DOC PREVIEW
Berkeley ASTRON 10 - 6. Astrology

This preview shows page 1 out of 4 pages.

Save
View full document
View full document
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 4 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience
Premium Document
Do you want full access? Go Premium and unlock all 4 pages.
Access to all documents
Download any document
Ad free experience

Unformatted text preview:

Astrology, 16 September 2013 !Reasons for focusing on astrology in this lecture: !1.A lot of people do not know the distinction between the pseudoscience of A.astrology and the science of astronomy, or between pseudoscience and science in general. !This topic was mentioned only tangentially in the textbook, and the lecture B.is meant to expand on the textbook. !History of Astrology:!2.Astrology and astronomy were related in ancient times. !A.Everyone who inspected the sky practiced both both astronomy and a.astrology.!Throughout the 1600s, everyone in astronomy knew how to cast a 1.horoscope. !Learning about the future by watching the stars was what motivated b.people to look at the stars, or at least motivated the rich people to pay others to do so. !Instances where the movement of the planets seemed to predict the future B.were compiled into records, for reference for the next time the stars moved in that way.!There was a gradual build up of expertise and authority from these a.records, which were mostly compiled by the upper classes and priesthood.!These records were not thorough, or it would be obvious that there 1.was no correlation between astronomical events and human events.!Additionally, different astrologers would use the same astronomical 2.events to predict different things. !There was an emergence of "weasel words" in these records describing b.what astronomical phenomena would predict, like "should," "probably," "may," "possibly," and "probably"!For example, "The position of Saturn in the gemini constellation may 1.be a sign that a famine will take place in the future."!The astrologer can take credit if there is a famine, and has an A.excuse if there isn't one.!To strengthen the position of astrology, the predictions that astrologers c.made to royalty would often become self fulfilling prophecies.!For example, if an astrologer tells a king that their kingdom will not 1.go to war and be better off for it, the king will not go to war. !The reasons people thought that the position of stars and planets could C.impact the lives of humans are... !Ignorance of the nature of stars and planets: !a.All that people knew was that many points of light in the sky moved 1.in lock step, and 7 wandered. !The 7 could be gods and goddesses who had the power to impact A.the earth for all they knew.!Ancients could see how the sun and moon impacted life on earth 2.(light, heat, and seasons + tides respectively), so they assumed that the planets must have a subtle impact as well. !Appeal of knowing the future: !b.Astrology was appealing because, if true, it would help humans 1.prepare for catastrophes (like floods, sickness, war, and famine)!These kinds of predictions were especially attractive to kings, who 2.supported astronomers for that purpose!The work of Tycho and Kepler to predict the motions of the A.planets was supported by kings for this reason. !If you can predict the motions of the planets, and planets predict a.the future, you can predict the future.!This was also somewhat relevant to Newton as his work was B.published by the ROYAL society. !Hired astrologers, for their part, knew how to con people into C.thinking they could predict the future. !They probably employed a technique called "cold reading" which a.is still used by fortune tellers today: !It involves developing general statements about a person 1.(which are almost always right) into more specific details about the person by observing the person's reaction to those statements and general appearance.!Confirmation bias:!c.For example, if Mars went into the constellation Taurus and then 1.there was a war, people would start to think that every time Mars went into Taurus, there would be a war!No instance where the stars did not make sense would be easily 2.remembered.!Some astrologers became astronomers in the process of gathering good D.information about the stars and planets to do astrology. This caused astrology to be separated from the scienc eof astronomy. !When Kepler used Tycho's accurate data to predict the motions of a.planets, it was possible to suggest a distinction between astronomy and astrology. !Astrology further discredited when Galileo used his telescope to b.discover that planets were large physical bodies in space (rather than points of light like the stars.!Now, the planets were obviously not gods and goddesses.!1.Their names became symbolic to astrologers. !A.Their size showed that they also had to move in systematic ways, 2.rather than random future-predicting ways. !Astrology was even further discredited as astronomers with better c.telescopes used observational science to discover things not predicted by astrology. !For example, the fact that jupiter has stripes, mars has a polar ice cap, 1.and saturn has a ring. !Around the time of Newton, record keeping of astronomical events and d.human events was of high enough quality to prove the difference between astronomy and astrology.!Since then, astrologers have used the discoveries of astronomy in their e.practice, but astronomers have not followed astrology. !We have been able to prove for more than three centuries that astrology is E.pseudoscience. !Our data on floods, wars, and famines and our data on the motion of the a.planets and the stars are excellent, as is our ability to find correlation between the two. !No such correlation exists. !1.Professor Sperling has contributed to these efforts in several ways:!b.When astrologer Fabio Francesco Berti predicted the location of two 1.undiscovered planets with horoscopes, Professor Sperling used a powerful telescope to look for them. The planets were nowhere to be found.!He and and an astronomy class performed an experiment where they 2.asked thousands of people how accurate random statements from daily horoscopes were in describing their days. The people showed no preference for the predictions for their own horoscopes over others. !They also compared the predictions of 5 different syndicated daily A.horoscopes in newspapers and found 0 correlations and several contradictions.!Several syndicates who they interviewed admitted that their a.predictions were totally random. !If you like horoscopes, you should read every sign's horoscope and B.get much more enjoyment. The other 11 signs are as likely to predict your day as the one which you are born in. !They contain both good advice and bad advice, and you can't a.know which prediction is which for your circumstances.!Astrology experienced a revival


View Full Document

Berkeley ASTRON 10 - 6. Astrology

Documents in this Course
Galaxies

Galaxies

26 pages

Lecture 1

Lecture 1

16 pages

Load more
Download 6. Astrology
Our administrator received your request to download this document. We will send you the file to your email shortly.
Loading Unlocking...
Login

Join to view 6. Astrology and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or
We will never post anything without your permission.
Don't have an account?
Sign Up

Join to view 6. Astrology 2 2 and access 3M+ class-specific study document.

or

By creating an account you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use

Already a member?