No, I think they're both problems, and they're inter-related. 1. There is no possible way we know of that it can work (so there is no reason to believe that it could work). 2. There is no evidence that it does work (so there is no reason to look for possible ways in which it could).
If you found some evidence that it worked, then yeah, that might lead you to re-assess what you thought was possible. Equally, if you discovered some way in which astrology could work, then you might look harder for evidence that it does (in at least some circumstances).
The output - if we're talking about predictions of events, or of tendencies to display character traits - can be tested for accuracy, surely? The process that leads to the generation of predictions can be tested to make sure that the same method and the same inputs (planetary positions) will always generate the same horoscope. The problems are that there is method of casting horoscopes exists that is better than random chance at generating accurate results, and there is no reason to believe that there could be such a method.
1. There is no possible way we know of that it can work (so there is no reason to believe that it could work).
That's, frankly, an unscientific attitude. It presumes that we already have perfect knowledge of all possible mechanisms; in which case, as I said above, science must grind to a halt.
The reason to believe it doesn't work is that the outputs are unsound; that means the proposed mechanisms are irrelevant (though obviously also unsound).
if you discovered some way in which astrology could work, then you might look harder for evidence that it does
But that's a different matter. Here you are allowing a new theory to drive a new experiment, a new test of that theory.
Nonsense. If I tell you I have a starship out in my back garden, made out of baked beans, it's not unscientific to say "That couldn't possibly work". If you maintain that opinion after you see the working starship, that's a different matter.
You don't need to have a perfect knowledge of all possible mechanisms to rule things out - at least as long as you are prepared to rule them back in again if the evidence supports them. If you maintain that attitude, then why are you sure that astrology doesn't work? Sure, the methods you used to cast horoscopes were nonsense, but there could be some other method that does work, and you just haven't heard of it.
If I tell you I have a starship out in my back garden, made out of baked beans, it's not unscientific to say "That couldn't possibly work". If you maintain that opinion after you see the working starship, that's a different matter.
No. The scientific response to "I have a starship out in my back garden, made out of baked beans" is not "Impossible!" but "Show me!"
In principle, I'd agree with you - but that is something of an ideal position. An editor who picks something off their slush pile, reads three sentences, mutters "this doesn't even make sense" and chucks it straight into the bin could be rejecting the next James Joyce - but the chances are very much that they aren't and they probably have a few hundred other submissions waiting to be looked at.
But that is largely a pragmatic reaction. Looking from another direction - show a 19th-century scientist a modern laptop and tell them what it is for, and they would probably give it less credence than the starship made out of baked beans. Even if you started showing them how to use it, they would still take a lot of convincing that it wasn't an elaborate fake. Show it to a 17th-century scientist, and they would probably believe rather more easily - but they would most likely firmly believe that there were microscopic demons (or, more neutrally, elementals) inside it making it work and find your explanations of how it did work totally implausible.
The point's not so much that the people concerned wouldn't be real scientists, or even that they were bad scientists - it's that one's ideas of what is plausible and what explanations work depend a lot on what has worked in one's previous experience. But while it is usually rational to depend on experience, sometimes you get the wrong answer even so.
It is impossible to test every mad claim, in one lifetime at least - especially considering that every mad claim can be amended endlessly to explain uncomfortable evidence. The correct response to the starship claim is not "Ooh, can I visit your back garden to see?", it's "Fly it over here, then we can talk."
How many methods of casting a horoscope are there? How many did you try before coming to the conclusion that astrology is bunk? How often did you repeat your attempts? Did you seek guidance from professional astrologers, who may have been able to explain why it didn't work for you?
The difference between "Ooh, can I..." and "Fly it over here..." is that one means you're eager to investigate, and the other demands that some proof is presented before continuing. Why demand that some proof is presented? Because the claim is outlandish.
Did you try it yesterday? Did you cast a horoscope during a full moon? Were you facing east at the time? Did you make sure to remove all iron objects from the building first? Which planets did you include in your systems? I think you should try it again tonight - wearing only natural fabrics, a silver ring on one of the fingers of your right hand, and with a full basin of water on the table beside you. You'll be amazed at the results.
The difference between "Ooh, can I..." and "Fly it over here..." is that one means you're eager to investigate, and the other demands that some proof is presented before continuing. Why demand that some proof is presented? Because the claim is outlandish.
Sure; but neither of these responses equates to your previously preferred option of "Nonsense! or "Impossible!" I'm glad you now agree with me that "Show me!" is the best response.
As for the astrological questions you propose, none of them has been put forward by qualified astrologers, so I did not take any of them into account when testing their claims; except for the one about the planets, of course, which indeed is a question which astrology fails to resolve.
My preferred response is _still_ "Nonsense! That's impossible!" That doesn't mean I won't examine evidence if it's offered.
