> On Mon, 16 Sep 1996 15:11:35 -0400 konsler@ascat.harvard.edu (Reed
> Konsler) writes:
[CLIP]
> > Is it any wonder that people are consulting
> >astrologers again? We're pretty damn good, and we do pull of the
> >occasional miracle...but we can't do it on demand.
>
> When you say "we" I hope you're identifying yourself as a memeber of the
> science and technology crowd and not as an astrologer. Astrology is
> simple enough to get one's mind around without much difficulty, and so it
> appeals to our need for complete mental models. At the same time there
> is enough complexity in astrological systems to keep people interested
> and to give them the feeling that they've accomplished something by
> amassing compendious knowledge of astrological minutia. Is my
> contempt... er... I mean 'bias' showing through? I hope everyone on this
> list sees fortune-tellers, palm-reader, and telephone psychics as the
> enemy.
It is actually very difficult to find a content-free method of
distinguishing astrology, etc. from science. An effective distinction
would use how 'well-grounded the answer is to the question'. This is a
fuzzy term, because it's a meta-property.
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/ Kenneth Boyd
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