Astrology, Intelligent Design and Other Sciences

Take a look at this revealing courtroom admission by Michael Behe, Lehigh University biochemist and Intelligent Design proponent.

Astrology would be considered a scientific theory if judged by the same criteria used by a well-known advocate of Intelligent Design to justify his claim that ID is science, a landmark US trial heard on Tuesday.

Under cross examination, ID proponent Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, admitted his definition of “theory” was so broad it would also include astrology.

One wonders what exactly wouldn't fall under the label "theory" under Behe's definition. Phrenology? Phlogiston? Invisible pink unicorns on Saturn? How about intelligent falling?

The Discovery Institute people must be kicking themselves tonight on hearing of Behe's admission, but I'll give the man this much - at least he's honest, even if being under oath in a court of law does constrain one's scope for dishonesty somewhat.

[Via MeFi.]

PS: See here for more on Behe's excellent courtroom adventure.

Comments

[Jim]

"The Discovery Institute people must be kicking themselves tonight on hearing of Behe's admission,"

And the Creationists must be aghast. This has never been anything other than a political catfight, despite the scientific camouflage. Connecting ID to astrology in any way, shape or form will peel off a lot of its political support. Astrology is from the Devil, as we all know.

[Abiola Lapite]

Good point! For some silly reason I was actually expecting the equation of astrology with "scientific theory" to be the sticking point with the fundies, but I'm sure it's the very idea of Behe placing their "theory" side by side with the devil's work which will get them most upset. Bad enough that some wicked people compare the God of the Bible with that evil "Allah" imposter!

[DW]

Well isn't that same Devil one of the candidates for the Intelligent Designer? The ID people go out of their way to not name name, but they seem to need a supernatural, powerful, mysterious agent to fill in the supposed gaps. Ol' Nick seems to be just their guy. And it would do a better job of explaining some of the perverse bits of the design work.

[Jim]

Devil as the Intelligent Designer. You may have inteneded this as a joke, but some kind of wicked or twisted being is often the creator or designer figure in lots of mythologies. In the Northwest Coast the Raven is the creator, and he is either malicious or a goof. Benign creators are probably pretty rare across the world - the oT creator is a harsh bastard, pretty much as heartless as what we call Mother Nature.

Abiola, this is in the same vein as that stroke of genius Thomas Sowell or someone else had when they called the culture of resistance among African-Americans "Black rednecks". I think he said people had learned it from the Scotch-Irish. There is probably not a lot of historical basis for that, and people who have been slaves can certainly develop a culture of resistance on their own without much outside help, the same way the Scotch-Irish did for their own reasons, but so what? It was a master stroke as far as influencing perceptions - it was the single most offensive label he could have found to hang on that (now) self-destructive behavior. This is a similar case. As they say in the Army, "If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid."

[radek]

"the oT creator is a harsh bastard, pretty much as heartless as what we call Mother Nature"

Crom! I want Robert E. Howard in my biology class!

[dsquared]

But ... I think it's odds on that Professor Sir Karl Popper, under cross-examination, might have ended up making the self-same admission. Astrologers make predictions about the future and then see whether or not they are falsified. Astrology is pretty much the sine qua non of a Popperian science and I always thought that Sir KP's attempts to try and rule it out with a few unsupported sociological allegations about the behaviour of astrologers was one of the most embarrasing things in LoSD (which is actually an excellent book, but the astrology bit is a gaping hole which never really gets closed).

I've been making this joke at the expense of Popperians for years and it never fails to get a reaction; nor does it ever get a satisfactory response. The brutal truth is that although Popper's philosophy of science is very good, the simplistic application of the Falsification Principle as a delineating principle to separate science from non-science is about the worst thing you can do with it.

[Barbar]

Perhaps the Popperians should just call themselves "reality-based."

[Frank McGahon]

"I've been making this joke at the expense of Popperians for years and it never fails to get a reaction; nor does it ever get a satisfactory response."

Somehow I doubt any response would be satisfactory to you given your propensity to insulate your cherished beliefs against refutation rather in the manner Popper identifies. The simple fact of the matter is that Popper did indeed identify Astrology as a pseudo-science similar to the work of Freud, (thousand-and-one-fold) Adler and (sorry, I know this hurts) Marx precisely because each of these theories is constructed so that it can "explain" *any* outcome. No matter what actually happens, surprise, surprise, it turns out to be consistent with the theory. Contra your assertion, Astrology does not give testable predictions - for example: "Aries, you will spill your coffee at precisely 11.12 AM GMT today" - but rather, the astrologist will contrive a "prediction" so vague as to be consistent with any possible outcome. That's what makes it, along with Marxism and Freudianism, pseudo-science.

