Inconsistency. One month a study shows that something is a health risk. The next month a study shows that it isn't. Experts will know that most of these studies are simply bad science.
Not necessarily bad science, but prematurely and incompletely reported science. Media will look for stories that could grab viewers, so many times we end up hearing about the latest study without much background. They also don't always report who funded the study, which can make a huge difference in how seriously to take it.
At last year's Big Green Gathering I watched an astrologer give a talk in which scientists were lumped in with a generic bad `they' - vindictive, ignorant of important issues like community spirt and ecology, actively persecutory, and closely tied to the ruling elites.
Remember that astrology gets "special" attention from a lot of scientists. Mainly ridicule. Thus some astrologers are going to have a much more negative view of scientists just due to that. (I know one scientist who loves mythology and lucid dreaming and art, yet scoffs at the mere mention of astrology. Go to the Bad Astronomy Blog, you'll see a link on the front page for astrology-- it's a treatise on how bad it is. I don't blame a lot of astrologers for holding views like the one you heard, even if I don't agree with them.)
Remember that astrology gets "special" attention from a lot of scientists. Mainly ridicule
Well, when astrologists stop pretending they have anything to do with objective reality, and move over to the "myth and security blankets" section, perhaps this will stop.
Alternatively: Show us the hypothesis and how it was tested. Show us the research. Show us how it's more accurate than shrewd guesses based on knowledge of human nature. And show us how it has progressed with the discovery of new celestial bodies.
Telated: "It has made some people feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis." -Tom Leherer, That Was the Year that Was
(I can feel a rant coming on, and I don't want to offend anyone. Please could someone stop me if I get carried away?) -----sapere aude
Alternatively: Show us the hypothesis and how it was tested. Show us the research.
With the attitude you show in the first quote, why should they bother? Your statement there isn't very conducive to discussion. Who wants to offer themselves as shark bait?
Since astrological forecasts are based on combinations of positions (or whatever, I don't know the correct term) that don't repeat exactly for centuries, in some cases, it's extremely difficult to present replicable research, although there have been a couple of scientific studies regarding Mars and athletes, and Uranus and earthquakes. But even those, I think, were kind of vague. I'm not an astrologer, so I'm not someone who can give you all the detail you want. I will say that in the one conversation I had about it with someone (said scientist I mentioned before, we had wandered onto the topic), I was cut off immediately. The person couldn't even hypothesize about it, his reaction to it was like that of a vampire to a cross.
Both sides really need to relax about it all.
It's true that you get the wackier shadings the deeper you drift towards the New Age, but there are some common narratives, such as
Scientists are primitive and don't understand the really clever stuff
Scientists are working for Sinister Dark Forces. In one example I found recently downtown Auckland had been dotted with mysterious radio aerials.
By the time you get there you're well into crank territory. But the point is really that with public buy-in, instead of public alienation from science, this kind of thing would be a lot less common and even harder to take seriously.
A lot of these fringe things work like a kind of cargo cult. You'll see 'quantum' and 'electromagnetic' and other key words scattered liberally, but used in ways that prove the writers don't really know what they mean, and they're there just to give a kind of scientific veneer.
Which is a revealing thing to do, because the implication is that although science is primitive, etc, it's still secretly considered an ultimate authority on what goes in this part of the universe.
The crank element, I think, is a vocal minority. The new agers I've met have for the most part loved science (and would have brushed off reports of those aerials as cell phone towers).
This, and your description of Fear and uncertainty and Resentment just point to the conclusion that Science is just magic to most people. They incorporate it in their magical thinking, and they dislike science and scientists like they would dislike wizards and witches a thousand years ago.
Arthur C. Clarke's any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic is spot on. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
A lot of these fringe things work like a kind of cargo cult. You'll see 'quantum' and 'electromagnetic' and other key words scattered liberally, but used in ways that prove the writers don't really know what they mean, and they're there just to give a kind of scientific veneer. Which is a revealing thing to do, because the implication is that although science is primitive, etc, it's still secretly considered an ultimate authority on what goes in this part of the universe.
Hence the tables, graphs and maps prevalent in astrology. They were high tech when it was at it's peak. -----sapere aude
However, I will not "relax" about something that is exploiting people's fears and disguises magical/wishful thinking as reason. It's not "harmless fun". It is to science (and a better life for all) what Fox is to politics. Some planets far away affect you about as much (when you are born and otherwise) as a book next to the bed.
To paraphrase Asimov (Ike and I happen to agree on this one, and now I'm reduced to "appeal to authority", my lack of God I must stop): It's possible that reason and discussion from facts are not the only way to find out the truth. If you think that's the case, please paint me a painting or meditate a meditation or play me some music that brings me round to your point of view. Anything that does is not a logical, step-by-step testing of verifiable facts.
There is no way to rationally discuss this (or homeopathy, or "crystal" or ...). Have the last word. -----sapere aude
