Franklin, who was careful to preface his assertions with "It seems to me that..."
I reckon that the Dawkins tendency owes something to the saw about 'becoming the thing that we fear', from who was it? - Nietzsche or Freud? With the exemplar of Galileo in mind, they sought to prevent religious orthodoxy strangling free enquiry, but in doing so, they eventually became an orthodoxy themselves. Always had a problem with 'belief' myself, so when confronted with dogmatism of whatever stripe, I try to avoid condemnation and perhaps respond in the spirit of Robert Anton Wilsonesque 'third-level agnosticism'.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 02:51 am (UTC)So said a T-shirt slogan I saw once. More or less my view too - it *has* been shown that there can be strong similarities between people born at the same time of year in many ways, but not enough for them to, as you say, all have the same experience on the same day. Just *similarities* of character.
Oh. And I'm an Aquarian.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 06:38 am (UTC)What you're investigating is not astrology which is claiming fame of being close to astronomy / physics and "thus science", but instead personality arechtyping, which is in the psychology/sociology department.
A famous personality archetyping scheme is the "Eneagram", boiling personalities down to 7-12 types (depending on the method). This is an accepted method (IIRC) in psychology - basically a "sorting people into boxes".
Generic/original astrology claims to explain or predict "influences" of distant stars to the life and personality of people. As you said (or Spock would state): very improbable. "Simply Bullshit" would be a more klingonesque way of stating.
Type studies / archetyping OTOH is an access to psychology/sociology. A bit simplifying, but that are most physical models, too. Valid as long as you keep its limitations in mind...
Um, I don't think what you read was what I wrote...
Date: 2004-06-22 04:59 pm (UTC)I personally feel that "boiling personalities down" and sorting people into boxes is a very good way to avoid learning anything about them. Astrologers do not claim that every Scorpio, say, can be summed up in a few phrases: they aren't that stupid. The devisers of these archetyping systems seem to think they can do it.
I refer to astrology as a science, because if I follow my inclination and call it an art, it becomes impossible to debunk it on scientific grounds at all, any more than one could debunk painting or dance. Both of which can convey a great deal of valuablke information. Just trying to keep a level playing field.
And all this is, of course, just my opinion.