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Other scientists are
simply confused and frustrated by the current resuscitation of astrology.
A 1991 survey of college students conducted by the Astronomical Society
of the Pacific revealed that astrology is almost as popular among science
majors as among arts and humanities majors. Baffled, the researchers could
only conclude that education as it now stands is not a good predictor
about one's beliefs in astrology or other pseudosciences. To remedy the
situation, the researchers suggested that "Educators have to confront
this problem head-on " and "we have previously underestimated the will
to believe." This attitude is akin to an inflexibility and rigidness observed
in those posed on the cusp of a paradigm shift.
A good starting point
for a dialogue between astrology and science would be for both parties to
give up on the idea of finding a causal explanation for astrology. The scientist
critical of astrology will argue that of the four known forces of nature,
only gravity could potentially act as the internuncio between the planets
and Earth. However, the effect of the gravitational pull of the planets upon
the Earth is so weak as to have an inconsequential effect.
Humans in close proximity
to each other have a greater gravitational pull on each other than do the
planets. To paraphrase Carl
Sagan, "Don't try and correlate the planets as a potential cause
for an illness but check whether you had a nurse in the fifth house
and a doctor in Capricorn."
Attempts by astrologers
to explain planetary influence via physical mechanisms have usually
been plagued by having far too many speculative gaps; the of lack quantitative
findings in these proposed models do not allow for a significant judgment
of their value. Given the complexity and inherent ambiguity of astrology,
I sincerely doubt that Newtonian explanations–so good in illuminating
causal relationships between discrete, "independent" objects–will adequately
demonstrate astrological correlations. Instead, as Victor Mansfield
suggests, the paradigmatic assumptions of quantum physics–nonlocality,
acausality, and observer dependence– may be a more well-suited lense
through which to view astrology.
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