[Insisting that Astrology is not pseudoscience]
You are repeatedly ignoring my questions and missing my points. It is factually self-evident to anyone with half a working brain cell that astrology is a protoscience and, as such, does not require any further evidence.
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If you're to call it science - regardless of it's intrinsic worth or accuracy - it requires evidence. Otherwise it's a bunch of crap you make up.
Even crackpot fortune tellers will try to systemize their 'readings' and justify why they think it reveals the future but they know well enough not to call what they do a science.
How is it factually self-evident that the relative positions of the stars (to earth and to each other) at the moment of your birth, has any bearing on who you are or what you're capable of?
Astrology is a great example of making an accurate observation of a phenomenon and then jumping to wildly inaccurate conclusions about the data.
There's also a degree of playing to biases (especially confirmation biases...) Take me: I'm an Aries. Most descriptions of people of my sign do actually reflect something of my personality. Just like each of the other eleven signs.
'xcept that protosciences still use actual evidence based science*, and are, therefor, very much open to require further evidence.
*Not that there was anythingy other than evidence based science.
Astrology is the belief that huge balls of rocks, liquids, gases, and nuclear fusion reactions millions or billions of miles away from Earth can affect the financial, sexual, emotional, and employment situations of individual carbon-based life forms on one specific planet.
Sure, riiiight. If you want to call this crap science, you damn sure better bring some evidence. Tell us HOW this is supposed to work...and if you can prove any of it, you can claim Randi's million dollar prize. Go on, put up or shut up.
Insisting that your "science" doesn't require evidence is a common trait of a pseudoscience. Basically you're just saying, "Just believe in it, it works" which is basing your beliefs on faith and not evidence.
Yeah, it's factually self-evident, right up there with numerology, reiki, and the Tooth Fairy.
"It is factually self-evident to anyone with half a working brain cell that astrology is a protoscience and, as such, does not require any further evidence."
So when the likes of Mystic Meg says that Neptune will enter Uranus, she's not just talking about a "Sailor Moon" lemonfic she's just read on the internet, eh Mauriceirrelevant?! [/Doug Piranha-levels of sarcasm]
Astrology a 'science'? You FAIL - and in more ways than one.
Astrology may not require evidence but that's not a strength. See, without evidence you really can't demonstrate anything. You might as well be making things up. Sorry, but in a society that has learned the power of evidence (we use it in science, court, even in flippin' politics...sometimes) you simply can't have any methodology without evidence and expect to get taken seriously in academia. You're simply going to have to get in line with homeopathy, aura reading, ESP, televangelists, and emails from Nigerian princes. Hell, even cryptozoologists and ufologists have a leg up on you as they at least TRY to present evidence, however tenuous or questionable.
not pseudoscience ... astrology is a protoscience
Right, astrology is not a pseudoscience, but it's also not a protoscience, it's simply a crock of bullshit.
"Science" implies a certain degree of knowledge. Guessing and playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey is not knowledge, even to the slightest degree.
"You are repeatedly ignoring my questions and missing my points. It is factually self-evident to anyone with half a working brain cell that astrology is a protoscience and, as such, does not require any further evidence.
Now you may find it inconceivable or at the very least a bit unlikely
...Sounds like you are confusing Weird Al for a scientist.
The doctor who delivers you has more of a gravitational effect on your body at the moment of your birth than, say, Jupiter.
Also, the edit suggestion has been closed. Someone commented underneath the notice, "Well that was pointless."
Yeah, I think that's how we all feel.
Astrology WAS a protoscience. Early astrologers were effectively making valid observations but then drawing the wrong conclusions. Once they (mostly) figured out what stars really were and that they couldn't influence life on Earth, they became astronomers and astrology was relegated to pseudoscience.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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