An Open Letter To George Dvorsky, io9.com:
Hi George. First of all, I wanted to thank you for your highly enjoyable work for io9.com writing your bit called “The Daily Explainer.” I’m a fan of your work, and you explain things well. Many of those clicks you get paid for came from me. You’re welcome.
However, as one writer to another, I feel there is something I should correct you on. Namely: your recent blog entry about astrology, “Why Believing In Astrology Is Not As Harmless As You Think,” which unfortunately (but not surprisingly) got the whole thing completely wrong.
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We are entering what I am beginning to think of as “silly season” for those of us who write for living on the Internet. Of course, there are always silly things on the Internet, but the summer is a special time of year for it. A wide variety of Internet sites experience a downturn in traffic at this time of year, because apparently there’s something or other going on outside that doesn’t involve getting riled up over people’s opinions or watching baby goats jump around.
Being a member of that subset of society which we call “geeks,” I am a longtime and enthusiastic reader of io9.com. See, when I’m not being an astrologer, I take a great deal of interest in things like the latest discoveries on Titan, whether or not DC comics will screw up their upcoming movie schedule, and every tiny scrap of rumor about what might possibly be happening on Doctor Who next season.
I have no reason to believe that io9.com is any more immune to the summer slump than many other websites are. Those who write for the Internet like myself always get a bit panicky at this time of year, even when we see it coming. It’s at times like this we often end up writing the tried and true things that will grab peoples attention: the relatively easy material that we know our audience will respond to. Some examples: if you work for a political site, toss out something like “10 Reasons Why Obama Is The Worst Thing Ever” or “10 Reasons Why Bush Is STILL The Worst Thing Ever” or “Why Won’t Hillary Reveal Her Lunch Menu For The Day Benghazi Happened?” or “How Ayn Rand Has Killed More People Than Ebola” or whatever. Sports sites have various inspiring come-from-behind tales to recycle. Fashion sites can always mock the styles they praised last year, and music sites can always take a list of “10 Greatest Bands Of The 90s” and rework it as “10 Most Overrated Bands Of The 90s” and so on.
Astrologers have their own version of this too, of course. When in doubt, and where there is nothing exciting in the news to write about, there is always “Why Your Boss Is A Jerk, By Sun Sign” or “Virgos Are Picky” or whatever.
Even in times when there is a distinct deficit of Kanye West stories in the news for me to write about, I like to think I never throw out any of that “red meat” for the audience that isn’t somehow based on actual facts and/or people’s experiences and/or my own professional experiences as an astrologer. And that’s where we come to you recent entry on io9.com about the hazards of astrology, George.
Here’s my problem with it, written as best I can muster in that awesome Gawker Media style.
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Make Your Point With A Bold Subheading
First of all, if you want to see in detail why everything in your io9.com article debunking astrology is totally based on false premises, click HERE. All you’re doing is repeating the same Straw Men that The James Randi Educational Foundation does in its booklet “Astrology: Superstition Or Science,” which you can download for free (but for which they’d love a donation, because non-profit misinforming ain’t cheap). For example, when you click on that link you’ll discover why the following statement of yours is a load:
“It didn’t help the astrological cause back in 2011 when an entirely new version of the zodiac was proposed, thus shifting everyone’s sign from its mythical original position. Indeed, the whole premise behind astrology is predicated on some rather flimsy parameters; what we call “months” are actually cultural — and not cosmological — constructs. Moreover, our expanding universe, and all that’s within it, is in a constant state of flux.”
Whoa. Three Straw Men… maybe four… in one paragraph!
If that’s all there was to your article, George, I’d just be recycling my own arguments by complaining about it. What really concerns me is the whole new spin you’ve put on the same old skeptical click-bait. And, ladies? If you’re reading this, slow down and take notes, because you’re especially vulnerable to astrological tomfoolery because you’ve got that extra X chromosome slowing you down.
But, more on that later.
I Read A Whole Study All By Myself And Survived
Part of your article is concerned with the National Science Foundation poll showing that over 40% of Americans think astrology “is a science,” as you put it. You then cite another io9 blog entry as your source, which says the same thing… which isn’t exactly true. Allow me to quote what the study actually said: “Fewer Americans rejected astrology in 2012 than in recent years.” The actual numbers indicate that 10% of Americans polled think astrology is “very scientific” and 32% think astrology is “sort of scientific.”
Normally, I’d count this as a point in favor of the skeptics, maybe, except as I pointed out elsewhere… “what is science?” I myself put astrology in the “sort of scientific” category, along with economics. Except that, of course, my predictions in the long term are more accurate than that of the average economist, it seems.
Furthermore, those dopey American astrology-suckers you’re complaining about are happening within the context of an American populace that is, slowly but overall, becoming smarter and more accepting of science, according to the same poll. But of course, that’s not good enough, and I’d agree with you on that.
