โ Scribed by Roger B. Culver
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
I hope that Ms. Bissell will excuse us for our "unwarranted defensiveness" in our recent Quarterly articles on astrology and the scientific method. After all, the territory we defend has been won at great sacrifice on the part of men and women working in astronomy for dozens of decades. We have frozen in cramped spaces in open domes at the telescope. We have gone bleary-eyed at computer consoles, blink comparators, and measuring engines. And yes, we have even changed our name from the etymologically correct term for our science. Astronomers have done all of this and much more in an effort to forge for the modern world a dynamic science of the heavens that is as far from being "dreary" as anything that I can imagine.
It would be nice if Ms. Bissell's astrological colleagues would share her contentment to just play the astrological game. Unfortunately a quick journey from the rear echelon to the front lines reveals that such has not been the case. Within the last two months, for example, we were treated to a half hour spectacle of astrologer Sydney Omarr extolling the virtues of the "science" of astrology in an episode of the "In Search of ... " network TV series. On the shelves of our local bookstores we can find titles such as "Astrology: The Space Age Science" by Goodavage and "Astrology: The Divine Science" (italics mine) by Moore and Douglas. Now scientists would not mind astrologers playing scientist if they would abide by the rules of the game, ie. the scientific method. The basic conclusion reached in our two Quartely articles, however, was that astrologers not only fail to abide by the scientific method, but are also quite capable of taking action designed to subvert its machinery.
Ms. Bissell finds the examples given in this regard "deliberately inferior", despite the fact that widely respected astrologers such as Margaret Hone and Sydney Omarr are quoted and referred to extensively throughout the presentation. If anything, the examples selected tended to be the least wild and wooly of those available from the astrological spectrum. In any event, space did not permit us to provide an example from each and every astrological author. We do note, however, that in spite of the statistical riddling which has been administered to sun-sign astrology down through the years, Ms. Bissell's
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The following are open letters addressed to the president of the American Astronomical Society regarding Council support of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. DearMargaret, . At Austin I did not get a chance to speak to you after hearing about Council's action on the Equal Righ
~quarian backdrop needed if the vernal equinox is to make its grand entrance Infto the constellation of Aquarius, thereby signalling the start of the fabled "Age o Aquarius"? Ms. Bissell mentions that "much work" has been done on the influences of factors such as asteroids in the horoscope, distance