[dsquared]

Frank this is what Popper said and it's weak as hell; it's specfically based on a universally quantified empirical claim about astrologers which isn't true. There are astrologists out there who make stock market forecasts for heaven's sake. And even if there weren't, it's quite obvious that someone could start doing astrology in accordance with Popperian principles. Whatever makes astrology not-science, it's clearly got nothing to do with naive falsificationism. As I said above, I have a lot of time for Popper's overall philosophy of science, but I don't have much time for cargo-cult fasificationists. By the way, on the general subject of "trying to insulate your cherished beliefs against refutation", tu quoque mate, tu quoque.

[dsquared]

[The simple fact of the matter is that Popper did indeed identify Astrology as a pseudo-science similar to the work of Freud, (thousand-and-one-fold) Adler and (sorry, I know this hurts) Marx precisely because each of these theories is constructed so that it can "explain" *any* outcome.]

By the way, the simple fact of the matter with respect to Marx is that you're wrong about what Popper said. Popper actually agreed that Marx's historical materialism was a scientific theory in his sense (you may be aware that Marx predicted world Communist revolution, for God's sake, an event which if and when it happens, will probably be observable) and that his economics was equally scientific (or no less so than any other kind). The kind of Marxism which he regarded as unscientific was the intellectual structure that had later been built up by self-styled Marxists; there was nothing in the original theory that meant this had to be the case. Otherwise Popper would be vulnerable to my other favourite joke about him; that his view on Marxism was that it was a) unfalsifiable and b) false. In fact he wrote a lot more intelligent stuff on Marxism than he is usually given credit for, particularly by cargo-cult falsificationists and knee-jerk Open Society types.

[Frank McGahon]

"..you're wrong about what Popper said."

No I'm not. I refer to "Science as Falsification" from C&R:

[But as it was not the example of astrology which lead me to my problem, I should perhaps briefly describe the atmosphere in which my problem arose and the examples by which it was stimulated. After the collapse of the Austrian empire there had been a revolution in Austria: the air was full of revolutionary slogans and ideas, and new and often wild theories. Among the theories which interested me Einstein's theory of relativity was no doubt by far the most important. The three others were Marx's theory of history, Freud's psycho-analysis, and Alfred Adler's so-called "individual psychology."

[...]

It was the summer of 1919 that I began to feel more and more dissatisfied with these three theories—the Marxist theory of history, psycho-analysis, and individual psychology; and I began to feel dubious about their claims to scientific status. My problem perhaps first took the simple form, "What is wrong with Marxism, psycho-analysis, and individual psychology? Why are they so different from physical theories, from Newton's theory, and especially from the theory of relativity?"

To make this contrast clear I should explain that few of us at the time would have said that we believed in the truth of Einstein's theory of gravitation. This shows that it was not my doubting the truth of those three other theories which bothered me, but something else. Yet neither was it that I nearly felt mathematical physics to be more exact than sociological or psychological type of theory. Thus what worried me was neither the problem of truth, at that stage at least, nor the problem of exactness or measurability. It was rather that I felt that these other three theories, though posing as science, had in fact more in common with primitive myths than with science; that they resembled astrology rather than astronomy.]

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

[dsquared]

I think you're missing a smoking gun there, particularly when vol 2. of "The Open Society", in which he was actually writing about Marx (rather than making a few introductory remarks to a speech), we have:

"It is tempting to dwell upon the similarities between Marxism, the Hegelian left-wing, and its fascist counterpart. Yet it would be utterly unfair to overlook the difference between them. Althought their intellectual origin is nearly identical, there can be no doubt of the humanitarian impulse of Marxism. Moreover, in contrast to the Hegelians of the right-wing, Marx made an honest attempt to apply rational methods to the most urgent problems of social life. The value of this attempt is unimpaired by the fact that it was, as I shall try to show, largely unsuccessful. Science progresses through trial and error. Marx tried, and although he erred in his main doctrines, he did not try in vain. He opened and sharpened our eyes in many ways. A return to pre-Marxian social science is inconceivable. All modern writers are indebted to Marx, even if they do not know it. This is especially true of those who disagree with his doctrines, as I do; and I readily admit that my treatment, for example of Platon and Hegel, bears the stamp of his influence. "

oh hang on though, that talk from C&R is actually the reference I was thinking of in the first place ...

"The Marxist theory of history, in spite of the serious efforts of some of its founders and followers, ultimately adopted this soothsaying practice. In some of its earlier formulations (for example in Marx's analysis of the character of the "coming social revolution") their predictions were testable, and in fact falsified.[2] Yet instead of accepting the refutations the followers of Marx re-interpreted both the theory and the evidence in order to make them agree. In this way they rescued the theory from refutation; but they did so at the price of adopting a device which made it irrefutable. They thus gave a "conventionalist twist" to the theory; and by this stratagem they destroyed its much advertised claim to scientific status."

