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How Do You Know There’s Nothing To Astrology?
Note
The Professor was drawn by CDR N. F. O’Conner for the Naval Aviation News from which he (the Professor) was stolen for this cover.
ONE DAY my daughter asked me, “How do you know there’s nothing to astrology? How can you know?”
That, as they say, is a good question. How does one know what to believe about anything? By what criteria can judgments be made? What is a reasonable approach?
Before I get started on this argument I want it clearly understood that I am not addressing the age-old philosophical question of what is truth. I am neither capable nor desirous of doing so. I don’t even care to read such discussions, they seem merely semantical to me.
Further, I do not wish here to discuss religious beliefs. To mix matters of faith with matters of reason is wasted effort and an obscuration of rational thought. If you believe anything, including astrology, as a matter of faith, argument is simply superfluous. If it requires faith to believe something, no amount of argument will lead you any closer to a solution.
As an aside, I have long since concluded that for a religion to be believed it must have mystical, irrational elements which require it to be accepted on faith. At least, I’m sure that all the successful religions which I’m acquainted with share this characteristic. In fact, it is feature which makes it obvious that everyone else’s religious beliefs are ridiculous while yours are so clearly correct.
BUT let us remove emotional overtones from the discussion by setting up a straw man for sake of argument. Suppose a group, called the Tall Maples of Vermont, claim that certain maple trees are inhabited by a Sugar Spirit which must be propitiated if one is to make high quality maple syrup. Further, the proponents of the Sugar Spirit claim its existence is simply a matter of fact and reason. How do I decide whether there’s anything to this?
The first question I ask myself is whether I need to decide. If you don’t like to be wrong, you should avoid unnecessary decisions. What action will I take as a result of my decision? If I take no action or only a trivial action, the decision could have been avoided in the first place.
For instance, if the coach of my favorite football team claims that the team always wins when he wears a black hat, I do not find it necessary to deny that there is any connection. On the other hand, if he should claim that as long as he wears his black hat, no practice or preparation for a game is required, then I begin to question his judgment. In other words if belief or non-belief has no effect on the way you perform, then you do not need to decide whether or not to believe. Many people believe it is unlucky to break a mirror, but even those who don’t seldom intentionally break a mirror so the belief doesn’t matter much.
Let us assume that even if you don’t have to know, you would like to know. What then?
Do you recall the rule in formal debates that the burden of proof rests with the affirmative? The negative side needs only to prevent the affirmative from proving its case, it is not required to prove the negative of every proposition. This is a very important idea which is basic for rational thought. I am never called upon to prove that dragons do not breathe fire, those who claim so must prove it to be entitled to any credibility. However, if the negative is proved that also suffices.
HOW one goes about proving a proposition depends greatly upon the field within which proof is to be sought. In mathematics, at least in theory, one is always certain. If you prove the existence of the solution of an equation, you can be absolutely sure that the solution exists. Essentially that’s because mathematics is a game with arbitrary rules in which a certain set of postulates are made and thereafter all that is required is consistency.
In a chess game one cannot argue whether in a given circumstance a bishop can capture a rook. All one has to do is examine the rules of the game. This is the case with mathematics, however difficult it may be. In general mathematicians will agree that a proposition has or has not been proved. There may be several ways to prove a proposition, then the choice will be the one perceived as the most elegant, but all are equally correct.
Since mathematics is a game, negatives can often be proved as easily and as convincingly as positives. It can be shown that there is no rational number which when multiplied by itself yields two, one cannot square a circle (I have heard a story, probably apocryphal, that the Kentucky legislature once considered passing a law to make pi equal to three), an angle cannot be trisected with a straight edge and compass. But in mathematics the existence of a solution cannot safely be assumed. If you are to make use of a solution you must be sure it exists, at least in the region in which you intent to use it.
IT is clear that there is no help here in deciding on the existence of the Sugar Spirit. All the help we can get from mathematics is if a Sugar Spirit is not inconsistent with our postulates it may, but not necessarily, exist.
The real world is not much like the mathematical one, and it is seldom possible to establish proofs in a clear-cut manner. As one goes down the scale from the “hard” sciences, physics and chemistry, through biology to the “soft” sciences such as sociology, the assurance and ability to demonstrate a proof becomes less and less.
Even in physics which deals with simplified models of the real world (frictionless motion, isolated systems, etc.) it is not easy.
Does this get us any further? Well, perhaps. If a physicist proposed the existence of a Sugar Spirit, he would have to meet at least four criteria: (1) the existence of the Sugar Spirit explains phenomena as yet unexplained, (2) it is the simplest explanation of the observed phenomena,* (3) only provisional acceptance can be made until a definitive experiment can be designed and successfully performed, and (4) the idea must withstand all negative-seeking experiments.
