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Should Scientists Date People Who Believe Astrology?
YourAstrologer writes "Wired Science asks: Should scientists date people who believe in astrology? Apparently, the argument is quite complex. Astrology is sort of a flawed mental shortcut for understanding the world, but so is disregarding someone because of their spiritual beliefs. Women are inundated with astrological nonsense from fashion magazines, so it is normative for them to believe it even if they are otherwise highly logical. Smart people can convince themselves of silly things."
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It's called stereotyping. And if the characteristics being stereotyped are relevant to the judgement, say like a belief in astrology indicates some degree of ignorance, gullibility, or even stupidity, then it's not bigotry. Another example, I wouldn't let an ex-felon (especially one convicted for embezzlement or fraud) near large amounts of money in a business. It's just common sense.
> Also, it makes the false assumption that more scientists are men than women.
/are/ men.
Uh, most scientists
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Why would the burden of proof be with the guy who refuses to believe the religious crap? For astrology, crystals, healing, tarot cards and the idiotic things some women believe, most everyone agrees that it's all nonsense and that the burden of proof is on them. For the idiotic things that some men believe, i.e. organized religion, the burden of proof is on the atheists? WTF?
You seem to have missed a course in logic. Atheism is simply not believing in a god. It is comparable to you not believing that there is an invisible pink aardvark sitting in the chair next to you. According to your logic, you bear the burden of proof for proving to the rest of us that the chair is indeed empty. We're waiting...
It's always amazing to me that you superstitious folks seem to think that you get to define my beliefs. I don't try to tell you what Christians believe. Please have the same courtesy.
I was taught to respect my elders. The trouble is, it's getting harder and harder to find some.
No, I don't think you're a bigot. I think you're someone who has turned science in to a belief system because of your passion for the idea that humanity is "advancing". Humanity, and all organic systems, is changing. We don't get better, we get different. You're out to find the path to true enlightenment, that's cool, everyone is, through spirituality or science, it's all the same passion for finding real happiness. It's all just driven by curiosity and an ingrained inherent motivation to be "better" than what we are. Something that, realistically, just doesn't happen. Better is relative and counts humanity as significantly more important than the natural world around us. That is, of course, a very close-minded, human, non-scientific point of view. The concept of something being better -rather than different- is unfortunately nihilistic but at the same time, serves the concept of evolution much more accurately than does some passion-fueled rant that seems to scream, "If we're ever going to get anywhere, we have to drop organized religion." I assure you, friend, we ARE getting somewhere. Mankind, all life, doesn't sit around. It may be frustrating that you won't see it in your 85 year lifespan, but rest assured, humanity is indeed changing all the time. It may not be changing in a manner that's positive for YOU, but evolution will always give some biological group a chance in the limelight, so maybe you'll get lucky.
There are elements to astrology that might have scientific explanations, even if the causal model provided by astrology is wrong. For example, according to astrology Leos often act as if they have something to prove. Well, in the West, Leos are usually the youngest in their school class, and at the age at which they start school that's a big difference; they're a *long* way behind their "peers" so it's hardly surprising if they learn behaviours that make them look "big". Nothing to fo with where the stars were when they were born, but (possibly) a significant observation nonetheless. Just because astrology teaches it doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.
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Astrology is a flawed mental shortcut for NOT understanding the world.
Astrology is not a more-flawed model; it's not a model at all.
Scientific models account for the evidence available to them; they provide correct predictions over their domain, within calculable error.
"Like astrology, Newtonian physics is a model that has been proven wrong. I'm convinced that it is a more useful model than astrology, but that's a matter of opinion."
It is not a matter of opinion; it is indisputable. The entirety of modern engineering is built on Newtonian mechanics, which has never been proved wrong, because it is not wrong. Newtonian mechanics describes how things in the physical world behave with extraordinary precision. There are other considerably more complex, harder to use models that describe certain extreme case with more precision, notably quantum mechanics and relativity. None of these models are "right"; they are more or less precise, and more or less useful in different cases. Sorry, but the "Newtonian mechanics proven wrong" meme bugs the hell out of me almost as much as astrology.
Astrology is not a model, and can't be proven wrong as it is not evidence based, and makes no testable predictions.
A) The phrase is "cue up", not "queue up".
B) While the Wired article wasn't focused on men vs. women, Slashdot naturally had to put that twist on it. I mean, what kind of scientist would be a woman? What a silly concept! (As though huge numbers of men don't believe in all sorts of kooky things. No, it's apparently only weak-minded women who fall for pop-culture nonsense.)
Yes, more women believe in astrology then men -- but not by a huge margin. Women are a mere 5% more likely than the population as a whole to believe in astrology. On the other hand, men are 9% more likely than women to believe in UFOs. And why stop at gender? There's a much stronger correlation between being a Democrat and believing in astrology (14%) than being a woman and believing in astrology. Should we have framed the question in terms of political parties? Was the goal to be insulting?
Lastly, while we're talking about pseudoscientific delusions designed to make people feel better, they give a free pass to people who believe silly things that are "religious beliefs". As a society, we always defer to that. But why? A delusion is a delusion. It's not as though religious beliefs are harmless or anything, judging from history -- quite the opposite, really. Why are we saying it's okay to believe as they do -- to think you have an imaginary friend in the sky who loves you very much, and when you die, you get magically transported to a happy place to live with him -- simply because there are so many of them in the US?
Yes, I dared mentioned the elephant in the room.
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