Suvrat Kher, a geologist, has given answers to questions from a muddled engineer and wannabe astrologer. Suvrat Kher is a patient bloke. Instead of hitting the questioner on the head repeatedly with Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit, he has done the nicer thing.
Why do so many seemingly educated people - people who have been trained in the scientific method - have a soft spot for astrology in India.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
A geologist, Suvrat Kher, has a very good post on the recent paper on Indian genetics. He concludes:
The Indian Press has made a hash of the finding. For example they have only reported those parts of the study that deal with the kinship among Indians and have stressed that castes and tribes cannot…
Once again the perennially aggravating subject of Indian marriages is in the news at the beebs. The reporter sez
No Indian wedding can even begin without a visit to the astrologer, who for centuries, read the charts and mapped the planetary alignments to pick the best matches.
Now, even they have…
Chris Mooney has been exploring the basic underpinnings of denialism lately, with this latest article a good summary of the basic problems:
In a recent study of climate blog readers, Lewandowksy and his colleagues found that the strongest predictor of being a climate change denier is having a…
One of th efirst posts on Circadiana, just defining what the blog was about (January 17, 2005):
-----------------------------------------------
When I first took a class on Biological Clocks (eleven years ago), the instructor explained why biorhythms are not science. This was done with such fun,…
A patient bloke indeed, and no dummy, neither. Thanks for the link. rb
Maybe because they find that Astrology "works" for them?
When you are not among best of times and a famous astrologer comes along to say that the future is bright, you could atleast hope that it could be true.... Hope is one thing which can keep even civilizations steadfast.
Destination Infinity
You seem to easily assume that so many educated people have been trained in the scientific method. That is a dangerous, and very often untrue, assumption. Far too many educated people I know haven't the faintest idea of how the scientific method works.
Very interesting article. I found it very intriguing.