Why are you limiting yourself to methods proposed by qualified astronomers? It's not like you think their horoscopes have more predictive value. Surely, to properly test astrology, you should test every possible method of casting horoscopes? Or is it your opinion that astrology may be valid, and it's just the methods (you've tested) used by qualified astronomers (you know of) that are bunk? If someone approaches you tomorrow, and says that he has a new method of casting horoscopes - it takes a week to do properly, and requires the astrologer to be on a special diet for the duration, but the results are incredibe - are you going to test the method, or demand evidence of the spectacular results first?
So when you say "Nonsense, it's impossible!" you don't actually mean that you have made up your mind, bt you are still open to proof? I think you need to be clearer about how you express yourself, because "Nonsense, it's impossible!" sounds like a pretty final judgement to most people.
I guess you mean astrologers when you write astronomers above.
Astrology is what astrologers do, not what you or I might imagine they should be trying instead. Astrologers claim their methods work; therefore those are the only methods I am interested in testing. I'm no longer in the business of testing astrology, but your last question is irrelevant anyway; the results have to be demonstrably reproducible if they are meaningful, and it doesn't matter much to me (well, except in terms of how I use my time; and more on that in a moment) whether it is me or the astrologer who does the test (under suitably controlled conditions of course).
Now I'm going to get a bit snarky, because I'm travelling for the next week and won't be able to pursue this argument further. Quite apart from the fact that you keep changing your mind about what you are actually saying (there is, believe it or not, a difference between "Show me!" and "Impossible!" for most people), you really don't seem to have much of a clue about the philosophy of science, about the reproducibility of tests, about Popper's notions of falsification.
I have been increasingly frustrated by the fact that most of our discussion here has been at sub-undergraduate level, in a subject in which I hold two postgraduate degrees. I strongly suggest you go out and get Chalmers' What Is This Thing Called Science? or some similar book, read it, and then get back to me when you have a better idea of what scientific experiments are and why they are important in distinguishing scientific from non-scientific belief systems. If your impressions of that question have been drawn entirely from Dawkins, it is little wonder that you are confused.
"So when you say "Nonsense, it's impossible!" you don't actually mean that you have made up your mind, bt you are still open to proof?"
I mean I am extremely confident in my dismissal, and it would take some extremey impressive proof to change my mind. If you'll alow me to be snarky in response, I'm pretty certain there are a lot of propositions to which your initial response would be "Nonsense!", but to which you remain, in theory at least, open to having your mind changed by sufficiently strong evidence. "Show me!" will not be your response to someone who claims Menzies Campbell is a lizard in human disguise - there is a big difference between what conclusive scientific proof requires and what either of us would actually require to be convinced, but I'm being clear about my pragmatic stance.
Astrology is what astrologers do, yes. Is there an important difference between what qualified and unqualified astrologers do? No - neither is using scientifically tested methods, and neither group is producing interesting results - so the distinction between them is entirely arbitrary. If an unqualified astrologer uses a particular set of methods, those methods are as much part of the practice of astrology as any other set. If you haven't tested all methods, used by all all practicing astrologers, you haven't tested astrology completely.
The reason you stop at qualified astrologers, and don't go on testing indefinitely is that, as you say, you are short of time. So you test what you believe are a representative set of methods, and you ignore the methods that are different in unimportant ways. But your judgement of what is unimportant depends on your understanding of how astrology _could_ work.
1. There is no possible way we know of that it can work (so there is no reason to believe that it could work).
2. There is no evidence that it does work (so there is no reason to look for possible ways in which it could).
If you found some evidence that it worked, then yeah, that might lead you to re-assess what you thought was possible. Equally, if you discovered some way in which astrology could work, then you might look harder for evidence that it does (in at least some circumstances).
The output - if we're talking about predictions of events, or of tendencies to display character traits - can be tested for accuracy, surely? The process that leads to the generation of predictions can be tested to make sure that the same method and the same inputs (planetary positions) will always generate the same horoscope. The problems are that there is method of casting horoscopes exists that is better than random chance at generating accurate results, and there is no reason to believe that there could be such a method.
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That's, frankly, an unscientific attitude. It presumes that we already have perfect knowledge of all possible mechanisms; in which case, as I said above, science must grind to a halt.
The reason to believe it doesn't work is that the outputs are unsound; that means the proposed mechanisms are irrelevant (though obviously also unsound).
if you discovered some way in which astrology could work, then you might look harder for evidence that it does
But that's a different matter. Here you are allowing a new theory to drive a new experiment, a new test of that theory.
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You don't need to have a perfect knowledge of all possible mechanisms to rule things out - at least as long as you are prepared to rule them back in again if the evidence supports them. If you maintain that attitude, then why are you sure that astrology doesn't work? Sure, the methods you used to cast horoscopes were nonsense, but there could be some other method that does work, and you just haven't heard of it.
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No. The scientific response to "I have a starship out in my back garden, made out of baked beans" is not "Impossible!" but "Show me!"
