Carl Sagan on the pseudoscience of Astrology

Carl Sagan on the pseudoscience of Astrology

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[jdabel1]

I'm a typical analytical Virgo. I think all Astrology is bullshit.

[throbgrist]

I like how Sagan takes a simple, no nonsense approach to disproving astrology's validity - but then again astrology isn't based on science so why take it seriously in the first place? I certainly don't.

[ebrobaru]

@Hoobifta You can´t disprove the existance of pink unicorns either. That doesn´t make them real

[paddymoep]

Astrology is women's astronomy.

[Hoobifta]

You can't disprove astrology, I'm an Aries (ram) or an astrological pig and I find myself idealistic, honest, arrogant, assertive, kind, attractive, with 6 as a lucky number (but 6 was unlucky when it was religious (why does it have to be 7 deadly sins, why not 6?)). It makes no logical sense, because the luck in astrology is a protection against religion, but then it's occultism that gives you confidence not from people but yourself, & then I'm supposed to choose what I feel like doing.

[Hoobifta]

I was partly taught this in school, school teaches the science-like part of the pseudoscience, which is more accurate and rational without constellational theory.

[sbergman27]

@SCRulerShinoda I am not familiar with "And Another Thing". I'll look it up.

It is unfortunate that "Mostly Harmless" was Adams' last book in that series. He was only 49 when he died, completely unexpectedly. And in a previous interview, he noted that he had been in an unusually dark mindset while writing it. Almost certainly, he had intended to bring that cast of characters back after the fiasco at Stavromula Beta. If only Agrajag had had better teeth...

[SCRulerShinoda]

@sbergman27 lol good shit man rofl

Yeah, I have the paperback box set. All I really need is And Another Thing. I know it's not written by him, but you know.

[CanadiannGamerEh]

@zodiacbluesbaby

He did not sign it because he believed astrology to be valid, but because he thought the manifesto's tone was 'authoritian'. Basically he says he did not agree with the wording. "What I would have signed is a statement describing and refuting the principal tenets of astrological belief."

[sbergman27]

@SCRulerShinoda I was, as they say "just funnin ya". ;-) Have you read "Mostly Harmless", the fifth book of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy? It delivers a very.. interesting.. treatment of astrology, ultimately bringing it to our very living rooms.

[SCRulerShinoda]

@sbergman27 I don't mean that it's not protecting us but influence in that it influences us based on positions of distant stars it ends up inside relative to our view.

[sbergman27]

@SCRulerShinoda Bags of water, rather. Carbon is a much smaller constituent. But how can you diss Jupiter like this? We'd be space debris without it. I'd classify that as influencing our lives. Maybe not next Tuesday, or last Thursday. But overall.