The Astrology Challenge IV – Just when you thought it was safe…

I introduce part four of the Astrology Challenge – my attempt to see if any astrologer can explain how the ancients worked out all those detailed rules astrologers use. Featured astrologer today is Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, the Research Director of the National Council for Geocosmic Research.

Reading Greenbaum’s reply I was reminded of the phrase, “be careful what you ask for”. I’m sure her replies were genuine and meant something to her, but I have to say that even with a dictionary I couldn’t ascertain meaning from large parts of it. I have reproduced some of her reply and commented on it below, not to ridicule, but to illustrate the rather special way of thinking being employed here. She certainly makes things much more complicated than they need to be:

I sense that perhaps you have an underlying question that you have not yet fully articulated. 

Er, you sense wrong, the question was actually quite simple and fully articulated. (I thought I had articulated my question pretty well, but that’s just me.)

If I may borrow a page from Aristotle, I don’t think your question has reached its final form – you have not quite linked eidos with telos. Or, to say it from a hermeneutic perspective, you are still at the literal stage in your investigations.

Eh? (Here I am reminded of the admonition, write to express not to impress. Again maybe that’s just me.)

In fact, I (and many others in fields from mythology to fiction) would take issue with your assertion that the imagined is “highly unlikely” to be ‘right’ or ‘true.’

(My bold.)

Aha, I finally understood something. She believes the stuff the ancients just made up, could be true.

As I’m sure you are aware, even science would now acknowledge that there are other paradigms than the scientific one; even science recognizes that it is no longer the sole custodian of truth, as post modernity impacts on all epistemological levels. 

But what other methods are as consistent and reliable as science, for revealing the truth? Anybody? (Sound of crickets.) 

…suggest a paradigm which requires a totally different set of questions to be asked about astrology and the nature of reality itself. 

Translation – your questions should be designed so as not to require evidence in support of the answers.

Reading Greenbaum’s reply I realize that some people will never be persuaded by any kind of reasoned thought. It’s depressing, but instructive.

I realize this dismissal of Greenbaum’s reply is a little one-sided. I could have replied to her, questioning and debating each point and getting her responses, and then I would perhaps have had more of her side of the story. But my purpose was not to badger these people – I provided a link to this blog where she could leave comments if she wished. Clearly she doesn’t wish to. I was honest about my question to her, and I gave her the opportunity to answer it any way she wished. That was, I believe, her best shot. I don’t think I need to comment further.

Tomorrow I will give you a brief look at the reading lists the astrologers gave me.

Comments

[Rockstar]

How can someone take issue with your assertion the imagined is highly unlikely to be true??? I can imagine a lot of things, that doesn't necessarily make them so...

Good job debunking these poor misguided people.

[Paul]

I thought it was most instructive that she equated the "truth" of her discipline with mythology and fiction.

[Josh]

This was really just a politician's answer. Talk quite a bit without actually addressing the real question. People like that try to throw piles of words, especially if they're words that most people have to look up, at people in order to obscure that fact that they have no answer to the question. I've seen this time and again on various forums, and it's begun to wear me down somewhat. How does a person who purports to be educated and intelligent totally ignore facts and reason and yet still claim any credibility. Amazing.

I'd also like to say that science is in fact still the only paradigm, and is the sole custodian of truth. What she's trying to say here is that 'you can't say it's not true just because I made it up, things are as true as I want them to be.' Well, crap, things are only true if they're verifiable and internally consistant. Just wanting something to be true, and saying over and over that it is true, does not in fact, make it true. I can say that my left foot is pure gold all I want, and the belief might persist so long as I don't look directly at the foot, but it's not gold! Sometimes I just want to scream at people to wake up. Look, it's just a foot you moron.

[Amanda]

Great posts, as usual. Basically it all comes down to the old "Science can't explain everything either nyah nyah nyah!" Well, science might not be able to explain everything, but astrology explains nothing so I know which side I'd rather be on.

[Duncan Lock]

Although I total agree with you on this (and everything else I read on your - rather good - blog) I think you'd come of more fair and balanced if you just posted the other parties whole reply, rather that just the bit's you're taking the piss out of. Or at least linked to a page with it on or something.

[OutEast]

As someone who is profoundly in love with both fiction and mythology (without laying claim to either of them as my field) I'd just like to say that what she has to say about truth is both true and utter garbage.

Actually, it would be truer (ha!) to say that it's equivocation.

Mythology and fiction can be 'true' in the sense that it can resonate with the reader or hearer on a (culturally conditioned) level where it acquires meaning and therefore a kind of 'truth'; this is in the sense of 'beauty is truth and truth, beauty'. Since much of our experience of life is subjective, some kinds of 'truth' are also subjective.

This is wholly different from 'true' as in 'real', though. I can cheerfully (and justifiably) say that (for example) there's a lot of truth in the legends about Maui; if I were to imply by that that they were in any factual sense real or true, though, I'd expect to see the inside of a nice soft-walled bedroom.

[Rockstar]

And the jackass spammers attack!! Now you know this site is popular! Funny they try to peddle their bunk on a skeptics blog...