Women Are Ruining Science For Everyone
But what really caught my eye in your article is the part entitled “Bad For Science, Bad For Women,” in which you wrote:
“Other surveys have shown that women are more drawn to astrology than men. A 2005 Gallup poll revealed that 28% of women believe in astrology, compared to 23% of men. In Canada it’s even worse, where 33% of women buy into it. But as York University sociologist Julia Hemphill tells , there’s more to this statistic than meets the eye: women are specifically targeted by the popular media. “Astrology is an unempirical epistemology that’s peddled to women as a way of understanding themselves and the world,” she says. “All you have to do is open a ‘women’s magazine’, and you’ll inevitably see at least one or two pages devoted to astrology.”
I remember once, I had a girlfriend who suffered from an “unempirical epistemology,” and I had to go to the drugstore by myself to get Monistat for her to fix it. #embarrassing #chicksman #amirite
I’m certain that fair maidens everywhere — and not just those in the benighted villages of Canada –appreciate your (and Julia’s) chivalrous concern for the delicate ladyparts of their intellects. It’s hard enough being a woman in today’s world without all those pesky lies that popular culture is forcing them to consume of their own free will.
However, I can’t help but wonder: how would Liz Lemon respond to this piece of borderline–mansplaining from The Daily Explainer?
But of course your premise is perfectly sound. For example, Spike TV is directed at dudes, and you’re a dude and so am I, and that’s why you and I can’t help but re-enact the stuff we see on “World’s Wildest Police Videos.” Which reminds me… you know anyone at Jezebel.com we can borrow bail money from?
Free Will: You’re Doing It Wrong
George, you said:
“More conceptually, belief in astrology implies a belief in cosmological predestination; it’s a form of determinism — but a completely fictitious one at that.”
To which I say:
A man goes to visit a geneticist. The geneticist looks over the results of the DNA testing and says, “it appears you have the genetic markers for alcoholism. Here’s a welfare check and a bottle of Jack Daniels, you useless drunk!”
Yeah, that’s not how astrology OR genetics work.
Your Sort Of People Are All Bigots And Car Thieves
You ran a quote from Benjamin Radford about how astrology is a form of bigotry:
“Both astrology and racial stereotypes are based on a framework of belief that basically says: ‘Without even meeting you, I believe something about you. I can expect this particular sort of behavior or trait (stubbornness, laziness, arrogance, etc.) from members of this particular group of people (Jews, blacks, Aries, Pisces, etc.).”
No one I’ve met who really understands astrology ever goes around seriously saying things like “I’d never date an Aries” or “I’d never hire a Pisces” or whatever. That kind of thinking must be limited to people who only base their understanding of astrology on what other people who have only looked down their nose at Sun Sign forecasts have said. And ultimately, people are going to make their decisions based on something or other anyway, and there are all kinds of irrationality out there, not just the False Ghost Of What You Think Astrology Is.
Put another way, George: how many Creationists or Scientologists have YOU dated or hired lately?
And Now, A Sarcastic Squirrel
I realize of course that you went after the low-hanging fruit of the usual Straw Man arguments against astrology because you love your audience, and they (mostly) love that sort of thing. And hey… lots of skeptics are great people. The skeptics I’ve met have all generally been intelligent, practical people who insist that everything in life has a complete and fully scientifically-approved explanation (or barring that, some decent science-y theorizing behind it). Skeptics pride themselves, and rightly so, on not basing their lives on bafflegab and puffery rather than by How Things Actually Are.
Which reminds me: the Wikipedia entry about you, George, says:
Dvorsky claims to have coined the following neologisms:
- Astrosociobiology, the speculative scientific study of extraterrestrial civilizations and their possible social characteristics and developmental tendencies.
- Postgenderism, a social philosophy which seeks the voluntary elimination of gender in the human species through the application of advanced biotechnology and assisted reproductive technologies.
- Techlepathy, neurotechnologically-assisted telepathy.
…All of which, I’m sure, are real and observable things that are really totally legit and are really going on right now, and lots of honest Universities will give you a degree in them. “Postgenerism” sure sounds like it’ll go a long way towards solving that problem women seem to have with critical thinking skills that I totally didn’t notice until you pointed it out.
Oh look, it’s Skippy The Sarcastic Squirrel!
Skippy is here to remind us all that what I’m really saying is: anyone who knows much of anything about astrology isn’t really going to buy any attempts to debunk it that are clearly based on a lack of knowledge of what astrology really is. But, of course, you’ve got your audience and you’ve got mine. We just really wish skeptics knew enough about what they were trying to debunk to actually not look like they were just making fools of themselves based on presuppositions.
And hey… if you’ve got any friends with The James Randi Educational Foundation, tell ’em they’re still a bunch of chickens for not responding publicly to my Ten Dollar Challenge, and are thus (by the standards they themselves set for these things) all apparently about of frauds and bamboozlers and bunkmeisters and stuff.
Now, let’s all play nice out there.
Love and light (until we invent warp drive and can go faster than that),
Matthew Currie
PS: Kinja sucks.
PPS: If the date of birth provided by Wikipedia is correct, Saturn is now opposing your natal Mercury and will oppose your Sun until about October. That’s why you’ve been working so hard for the last couple of years. Don’t worry, it’ll pass.
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