Prejudice in Astrological Research

Author: Harding, Mike
Abstract: It can be suggested that one of the main problems facing the astrologer is the attitude of many scientists towards the subject. The claim can be made that the scientific world view is so different from that of the astrologer, that science simply cannot engage with the astrological model at all. Thus science’s dismissal of astrology ste11lS, essentially, from its inability to understand and, even worse, its inability to recognise that it has failed to understand, what the astrologer is talking about. Even attempts to ask the astrologer, in effect, to set up a situation which could be tested, is to ignore that, nevertheless, it will be tested according to the paradigm of science. After all, it is from science that the main concept of testing emerges. Other ways of thinking – and testing – are not considered. In this article the author presents an overview of common scientific attitudes, and then looks with a little more detail at some particular research examples. It begins with an organisation which claims to represent mainstream scientific attitudes, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims for the Paranormal (CSICOP). It is asserted that to designate a certain phenomenon paranormal’, prior to its investigation, is to proceed from the prejudiced position of normative assumptions.
Keywords: astrological model, paranormal, prejudice, CSICOP
Notes:
Publication: Correlation: Astrological Association Journal of Research In Astrology
Issue: Volume 19, Issue 1
Dated: 2000
Pages: Pages 17 – 33