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Originally Written May 2000 | pp. 1 2 3
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The categorical and
conclusive expulsion of astrology in toto from the garden of legitimate
knowledge–that vast and extensive cataloguing of refuted claims some scientists
refer to–is a non-event. It hasn't happened yet. Certainly, some aspects
of astrology have not held up to scientific scrutiny, but other claims—the
claims some scientists would like you not to know about or at least forget—have
repeatedly defied scientific dismissal and cannot be "explained away."
The passage of astrology
from a legitimate epistemology to a pseudoscience without merit is less
a story of scientists conducting objective and comprehensive investigations
into the matter but is more a story about cultural and personal biases,
security, fear, power plays, and misinformation and assumptions over
and above facts—a study in "Kuhnian dynamics." Essentially, astrology
has been dismissed because the paradigmatic assumptions of scientism
don't mesh very well with those of astrology.
As the news of
the Copernican Revolution spread slowly throughout Europe, initial doubts
arose concerning the validity of the essential assumptions of astrology.
Undoubtably, the changing role of humanity's understanding of the universe
played its part. The realization that the Sun rather than the Earth
was at the center of the Solar System seemed somehow to undermine the whole
enterprise of astrology.
Although Newton was
among those who realized that, since astrological influences — if they
existed — were to be measured by noting the relationships between the
planets, it was entirely possible to continue to respect the idea of astrology
with whatever body was at the center of the Solar System.
Equally important was
the fact that the vast distance between the planets (to say nothing of the
stars) was now recognized; it seemed extremely unlikely that any ‘influence'
(of whatever sort) could make itself felt so far away as Earth. "Then there
was," as authors Julia and Derek Parker note, " the growing feeling that any
‘scientific' idea should be capable of technical explanation; it was no longer
enough to make the pronouncement ‘This is so'."
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