Astrology Explored

April 11, 2008
When Antony van Leeuwenhoek looked into his microscope and discovered living organisms too small for the eye to see, all of mankind was forced to conclude the world is made up of more than we can perceive the naked eye. What a concept! The objects in the physical world were not made up of literally fire, air, earth and water mixed in different combinations. The world was made of vastly more complex stuff, atoms, electrons, protons, quarks and so on. And we’ve not yet sure we’ve completed the inventory of building blocks of physical matter.

Skeptics who decry astrology as pseudoscience, a fantasy, a sham forget that nearly all scientific concepts were birthed as ideas that were shrouded in disbelief by the scientific and religious peer groups of the day. Copernicus was so afraid of an adverse reaction by the Catholic church, taking an object lesson from Galileo, his heliocentric theory of the solar system was not published publicly until after his death.

The idea that scientific concepts should only be explored and pontificated upon by scientists would surely have set us back if Van Leeuwenhoek took that to heart. His trade: fabric merchant.

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March 6, 2008

Last Sunday Astrology Explored posted a little piece on Amazing Randi and his attempt to disprove astrology by having a well known astrologer give a cold reading to an audience directed at one person who was not made known to the astrologer. The subject was Hugh Laurie, known at that time, (1992) as a well known comedy actor in the UK. Hugh said the reading didn’t sound anything like him, but it did sound like his comedy partner, Stephen Fry, who was sitting right next to him in the audience.

So what happened here? And did the failure of the reading disprove astrology?

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February 24, 2008

When do you know when a horoscope column in a newspaper is fake? What do you do about it?

This astrologer had a surreal experience this week when I picked up a local rag, and read in disbelief the astrology column that was in it. It was garbage, total nonsense. For instance, Gemini was advised to go around and spontaneously hug everyone. I don’t know about where you live, but here in the heart of politically correct Yankee land, that advice can land you with an assault charge. Since I knew the editor of the paper, (who doesn’t know me as an astrologer) I paid a little visit to the offices of the newspaper.

“Who writes your astrology,” I asked?

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September 2, 2007

This article was referenced in a blog called Anne’s Anti Quackery and Science Blog in which :

Astrology would be considered a scientific theory if judged by the same criteria used by a well-known advocate of Intelligent Design to justify his claim that Intelligent Design is science, a landmark US trial heard on Tuesday.

The courtroom tittered when:
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August 26, 2007

Ripped from the headlines, we can’t help but to help other people!

Neuroscientists have been working very hard to determine what motivates altruism and as turns out, the impulse to put other people needs before our own is hard wired in our brains.

Apparently, morality is the result of evolution of social behavior.

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Skeptics who point to the generalized nature of horoscopes use them as “proof� that astrology is bogus. Well, comparing daily horoscopes to astrology is like comparing a dinner mint to a full course dinner.

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Imagine that there are only three types of cats. Over the years, people observed that each type of cat diplayed distinct responses to their environment. One type of cat was very aggressive, we’ll call him the Red Cat type. Another type, the Yellow cat, was not aggressive, and ran away when confronted with trouble. Another type of cat was unpredictible in his responses, sometimes aggressive, sometimes not. We’ll call him the Cerulean Cat. Over the years, the interest in the different types of cats peaked and waned. At times the study of the cats was very serious, with thorough investigations of why the cats acted differently. Other times the study of cat behavior was not deemed worth investigation, and the people who studied it weren’t taken seriously. However, it was clear to people who studied the Red, Yellow and Cerulean cats that the animals acted differently and they continued to their studies. However, despite many years of observations by the people who studied cat behavior, some people refused to believe that the different colors of cats acted differently, and called the people who studied the cats silly and superstitous, even though they didn’t study the subject themselves.

Skeptics who publicly deride astrology as superstition with no basis in fact do no one favors.

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