I agree with the post above that the discussion of astrology specifically seemed to derail quite a few posts ago. I that it is a waste of time to apply scientific ways of knowing to a domain like astrology, a domain that does not use the same standards of evidence. It may have been interesting to look at astrology from more of a humanities standpoint, but that never happened (and I don't know enough about the topic to start a discussion).
I do know a bit about what a scientist means when they refer to a theory. Lay people often think of theories as guesses or speculation. Wikipedia has a reasonable
definition. When scientists refer to a theory, they typically are referring to
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a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition.
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So, theory for a scientist is different from theory for a layperson.
It is equally a waste of time to apply scientific ways of knowing to a concept like creationism, a concept that does not use the same standards of evidence as science. To put evolution by natural selection and creationism on the same scientific level is absurd. Again, it might be interesting to examine creation stories from a humanities or cultural perspective, but scientifically, it is a waste of time.
An aside: I think that the scientific responses to astrology have been restrained. Regarding possible personal attacks, when you make an argument from authority, you shouldn't be surprised when someone questions your authority.
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Originally Posted by DaveMatrix
This thread may have started about astrology but it quickly turned into one about Respect, Plain & Simple, at least for me. Most members will probably agree that they don't think planets and stars can influence their lives, but will also agree that they find it somewhat interesting. If for no other reason than to have a little fun & break up the monotony of this board. The same topics are endlessly repeated, the same opinions are expressed over & over, and there seems to be very few original thoughts anymore. Its all been said a thousand times before. So having a little fun, getting my chart done maybe, then seeing how well that actually matched my view of myself, would have been very interesting. But theres no fuckin way thats gonna happen now, is there??? Since the best astrologer on the board will no longer post.
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I didn't see a lack of respect. The OP was general enough to allow scientific discussions of the merits of astrology. Several people seemed to make claims about the predictive validity of astrology. If you are going to make such claims, you shouldn't be surprised when people are skeptical. I still think that it is possible to examine astrology in a "fun" way. A new thread, with an explicit topic might make that easier.