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But that is largely a pragmatic reaction. Looking from another direction - show a 19th-century scientist a modern laptop and tell them what it is for, and they would probably give it less credence than the starship made out of baked beans. Even if you started showing them how to use it, they would still take a lot of convincing that it wasn't an elaborate fake. Show it to a 17th-century scientist, and they would probably believe rather more easily - but they would most likely firmly believe that there were microscopic demons (or, more neutrally, elementals) inside it making it work and find your explanations of how it did work totally implausible.
The point's not so much that the people concerned wouldn't be real scientists, or even that they were bad scientists - it's that one's ideas of what is plausible and what explanations work depend a lot on what has worked in one's previous experience. But while it is usually rational to depend on experience, sometimes you get the wrong answer even so.
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How many methods of casting a horoscope are there? How many did you try before coming to the conclusion that astrology is bunk? How often did you repeat your attempts? Did you seek guidance from professional astrologers, who may have been able to explain why it didn't work for you?
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Well, that's rather closer to my "Show Me!" than your "Impossible!"
Lots; lots; often; and yes.
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Did you try it yesterday? Did you cast a horoscope during a full moon? Were you facing east at the time? Did you make sure to remove all iron objects from the building first? Which planets did you include in your systems?
I think you should try it again tonight - wearing only natural fabrics, a silver ring on one of the fingers of your right hand, and with a full basin of water on the table beside you. You'll be amazed at the results.
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Sure; but neither of these responses equates to your previously preferred option of "Nonsense! or "Impossible!" I'm glad you now agree with me that "Show me!" is the best response.
As for the astrological questions you propose, none of them has been put forward by qualified astrologers, so I did not take any of them into account when testing their claims; except for the one about the planets, of course, which indeed is a question which astrology fails to resolve.
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Why are you limiting yourself to methods proposed by qualified astronomers? It's not like you think their horoscopes have more predictive value. Surely, to properly test astrology, you should test every possible method of casting horoscopes? Or is it your opinion that astrology may be valid, and it's just the methods (you've tested) used by qualified astronomers (you know of) that are bunk? If someone approaches you tomorrow, and says that he has a new method of casting horoscopes - it takes a week to do properly, and requires the astrologer to be on a special diet for the duration, but the results are incredibe - are you going to test the method, or demand evidence of the spectacular results first?
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I guess you mean astrologers when you write astronomers above.
Astrology is what astrologers do, not what you or I might imagine they should be trying instead. Astrologers claim their methods work; therefore those are the only methods I am interested in testing. I'm no longer in the business of testing astrology, but your last question is irrelevant anyway; the results have to be demonstrably reproducible if they are meaningful, and it doesn't matter much to me (well, except in terms of how I use my time; and more on that in a moment) whether it is me or the astrologer who does the test (under suitably controlled conditions of course).
Now I'm going to get a bit snarky, because I'm travelling for the next week and won't be able to pursue this argument further. Quite apart from the fact that you keep changing your mind about what you are actually saying (there is, believe it or not, a difference between "Show me!" and "Impossible!" for most people), you really don't seem to have much of a clue about the philosophy of science, about the reproducibility of tests, about Popper's notions of falsification.
I have been increasingly frustrated by the fact that most of our discussion here has been at sub-undergraduate level, in a subject in which I hold two postgraduate degrees. I strongly suggest you go out and get Chalmers' What Is This Thing Called Science? or some similar book, read it, and then get back to me when you have a better idea of what scientific experiments are and why they are important in distinguishing scientific from non-scientific belief systems. If your impressions of that question have been drawn entirely from Dawkins, it is little wonder that you are confused.
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I mean I am extremely confident in my dismissal, and it would take some extremey impressive proof to change my mind. If you'll alow me to be snarky in response, I'm pretty certain there are a lot of propositions to which your initial response would be "Nonsense!", but to which you remain, in theory at least, open to having your mind changed by sufficiently strong evidence. "Show me!" will not be your response to someone who claims Menzies Campbell is a lizard in human disguise - there is a big difference between what conclusive scientific proof requires and what either of us would actually require to be convinced, but I'm being clear about my pragmatic stance.
Astrology is what astrologers do, yes. Is there an important difference between what qualified and unqualified astrologers do? No - neither is using scientifically tested methods, and neither group is producing interesting results - so the distinction between them is entirely arbitrary. If an unqualified astrologer uses a particular set of methods, those methods are as much part of the practice of astrology as any other set. If you haven't tested all methods, used by all all practicing astrologers, you haven't tested astrology completely.
The reason you stop at qualified astrologers, and don't go on testing indefinitely is that, as you say, you are short of time. So you test what you believe are a representative set of methods, and you ignore the methods that are different in unimportant ways. But your judgement of what is unimportant depends on your understanding of how astrology _could_ work.
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