Astrology Skeptics & Preaching to the Choir in General

I sometimes turn "chicken" and shrink from using "Twilight" hyper-linked to this blog, when leaving comments outside of the astro-community, or on sites of my known non-astro blog-buddies. Among those with no interest in, or indeed a definite hatred of, astrology, such an interest tends to mark one as something of a nitwit, or at best as being totally irrational. My comment as "Twilight" might automatically become suspect. In most cases, though, I do use "Twilight", in the hope that someone, somewhere will sometime follow the link to my blog and find something of interest.

Following those thoughts somehow led me to land on a Philadelphia Area Center for History of Science website, and a blog there, from January 2011, written by Darin Hayton. The title interested me: What Exactly is Accomplished by Asserting "Astrology is Rubbish?" It's a good piece, well worth reading in full.

The piece closes with this thought:

But maybe despite its guise of rationality and argumentation, the anti-astrology polemic isn’t intended to persuade an opponent any more than any other polemic. Maybe it’s merely a secular form of “preaching to the choir.”

"Preaching to the choir".....always the easiest thing to do, isn't it? In all kinds of "churches" - church of politics, church of beliefs, church of preferences. It'd be an improvement if we all felt more able to "preach to non-choir members" in every "church", and know that we'd not be ridiculed or denigrated. I'm trying to work on it!


A few snips from the article follow, containing what I see as particularly significant points:

All the standard pieces are here: no mechanism, the damning example of precession, the invocation and rejection of “birth signs” as meaningful, the new planets, and the dismissal of astrologers and their audience as uneducated, irrational, and, implicitly, mentally deficient..........

Whatever else might be the case, astronomers seem singularly unable to avoid denouncing astrology and equally incapable of persuading proponents of astrology to relinquish their conviction (or even to dissuade the astrology-curious). Maybe astronomers’ lack of success is related to the cavalier approach they adopt when attacking astrology. They certainly have not engaged with the body of knowledge they hope to refute. Instead, they attack caricatures and straw men. They argue from authority rather than logic. And they seem to ignore astrology’s technical details—such as anything approaching an understanding of positional astronomy—and ignorant of astrology’s history. To be fair, they have occasionally asked questions about possible mechanisms for astral influence, but then dismiss the very possibility of such a mechanism. No doubt they realize that their invectives do not constitute logically compelling arguments. So what then is the point of their denunciations? And whom are they trying to convince?............

And what really is at stake in this enduring battle between science and astrology? Are astronomers afraid that their funding will suddenly go to astrologers? Does the fate of the free world or the rational mind or science depend on refuting astrology? Given the characterization of astrologers and believers in astrology as simple-minded, uneducated, irrational dupes, what threat do these people pose to astronomers and scientists? Does belief in astrology stand for a purported, societal-wide irrationality that threatens the entire practice of science? That seems a bit apocalyptic, but maybe. And what is served by the denigrating rhetoric typically used to brand astrologers frauds and charlatans? Surely it would be more effective to adopt a more conversational approach rather than labeling astrologers and their customers irrational, superstitious dupes...............

The author of the piece does add a disclaimer:

*To be clear, this is not meant as a defense of astrology or astrologers but rather an analysis of the typical form as well as the common tropes found in the anti-astrology polemics. Nor is this an effort to assert once again that astrology was an important intellectual activity in the past that provided the motivation for much of the science that we would now call astronomy.