As I say, Popper had a lot of very intelligent things to say about Marx, almost all of which are ignored by Hayekians who want to recruit him to (often a very crude version of) Hayekism. But he certainly didn't believe that it was the original nature of Marx's theory that it could be constructed to justify any outcome; absolutely the reverse.

[dsquared]

Just to get exactly the correct context, the next tw sentences after the extract I've pasted from Conjectures & Refutations above are "The two psycho-analytic theories were in a different class. They were simply non-testable, irrefutable." It's just not true that Popper thought that Marxism was pseudo-science like Freudianism. He thought it was a corrupted version of an originally scientific theory.

[Frank McGahon]

"It's just not true that Popper thought that Marxism was pseudo-science like Freudianism. He thought it was a corrupted version of an originally scientific theory."

Such contortions! Popper did indeed think that Marxism* was pseudoscience and said as much as can be seen above. It doesn't really matter that an earlier version of the theory (to which nobody any longer subscribed by 1919) had been scientific but false.

* as in what everyone understood marxism to mean by 1919 and not some sort of Platonic essence of "real" marxism.

[dsquared]

Frank, you came out with all guns blazing, saying "(sorry I know this hurts) Marx", repeated that you were talking about Marx, were offered an opportunity by me to clarify that you were talking about later versions of "Marxism" and turned it down.

Now you're reduced to making two fairly risible claims:

1) that there is no "Platonic essence of what Marx said", despite him having written several books about it and despite Karl Popper having understood them.

2) that nevertheless, there is a clear single concept of "what everyone understood 'Marxism' to be in 1919" and this is "all that matters".

1) might be considered an absolutely extreme form of deconstructionism; you might gain some support here from Derrida and Lyotard but nobody else.

2) is a very strange and equally extreme view about the social construction of the meaning of the word "Marxism". Derrida certainly isn't with you at this point; you might find bits and pieces of Foucault to help shore this view up, or maybe something in Jameson or some of the other wilder American pomos who I haven't read.

What's very clear is that Professor Sir Karl Popper is on the other side from you in this argument; he thinks that there was an original theory in Marx's work, that it is possible to understand what that theory was, that it was scientific in nature, that its scientific predictions were falsified, but that nonetheless Marx contributed substantially to our understanding of social science. He then states that later followers of Marx created a bastardised version of Marxism which owed more to myths and cults than science, and then *distinguishes* this from Freudianism and individual psychology by saying that they were unscientific from the get-go.

For land's sakes man. You appear to be claiming above that in making statements about Marx, it is not relevant what Marx said! What was that well-turned phrase?

"propensity to insulate your cherished beliefs against refutation ".

In order to defend the belief that Popper thought that Marx was a pseudoscientist, you've by this point pretty much ditched anything else in Popper's philosophy. Quine-Duhem, how are ya?

[Frank McGahon]

"What's very clear is that Professor Sir Karl Popper is on the other side from you in this argument"

Huh? I've just paraphrased and quoted his own argument. Rendered simply: That Astrology (contra your first assertion), Freudianism and Marxism* are all pseudoscientific theories.

What *is* very clear is that the fictitious Popper in your head (Who holds that Astrology is scientific and is more sympathetic to Marx than Hayek) is on the other side from the actual Popper ("I felt that these other three theories, though posing as science, had in fact more in common with primitive myths than with science") in this argument.

* Your beef about defining earlier and later versions of Marxism is with Popper (and pretty much everyone else) not just me:

[The Marxist theory of history, in spite of the serious efforts of some of its founders and followers, ultimately adopted this soothsaying practice]

[IDer]

Uh, astrology *is* a theory, isn't it? Maybe not a scientific theory but it is a theory. Did Behe claim it was a "scientific theory"?

[dsquared]

Frank, when you see the passage:

[The Marxist theory of history, in spite of the serious efforts of some of its founders and followers, ultimately adopted this soothsaying practice. In some of its earlier formulations (for example in Marx's analysis of the character of the "coming social revolution") their predictions were testable, and in fact falsified]

and decide to precis it by taking the first sentence and ommitting the second, don't you hear a small slight voice telling you that someone might be watching?

[Andrew]

IDer: Can you not read? I quote the *very first sentence* of the article:

"Astrology would be considered a scientific theory if judged by the same criteria used by a well-known advocate of Intelligent Design to justify his claim that ID is science, a landmark US trial heard on Tuesday."

[IDer]

"IDer: Can you not read?"

Sure, and I can read the second sentence too, which on its own suggests that the first sentence is a non-sequitur, by moving from "theory" to "scientific theory" (typical of the sort that anti ID folk are likely to make, in assuming the worst of their opponents):

"Under cross examination, ID proponent Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, admitted his definition of “theory” was so broad it would also include astrology."

