Karl A. Krueger wrote:
On Sat, Dec 17, 2005 at 02:42:12AM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
"Where's the science?" is a reasonable question that pseudoscience fails.
That's an empty generality.
No, it isn't, because ...
Science is in the process, not the results.
... science *is* in the process, not the results. Exactly right!
Calling something "pseudoscience" is not an indictment of the results. It is a statement about the process: that the "results" were not come by using a process which resembles science, despite the proponent's own claims to the mantle of "science".
When someone presents "scientific astrology" -- Google it; it's a real expression! -- we are correct to ask, "Where's the science?" That is to say, "By what process did you come up with this astrology? Where are your data, or observations, or clinical trials, or case studies? What is your method? When did you test your hypotheses? Which ones did you reject as false, and why? Where is your peer review? How can someone else replicate your results to test their accuracy? How would your results differ if the conditions were different -- say, if Mars were in trine to Venus instead of Jupiter?"
Yes the term exists, but just a string of Google hits says nothing about how it's used on any given site. I have no problem with asking "Where's the science?" but I also don't jump to conclusions when the answer is not satisfactory. I think that there are astrologers who do go through this kind of analysis. Unfortunately the results have been inconclusive at best. So they revise their hypothesis and try again; what more can we ask of the "scientific astrologer"? This does not mean that the neighborhood practitioner who casts charts for a fee is doing anything scientific at all. She is probably just following the instructions that she got from a book somewhere, and has no clue what science is about. But this kind of practitioner can also exist purporting in perfectly good faith to apply recognized science to his or her own purpose. Is that person a scientist?
If the answer to "Where's the science?" is an evasion -- be it "Oh, have faith!" or "But it's the wisdom of the ancients!" or "The spirits of lost Atlantis revealed it to me!" or "Astrology is more powerful than rational thought" or "We don't have to show you no steeenking science" or "Doesn't it *feel* true?" -- then what we have is indeed fake science -- or, in a word, pseudoscience.
So now you are indicting a whole area of study because you got this kind of answers from a supporter of astrology who had no idea WTF he was talking about. If you are getting this kind of answer, cite your sources.