* Known as Ockham’s Razor. What William Ockham, being a 14th century English philosopher, actually said was “pluralities non est poenda sine necessiate,” which means, for example, if a Sugar Spirit of any color satisfies the requirements, one would not be justified in claiming that such spirits were lavender.
AN idea has a better chance of being adopted if it is palatable, credible, and consistent with the contemporary knowledge in the field but none of these is necessary.
Planck so disliked the notion that electromagnetic radiation, including light, had to be considered as packets, quanta, of energy that he was very reluctant to explain heat radiation by this means though he could find no other explanation to fit the experiment which he had carried out. Einstein disliked the probabilistic nature of the quantum theory, “God does not play at dice,” he is supposed to have said, but he was forced to accept it. Several taken for-granted, self-evident principles have been shown to be wrong.
The concept of symmetry in nature is certainly self-evident Who could doubt that man, not nature, was responsible for the right-handed screw and the preference for clockwise motions? In 1957 Yang and Lee found that for certain particle interactions that parity, a quantity resulting from this self-evident symmetry, was not conserved. Thus, incredible as it was, physicists had to accept the fact that nature is not always symmetrical.
NEITHER by reputation nor ability can a physicist long protect an idea which does not fulfill the above requirements. In fact, one of the differences in the “hard” and the “soft” sciences is the impact of the leading practitioners’ opinions.
The importance of a well-designed experiment rather than a collection of observations may not be evident at first glance. The troubles which plague the sciences which must depend on observations and interpretations of observations are mostly due to: (1) the difficulty of establishing causality and (2) bias on the part of the observer.
Both of these factors are extremely subtle. A well-known example of causality failure is the conclusion derived from drinking, on successive nights, Scotch and water, Bourbon and water, and gin and water and concluding that water, as the only common element, is the intoxicating one. Suppose you were a railroad engineer and kept a record of the positions of crossing gates as you observed them over the years. You would conclude that crossing gates are almost always closed. It is very difficult to know if you are, in a given set of observations, making a mistake as stupid as these two.
EVEN if the facts appear to be known, it is often not simple to assign causality. Can a faith doctor heal a patient? Medical doctors seem to agree that something like half the illnesses are psychosomatic in origin. Therefore, if a patient has enough faith that any agent (faith doctor, patient medicine, magic potion, or medical doctor) can cure him, he will likely benefit from the treatment. So, if the patient recovers, was it because of the faith doctor? Your answer may depend more on your attitude about faith doctors than anything else. In other words, on your bias.
Bias is even more difficult to manage than causality. In fact the only real protection against biasing the results of an experiment is that the experiment be replicated by those whose bias is opposite to that of the proposer. It is proper to assume that no one is unbiased.
It is absurdly easy to become biased. In the idealistic view, the scientist is unbiased, all he wants to find out is the truth. But, of course, scientists are human, and it is no more pleasant for a scientist to work for a long time on something that turns out to be wrong that it is for a person to finish painting his house and then decide he made a poor color choice. Careers are made in science by guessing right and having the guesses proved out. The anomalous water aberration (Boxwooder No. 36) is an outstanding example of betting on the wrong horse. Don’t think there wasn’t plenty of snickering and plenty of teeth gnashing when that bubble burst.
The subtlety and pervasiveness of bias is such that it should be taken for granted that any experiment or any observation which can be influenced by bias, will be.
That’s why if you want to prove the existence of the Sugar Spirit you would do well to define an experiment which can be performed by anyone with the same result.
In the “soft” sciences decisions are harder to reach and are much more influenced by the opinions of the leaders in the field and by their consistency with the general body of knowledge in the field. If you consider the proposition: Man came to North America by migration over a former land bridge at the Bering Straits, you can immediately see it is quite different from saying an equation has three roots or that energy is conserved in an elastic collision.
In the “soft” sciences it is harder to reach a conclusion, and once reached, it is more tenaciously held because more personal prestige is attached to it. That is, it is much more important, professionally, for an anthropologist not to be wrong than it is for a mathematician. In a “soft” science a strong man may influence the trend of the subject for a generation even if he is wrong.
There is also a completely different level of proof which I might call “legal” proof. Some of the world’s hardest decisions fall into this category, but the basis for making the decision is the weakest. It is usually the concerted opinions of twelve jurors.
CLEARLY, if a jury determines the question of a killer’s state of mind, no one can say for sure whether it is right or wrong, but we must have some method for determining such legal questions. This method is irrelevant when applied to the existence of something. If a jury did agree that the Sugar Spirit existed would it have any influence on the fact? If the legal process is not restricted to its proper sphere it can produce ludicrous results.