Further down the article, though, it does suggest that by "theory", Behe and others are referring not to just "theories", but "scientific theories".

I guess he must think, then, that astrology is a theory, but a strongly refuted one. I doubt he thinks it is at all a good theory.

[Andrew]

"Further down the article, though, it does suggest that by "theory", Behe and others are referring not to just "theories", but "scientific theories"."

Yes, exactly. Using "theory" for "scientific theory" in the context of this article is no more a non-sequitur or strawman than using "he" to refer to "Behe" in your last sentence.

[IDer]

Huh? It is not using "theory" for "scientific theory" that is a non-sequitur. That is just poor writing in a context where precision is important. What would have been the non-sequitur would be going from a person's offered definition of "theory" to a supposed definition of "scientific theory".

Anyway, the point is moot. Now you can argue if you want that it is perfectly fine to say "theory" when you mean "scientific theory" in the sentence in question. I disagree, but there is no point arguing about it.

[dsquared]

look you fucking fool, the fact that astrology might be considered a "scientific theory" under the same definition as "intelligent design" is a bad thing about this definition of "scientific theory", not a good thing about "intelligent design".

[IDer]

Ooh, thanks, guy, very civil of you. I never said that I disagreed with either of your points. All that I said was that, from the quotations in the original article, Behe had not said that astrology was a scientific theory, just a theory. Well, the whole article suggests otherwise. Now, I do not have the competence to evaluate Behe's claim, that "(scientific) theory" is used by scientists in general in the sense he specified rather than the sense his opponents gave (and neither, I suspect, do you). It seems the main difference, though, is that he doesn't require that a scientific theory be a *good* theory in order to be scientific. Now, if that is the only thing that gets ID admitted, indeed that is a bad thing. Neverthelees, I suspect he thinks there are still plenty of differences, in terms of quality (if not "scientificalness") of the theories of ID and astrology. Anyway, I'm not interested in people building swear words into their appellation for me, so, so long.

[Theo]

After reading the above comments - it is a wonder most of you write papers of any real intelligence.

Astrology, is the oldest known science to humankind and the fact that ALL of you in this forum as written the word ASTRO-LOGY and then contridicted yourselves by saying it is a pseudo-science - clearly, you are living in a dream world of your own makings.

LOGY - a Greek word defining a science, correct? Astrology is the study of the celestial bodies relative to the Earth and the geomagnetic effects on all life on Earth.

Now, since most of you would claim that astrology - and I mean judicial, classical, predictive astrology and not the "sun-sign" newspaper entertainment "astrology" all of you seem to equate with the true astrological sciences - is actually a pseudo-science - then, by yur definition, these names would be among those practicing a pseudo-science and hence, they would be called quacks in your definitions of astrology -

PYTHAGORAS
PLATO
HIPPOCRATES
HIPPARCHUS
POSIDONIUS
PTOLEMY
MANILIUS
PLOTINUS
PORPHYRY
MATERNUS
JOHANNES DE SACROBOSCO
JOHANNES CAMPANUS
REGIOMONTANUS (JOHANN MULLER)
NICOLAI COPERNICUS
JEROME CARDAN
MICHEL NOTRADAMUS
VALENTINE NAIBOD
TYCHO BRAHE
SIR FRANCIS BACON (ALSO KNOWN AS SHAKESPHERE)
JOHN DEE
JOHANN KEPLER
GALILEO GALILEI
PLACIDUS DE TITO
WILLIAM LILLY
JOHN DRYDEN
NICOLAS CULPEPPER
JOHN FLAMSTEED
ISAAC NEWTON

Now, these are all "pseudo-scientists" according to your posts above, right?

Most of you, in using the mathematical techniques of Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry and Calculus - are using astrological techniques - INVENTED BY ASTROLOGERS. Check the FACTS.

Judicial, or classical astrologers were natural astronomers who first observed, weighed and calculated the constellations, stars, planets and took this information of their positions relative to the Earth and noted the influences through direct observation.

Astrology is a science. And, no matter your so-called "professional horror" at this statement - it does not change the FACTS.

Rather, as people of intelligence, you would first take the time and the EFFORT to do some serious study of your own before making such weak arguements on what Popper had to say about astrology - or Marxism for that matter.

Check out the history - the true history of science on this planet and you will find that judicial astrology is supreme above them all and in fact, began with the study of the celestial bodies, and that includes the Sun and the Moon - on Earth's weather. This is called meteorology - the study of the planets influence on the Earth's atmosphere.

So, before you go on and on about terming a true science a "pseudo-science" do your homework FIRST before going out on a limb with your uninformed opinion on a science most of you, obviously, have never even attempted to study.

The onus is on you to prove that astrology is a pseudo-science - not the other way around.

I challenge anyone to do so.