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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."
As a scientist I am likely to disregard most attempts at serious conversation on the subject of astrology.
That said, I would not, and I believe, nor would any other normal scientific single chap, turn away a hot chick just because she was pondering my star sign or wanting to read my palm. In most cases It's just another vector into a conversation anyway.
Judging someone to be undateable because of her spiritual beliefs is somehow wrong? Why, because it would hurt her feelings? I'd say a woman's spiritual beliefs, especially if they are wholly incompatible with common sense (as so many of them are), are reason enough to not want to waste time trying to develop a close relasionship with.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
I once went out on a date with a girl who was in an English PhD program at Lehigh University so she was no dummy, but she believed in astrology. I didn't realize she was serious at first so I started picking on her about it. She got really offended and tried to rationalize it by explaining that when you're born the stars in the babies star sign have a gravitational effect on its' brain. I tried to explain to her that the TV in the delivery room would have more of an effect. Her eyes glazed over at the term "Gravitational Constant" so I figured it was a lost cause and just gave up.
Founder, Americans Allied Against Alliteration
Not married to a "fashionista", I guess?
Astrology has a scientific pedigree. Ptolemy's Almagest does not make the modern distinction between Astronomy and Astrology.
The core intuition works this way: "We can see that the sphere of the Sun has a distinct effect on our daily lives. When it's overhead, it's warm and light, when it's on the other side of the Earth, it's cold and dark. When it is in a certain part of the sky, it's winter, and another part, it's summer. The moon has a more tenuous effect on the the Earth, but one we can sense: the tides, for example, seem connected to the phase of the moon, and perhaps people too. Therefore, the spheres of the other five planets should likewise have a thin affect."
The core intuition is, of course, wrong, but there's a ton of scientific literature built on the subject. Most modern astrologers, however, ignore the thousands of years of careful reflection and study, and prefer to pull crap out of their asses.
Religion is not falsifiable. Astrology makes certain predictions: generally stated, the date of your birth influences your personality and fate. I did a study on this a few years ago, using a database of prominent people from the past couple hundred years, with their birth dates (converted to sun sign via Astrolog) and professions. No correlation. The artists, scientists, political leaders, etc were distributed evenly by sign. Astrology debunked, as far as I'm concerned.
You cannot do the same with religion. Sure, you can debunk certain things (pi is not exactly 3), but the core spiritualism is inherently safe. We can argue, as many have done, that claims are worthless without evidence. But that's about it.
We are humans. Flawed machines. Human females deserve you treat them as equals. Maybe then you'll get a date.
The preceding was the only part of the parent post that shows any resemblance of intelligent thought. There is a big difference between a non falsifiable belief system, and one that does claim to make very specific predictions. I have no problem with a belief system that can not be proven or disproven and causes people to lead better lives. I do have a problem with people that believe that human behavior is influenced or predetermined by objects, but reject any knowledge about these same objects that was scientificly determined.
And yes, I did break up with a girlfriend because of this.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Actually, I'd find that a rather fascinating, creative delusion.
I can think of lots of different types of "stupid" and my guess is that you probably wouldn't find all of them stupid. Compare:
1. A mentally retarded person who is optimistic and happy. Seeing a pretty flower makes him happy even though he has no idea what it is called, or how it grew where he found it.
2. A genius level intellect who is always unhappy and irritated. There is nothing he can see which could make him as happy as person #1.
I find them both stupid in kind of orthogonal ways, and I am convinced there are many more dimensions of possible stupidity (your example being kind of stupid in the "reality" dimension, I suppose)....
I am an atheist, proud and true. I do not believe in *anything* that can't be proved. Unfortunately, I have to accept a lot of things as "probably true" barring evidence to the contrary. My wife is a catholic who reads the horoscope, go figure.
It is a good marriage. Every now and then, however, when we talk about those who have passed away or deeper meanings of life or what have you, it forces a reconciliation between philosophies. Sometimes a fight, sometimes a a discussion, either way, it can work.
So, should scientists date "believers of things?" Sure, but you have to be ready to "accept" the person "as-is." If you can't do that then it won't work.
How many people really take this seriously? I may be demonstrating the no true Scotsman fallacy, here, but how many people who read astrology actually believe it any more than they believe in four-leaf clovers or knocking on wood? I suspect that, for most people who believe in astrology, their daily horoscope or astrological sign is in no way relevant to them. They read the horoscope, laugh about it if it comes true, and in no other way let it affect their lives.
It's hard enough to get a date as it is without pre-rejecting everybody who believes something beyond that which can be proven. Besides, show me a scientist who believes nothing beyond that which can be proven and I'll show you a liar.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I also have problems reconciling science and faith. It does seem to me that a profound life-defining belief in something which cannot be proved to exist is incompatible with the scientific method of a rigorous and logical evaluation of evidence to arrive at a conclusion. However, i have many friends who do seem able to reconcile this, and despite their beliefs are (by any metric) excellent scientists. Apparently the logic goes something like - god created the earth/universe etc, and made it conform to a bunch of laws. We are discovering and understanding those laws to the best of our abilities, using the curiosity that god gave us. The use of scientific method provides us with the means to do it, and its ok because god doesn't intend us to live through eternity in the mud saying to each other "oh, god did that, we don't need to know about it".
