Dear Jeanne,
Thank you for your continued correspondence. I appreciate your wealth of
knowledge regarding astrology and hopefully I will be able to use you as
a resource as I learn more about it. Actually, I have a good friend and
colleague (Ph.D. astronomer) who gave a wonderful lecture about astrology:
==========================================================================
Michael Faison, Ph.D.
"What's Your Sign? Astrology, Astronomy, and Pseudoscience"
May 30, 2002
Astrology is an almost unavoidable aspect of modern American culture. 90%
of Americans know their "sign", and 30% of Americans believe that the
positions of celestial objects can somehow affect their daily lives or
their personalities. Some people even base their medical decisions, choose
a mate, or refuse to hire a job candidate based on astrology. In this
lecture, we will discuss the basics of traditional western astrology, the
historical connections between astronomy and astrology, why people believe
in astrology, and why it actually doesn't work.
Link to the web-cast of the entire lecture:
http://www.physics.northwestern.edu/pub_lecs.html===========================================================================
I would be interested in your response to what he says in his lecture ...
it's only 60 minutes long, and is quite interesting.
Oh ... and please don't be put off by his last statement "why it actually
doesn't work" ... because he's actually quite sympathetic to astrology and
urges us to regard it as a work in progress. His statement is meant that
in its current state, astrology is not scientifically validated (partly
because of all the nonsense in it which you also acknowledge), and it has
quite a ways to go before it gains such a status. His attitude throughout
the lecture is that we as scientists should not disregard astrology
outright as nonsense, but to carefully consider its claims with a
scientific spirit, and if it doesn't seem to "work" now, maybe with a bit
more study, we can figure out what is worth keeping about this body of
knowledge.
Hopefully with that spirit, we can make true progress to free humanity and
not continue to enslave it.
Best,
HF
