Thank you for your thoughtful response!
I think when people use the term "science" to describe astrology, they rather strictly mean it in the most loose and literal sense. By definition, a science is a practice that involves developing a great understanding of how our world works through a method of trial and error. These series of tests are able to create a system that defines what this new facet of knowledge functions and what kind of information you're able to gather through such methods. I don't think anyone who refers to Astrology as a Science is comparing it to the likes of Physics or Chemistry. Astrology is about as much of a science as Cooking. There's directions to follow and clear rules in place but how everyone actually is able to apply it is drastically different.
I fully get the generic, vernacular definition of "science." Truly.
But "science" in the English language does have a more particular meaning. This is why astrology is too often called a "pseudo-science." Or you get all kinds of astrologers on Internet forums acting like cry-babies because actual professional scientists give them no respect. Calling astrology a "science" merely muddies these waters.
I can see where you're headed with your "trial and error" comment, but this isn't the half of it. Most science is conducted according to the scientific method, which is far more precise.
http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html No government agency like the NSF or NIH is going to award research grants to a biochemistry project proceeding by trial and error.
Sure, we can talk colloquially about "the science of cooking," but this also has a concise meaning, as in a university discipline called
food science, and the application of food science to recipe development, as in commercial test kitchens. It's just that nobody calls food science pseudo-science, or states that home cooking is a form of superstition.
The problem with the discussion of science is that a lot of academics have set it up to also make it incredibly inaccessible and depending on the scientist, their willingness to even accept other fields as legitimate will differ i.e. There are STILL people out there who think that Psychology is not a legitimate practice. A lot of that fault is because they equate Psychology to famous practitioners such as Freud who's practices were incredibly questionable in and of themselves.
Any academic research specialty is going to be highly specialized, and thus probably inaccessible to the lay person, not just scientific fields. (
Chaucer studies, anyone?) There are also media outlets that try to make scientific news accessible to the lay person. Part of the problem is also the low state of STEM education in American public schools.
I can't comment on public impressions of today's psychology. Generally today psychology is a lot more scientific and evidence-based, and the old work of Freud and Jung, however foundational it might have been decades ago, is not much taught anymore in today's university psychology departments. In fact, a lot of psychology now verges on neuroscience.
Science and our perception of science is ever evolving. There were people who questioned the concept of Gravity when it was first discovered and explored. People who questioned the idea that the Sun is the center of the universe, that believed all disease can be resolved by attaching a few leeches to specific parts of the body. Hell, there are still people today that believe that science proves that Race influences our capacity for intelligence and knowledge! The great thing about science at the end of the day, however, is that it's about data. That's it. Data is something that will never change. Our willingness and capacity to understand it and order it into something that provide concrete evidence, however, is fluid and ever changing.
I do not doubt for a New York minute that science is a dynamic enterprise. In a Uranian kind of way, pushing the "frontiers of knowledge" or overturning old beliefs with new information is at the heart of science. I just don't see this as leading to scientific inclusion of astrology, minus the kinds of in-depth research that I haven't seen to date. This is why I think it's better if we Just Don't Go There.
The scientists I knew during my university career happily rubbed shoulders with philosophers, historians, and studio art instructors, because these people had no pretenses or aspirations about being scientists. It's in claiming to be a science but patently not being a science in the professional sense that the problems occur.
This isn't to say that I'm a hardcore believer of Astrology, mind you. I still hold my skepticism but am still incredibly fascinated by the way it functions. This is, however, a call to acknowledge that we do not know the rules and laws of everything to do with existence and a willingness to be open to the prospect of being wrong in our perception.
Well, I've been studying astrology since ca. 1990 with a decent home library, I've read hundreds of charts for people to apparently good effect (judging from their feedback) and I still maintain a skeptical distance from many of astrology's truth-claims. I think this is intellectually healthy.
No, we don't know everything, and I doubt that we ever will. To claim otherwise is to make bigger claims for the human brain than are justifiable.
Academic science could do with more flexibility rather than having so many aspects of it being focused on simply proving and verifying our own perceptions to make us feel justified in our stances. Also careful with that appeal to authority - it's a tricky little logical fallacy that will trip everyone up
I've been retired now for nearly a decade and have lost touch with my former colleagues, but the scientists I knew didn't fit this model. Some of them had huge egos, which I suppose comes with the ambition to generate millions of dollars of research grants in order to support a lab of grad students, post-docs, and technicians. Certainly they were bright and highly educated. Many of them were involved in research that seemingly didn't involve perception of our stances unless it was within their own group of specialists. As in, some of these scientists had projects on the Hubble telescope or on Arctic sea ice, were doing fresh water chemistry, or looked at marine mammals' hearing.
It is important to distinguish between science, scientists, and scientism.
Science: "systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment," more particularly through the scientific method.
Scientists: individual human beings who conduct science. As individual human beings they have a range of personality types, beliefs, and life experiences.
Scientism: belief in the power of science to solve all of humanity's problems, or science as the only legitimate form of human knowledge.
I'm not sure which authority you think I appeal to. Much of what I post is based on wide reading, critical thinking. and life experience. This isn't to say it's infallible.