You're implying that even though a religious scientist may write good papers and conduct reliable experiments, their output is somehow unexplainably and unquestionably inferior to the output of real scientists.
Unexplainably and unquestionably... Do you know what that sounds like?
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
The whole basis of the scientific method is that the "observations" used to lend strength to a hypothesis are repeatable. If one person sees the Flying Spaghetti Monster on top of a mountain, but can never summon Him for others to observe, then that observation is worthless.
Although calling anyone an idiot is not a good way to start a discussion (especially one centering on faith).
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
It just boggles the mind that anyone could fall for that crap. And it's even more surprising how anyone could fall for that crap, yet claim that astrology is somehow false.
Which conclusions? How similar are they, really? And most importantly, why are the commonalities better explained by a common "spiritual truth" than by the fact that the practitioners who come up with this stuff are all humans with a religious bent, sharing a common nature? It's not unreasonable to put the burden of proof on the believer when every testable supernatural prediction of religions has turned out false. For example, numerous cultures have global flood myths and astrology, but when you look closely, you find that the details are different and the science doesn't work out. Many people have out-of-body experiences, but when you look closely, you find that they can't really see anything they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. You can't point to shared belief as evidence without taking into account basic features of human thought such as selection bias.
It takes ten years of college to do original research in physics, but even middle school students can learn Newton's Laws. Are your universal principles written down anywhere in a simple form that everyone can agree on? What are the limits of these principles? What do they cover and what do they not cover? Why has there been no progress in thousands of years when every other field of human endeavor has seen great revolutions in thought? Why, if these truths are so compelling, is there still so much strife between religions?
I agree that atheists need to take a deeper approach to analyzing religions, but you don't need to be an expert to ask these sorts of questions and realize that you get more sensible and consistent answers if these beliefs are simply incorrect.
Visit the
No, stay with me. I don't believe in hocus pocus.
I once did a teaching course, as I was teaching basic IT skills in an evening class. One of my fellow students was teaching astrology (I was rather glad to hear that it wasn't subsidised in the same way as the IT classes were). So I got to learn a little bit about it.
He was completely dismissive of magazine horoscopes, and said that a proper horoscope involved far more detailed plotting based on the exact date, and a dialogue between the astrologer and the client. It soon became apparent to me that the star stuff was pretty much just a starting off point for some self-examination, coached by the consultant. You can make the same argument for tarot -- the cards you get are arbitrary, and their meanings are deliberately ambiguous, meaning you can use them to kick off some rather productive brainstorming.
One of my ex girlfriends was all into making my "chart" to see what was rising in what sign, and all sorts of other BS. So I lied - told her I was born on Feb 30 (there is no Feb 30 - ever). Got a "reading" of all sorts of things that she thought I was like - "See it fits you"
Then told there is no Feb 30, was born on March 2 (another lie) - got a similar reading (cause my stars were still closely aligned).
Finally told her my real birthday was in August. She got mad and didn't want to do any more horroscope crap around me again, AND we still went out for over a year, before broke up w/ her. She wanted to plop out some kids, and I wanted grad school - so I said later.
Mesg is - just put up with it. It's a harmless thing they do, as long as they aren't making serious life decisions because of it. If they won't buy a house, cause the stars are wrong, or want to buy 10,000 shares of a stock 'cause of the stars, then dump them.
..........FULL STOP.
I'm more inclined to think that it's the attitude of humility which might arise as aspects of the universe are revealed.
In terms of the subjective experience, it's not important whether the revelation comes from science or through some other means. As a species, we seem to be wired to yearn for it, and a fair subset of the population gets to experience it, if only in brief glimpses.
But those glimpses have a profound effect on individuals. They come away with the conviction that the universe is bigger than we can imagine it to be. And, well, that's a correct perception, given that we have brains the size of cantaloupes with which to model this very large and complex environment. It makes a refreshing contrast to our common error of going around arrogantly thinking that we've got it all figured out.
But then we do an odd thing. Having just tasted firsthand the revelation of how vast and wondrous this universe really is, we immediately start reducing the experience to something we can model. It would be more appropriate to hold the matter open, completely open. Instead, we typically let it collapse back into whatever cognitive framework we happen to favor.
But if we were obliged to reduce a transcendent experience to some kind of finite model, then I think science produces a much more coherent model than any belief system based on faith. One good thing at least about science, in a spiritual context, is that it provides a constructive common ground for people who want to compare their transcendent experiences. Lacking that common ground, what we would have instead would be a Tower of Babel.
I think this account also explains why nonscientific people can hold on so tightly to their alternate beliefs despite their internal contradictions, lack of falsifiability, and uncertain predictive power. A transcendent experience feels a lot like blind faith, only more so. It exists, compellingly and infinitely, as its own explanation. So when you come back to earth again, it can seem like your blind faith has been vindicated, and you may well hold onto it more tightly and defend it more vigorously thereafter. And, sadly, many traditional religions have learned to exploit this effect.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
Actually, there was a February 30th in 1712 in Sweden.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.