In hydrodynamics there is a law, Bernoulli’s Law, which says that given a pipe through which a fluid is flowing if the diameter of the pipe increases the pressure also increases above the pressure in the smaller segment. Although this is easily demonstrated, it has offended the common senses of untold thousands of physics students. In one court case involving natural gas, a jury decided that the pressure in the larger diameter section of the line could not be more than that in the smaller diameter section. But I fear that even a Supreme Court decision cannot change Bernoulli’s Law.
The point is, that while legal proof is a necessity in our society and is extremely important, even to life and death, it makes no sense when misapplied to matters of physical fact. There is no help from this quarter in deciding on the existence of the Sugar Spirit.
Now that we have been through this tedious argument, suppose I need to decide about the existence of the Sugar Spirit because it is of some real importance to me – I’m going to make maple syrup – but no one has seriously attempted to establish the affirmative position. Obviously, it could still be true. What would I do?
WELL, I would approach known advocates of the Sugar Spirit, if possible members of a national or an international organization such as the Tall Maples of Vermont, and I would ask their assistance in designing an experiment which they agree should demonstrate the existence of the Sugar Spirit. Then with their cooperation I would conduct the experiment. If the results were not affirmative, I would conclude, insofar as any action was concerned, that the Sugar Spirit did not exist.
If you would like to see the execution of such an approach, read “Dowsing Experiments” in Nature, Volume 229, January 15, 1971, page 163. The British Army and Ministry of Defense carried out definitive experiments on dowsing with the conclusion that the results obtained by dowsing are no more reliable than obtained by guessing.
What if the Tall Maples of Vermont will not agree that any experiment is definitive? Then I am justified in assuming that not even the TMV’s believe in the existence of the Sugar Spirit and the whole bit is a hoax.
Without doing anything, one can form some opinions based on the observation that dubious enterprises tend to be bolstered by dubious arguments. If the arguments are self-serving, appeal to longevity of belief, claim the truth is accessible to initiates only, rely on statements of famous people, rely on large numbers of adherents, or rely on mysterious happenings or unexplainable phenomena, you can be reasonably sure that that the whole business is a hoax. These are not the arguments advanced for reasonable enterprises which can be rationally scrutinized.
An example of a self-serving argument is: If a President of the United States says that he is not a crook, many people will be shocked at his saying it, but not everyone will believe him. His statement is self-serving. If he should say that he is a crook you’d almost have to believe him.
MANY things such as astrology, witchcraft, and dowsing use longevity of belief as an argument, but it is clear that a falsehood can be passed quite easily from generation to generation.
A favorite argument of mystics and occultists is that only an initiate or a true believer can have access to the truth of their proposition. We had a three-year old neighbor say one day, “My cat can talk.”
“Oh, what does he say?”
“I don’t know,” replied the little girl. “He won’t talk to anybody but my sister and she won’t tell me.”
This argument should probably not be tried on anyone who is physically or mentally over three years old.
A whole industry has been built on the thesis that common folk believe that famous ball players, movie stars, and socialites are better judges of cigarettes and soap than they, the common folk, or at least, that if they would only emulate such authorities by using the products recommended by them, then some of the uncommon qualities of these people would be conveyed to the common ones. I guess it’s barely possible that using the same brand of hair spray as a test pilot can boost one’s masculinity, but it hardly seems worth trying.
How else can one explain the things which happen if not by Sugar Spirits, witches, and astrology? It should be noted that the tricks of a skillful magician are incredible and unexplainable for a layman, but the magician does not claim to be practicing real magic.
How do I know there’s nothing to astrology? I don’t know. But I’ve never heard a sensible argument, but plenty of dubious ones, for the affirmative. I have outlined above how one could test such a proposition as astrology. In the meantime, I can only conclude that it is utter nonsense.
The whole foregoing discussion is based on the premise that we live in a rational world. I know of no way of testing that premise, it is certainly not self-evident. Our science, our logic, our commonplace thinking assumes the world is rational. If it is not, all bets are off; and dowsing, witchcraft, and astrology are as reasonable as physics, chemistry, and mathematics.
Colophon
Hand set in Deepdene. Display types are Stymie Shaded and Gravure. Initials are Egmont. Text stock is Hammermill Bond. Cover stock obtained at St. Pete auction. I have forgotten its name. “Forgotten but not gone.” Published by Jake Warner and 450 copies printed by him on a 10 x 15 C & P. Done at The Boxwood Press, Greenbelt, Maryland 20770.