Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utastro.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!jeff From: jeff@utastro.UUCP (Jeff Brown the Scumbag) Newsgroups: net.astro Subject: Re: Astronomers vs. astrology Message-ID: <466@utastro.UUCP> Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 17:42:35 EDT Article-I.D.: utastro.466 Posted: Thu Aug 1 17:42:35 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 3-Aug-85 07:09:09 EDT Distribution: net Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX Lines: 75 [ ] (To the weary reader: much of this article is a near-flame. The last paragraph is not. Feel free to skip.....) Sorry, I can't sit still for this. I, too, was into astrology in my younger days. When I was 13 or 14 I figured out to set up the charts, calculate siderial time, read and interpolate the tables, and try to make readings. It was fun then; across the 15-year void I can't remember honestly whether I believed any of it at the time. Most astronomers, I think, would have no complaint if astrology was considered an amusing pastime (because it does make you more aware of how the planets move around in the sky). If you draw some philosophy from it, then I won't condemn that, either. But I suspect that if you do either of these two things then you are NOT the kind of person the general anti-astrology message is aimed at. The problem comes because astrology, as it usually is thought of by damn near everyone, is a form of divination. Like all other forms of divination, it is bunk, which you say. The point is that LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE DON'T KNOW THAT IT'S BUNK. While still tech editor for Stardate here I could count on getting a couple of phone calls a month (since that position includes handling the calls & letters the front-office folks couldn't) from earnest people seeking astrological advice. (One of the last and most vivid cases was the poor woman who was so perplexed because she always made sure to plant her garden while the moon was in a fertile sign, and the three astrological publications she had were in direct mutual conflict.) And there's nothing astronomical at all in the crap that appears in the daily papers. And there is the problem. You know that astrological divination is trash. I know it's trash. Every statistical analysis ever turned on it has shown it has no predictive power. But there are many people out there that don't know that, are willing to testify to the contrary, and spend too much time and money in support of it. (More money is spent on astrology than astronomy in the US each year.) Most astronomers _do_ know something about astrology, and if it's really necessary can in an hour or two get the references to demolish, at length and in detail, any arguments by astrology's apologists. The instant vehemence of astronomers' universal condemnation of astrology probably comes from frustration: astrology is the most widespread of the popular superstitions, and unfortunately the two fields' names are too much alike. (Having to explain the difference in every casual conversation -- "And what do you do? -- gets VERY tiresome; I've gotten so that I lie to barbers, etc., to avoid the topic.) I suspect, for instance, that mathematicians would be a lot more irate about numerology if mathematics was called "numerometry" and daily numerology columns in every paper. [ end of preaching. I apologize for its length. ] I didn't object to "astrological" software because most of it will be, as pointed out (I think) by the original poster, astronomical in origin. What you do with originally-astronomical software in the privacy of your own directory is none of my business. My only suggestion is that the codes be posted in net.sources and have only pointers appear in net.astro. (I will even help this along somewhat. While I do not have it coded up, I can give a reference to a paper I think will provide everything that was wanted and more: "Low-Precision Formulae for Planetary Positions" by T. C. van Flandern and K. F. Pulkkinen, in the _Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series_ vol. 41, pp. 391-411 (1979), is just what the title says, with an accuracy of 1 arc-minute "for any epoch within 300 years of the present". Unfortunately, Ap. J. Supp. isn't in that many libraries...) Jeff Brown U. of Texas Astonomy Dept. (...!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!jeff) Austin TX 78712 "It ain't what you don't know that hurts you. It's all them things you _do_ know that ain't so."