Astrology Knocks at the Academy of Science's Door

Dr. Seymour believes that human brain development may be affected by the Earth’s magnetic field especially during growth in the womb. In his book, The Scientific proof of Astrology he postulates that the Earth’s magnetic field is affected by interactions with those of the Sun and the Moon. His theory proposes that certain planetary alignments affect solar activity. The build up of sunspots within the solar cycle can then be accounted for by the complex interactions of planetary forces acting upon the Sun’s magnetic field which in turn affects the Earth’s magnetosphere.

In 1989 after Dr. Percy Seymour published his first book related to astrology, Astrology: The Evidence of Science, he commented in an interview with Omni, “Of course, I expected people to take objection to my theory. But I didn’t expect the reaction to be so vehement or so irrational.” In a 1998 interview with the Mountain Astrologer, Dr. Seymour had this to say about ‘single-link theories’ and astrology skepticism…

Dr. Percy Seymour is an astrophysicist and respected authority in the field of cosmic magnetism. Omnipresent throughout the universe, magnetism is known to affect the biological cycles of numerous creatures on Earth. Dr. Seymour believes that human brain development may be affected by the Earth’s magnetic field especially during growth in the womb. In his book The Scientific proof of

Astrology he postulates that the earth’s magnetic

field is affected by interactions with those of the Sun and the Moon. His theory proposes that certain planetary alignments affect solar activity. The build up of sunspots within the solar cycle can then be accounted for by the complex interactions of planetary forces acting upon the Sun’s magnetic field which in turn affects the Earth’s magnetosphere.

In 1989 after Dr. Percy Seymour published his first book related to astrology, Astrology: The Evidence of Science, he commented in an interview with Omni, “Of course, I expected people to take objection to my theory. But I didn’t expect the reaction to be so vehement or so irrational.” In a 1998 interview with the Mountain Astrologer, Dr. Seymour had this to say about ‘single-link theories’ and astrology skepticism…

The Scientific proof of Astrology he postulates that the earth’s magnetic field is affected by interactions with those of the Sun and the Moon. His theory proposes that certain planetary alignments affect solar activity. The build up of sunspots within the solar cycle can then be accounted for by the complex interactions of planetary forces acting upon the Sun’s magnetic field which in turn affects the Earth’s magnetosphere.

In 1989 after Dr. Seymour published his first book related to astrology:

Astrology: The Evidence of Science,

he commented in an interview with Omni, “Of course, I expected people to take objection to my theory. But I didn’t expect the reaction to be so vehement or so irrational.” In a 1998 interview with the Mountain Astrologer, Dr. Seymour had this to say about ‘single-link theories’ and astrology skepticism…

“It’s my view that those who use simplistic models to disprove astrology are violating the principles of the philosophy of science, which is a particular interest of mind. From the viewpoint of the philosophy of science, any number of theories may be shown not to work, but to say it follows that no theory of astrology can work is just bad science. It totally rules out the scientific method. So, having examined the arguments that supposedly disproved astrology, I came to the conclusion that they were totally unscientific- a form of rationalized bigotry cloaked in academic language.”

Dr. Seymour and people like him who continue to analyze the world on their own terms and are brave and eloquent enough to speak their mind regardless of peer pressure are to be truly admired. I think the world could have avoided a lot of misfortune if we had more individuals willing to speak up against convention and share their individual thoughts rather than following herd mentality. What Dr. Seymour is referring to in the quote above is actually exactly what had happened in 1975. In that year the Humanist Magazine published a statement signed by 186 prominent scientists calling astrologers ‘charlatans‘ and asserting that there is no rational basis for the belief. The statement included the following,”We wish to caution the public against the unquestioning acceptance of the predictions and advice given privately and publicly by astrologers. Those who wish to believe in astrology should realize that there is no scientific foundation for its tenets.” The statement also said that the scientists were “especially disturbed by the continued uncritical disemenination of astrological charts, forecasts and horoscopes by the media and by otherwise reputable newspapers, magazines and book publishers.”

It is a tad remnicent of the tales of book burning in the libraries of Alexandria! It’s one thing to say there is nothing to a subject … it is another to try and ban that subject and prevent anyone from writing, reading or learning about it. What of acupuncture, herbal medicine, aromatherapy, crystals, psychotherapy, homeopathy, numerology, the tarot… shall all of these things be banned or need to pass through this science committee’s checkpoint? Does being an expert in one area mean you are an expert in all unrelated areas?

This proclamation is unsettling for more than a few reasons…

Renowned author John Anthony West had this to say of the statement…

This proclamation is unsettling for more than a few reasons…

Renowned author John Anthony West had this to say of the statement…

‘This perfectly futile but extremely interesting symbolic gesture indicates firstly that the 186 scientists had not looked at the accumulated evidence supporting terrestrial-celestial correspondences, and secondly, that the College of Cardinals presiding over the ‘church of progress’ no longer feels secure of its position; a few decades ago scientists would not have felt themselves sufficiently threatented to issue an official condemnation.’ (p.91 Serpent in the Sky)

Unfortunately when people feel threatened by a subject, they will sometimes resort to some very unethical methods to get their way. The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was a skeptical committee which formed partly as a reaction to the studies of Michel and Françoise Gauquelin. CSICOP started a project in which they planned to refute the Gauquelins’ findings. The committee however found the opposite in their results, their study in fact replicated (and thus supported) the findings of the Gauquelins’. Instead of publishing these findings to contribute to science however CSICOP attempted to falsify their results in an incident which has become well- known and documented as the sTARBABY incident. The Gauquelin’s results have since been replicated at least 14 times.

In his article The Evidence Accumulates but Proof is Never Possible, Robert Currey (Editor of Correlation, The Astrological Association Journal of Research in Astrology) illuminates the conundrum astrological researchers face when trying to fit into the scientific world. Astrology’s most skeptical critics want ‘irrefutable proof’ of cause and effect however Currey elegantly clarifies how for any scientific hypothesis it is an accumulation of supporting evidence that is the goal. “Beyond the austere objective world of mathematics, one cannot prove a hypothesis.” Currey explains, “with each replication of the evidence a theory becomes more widely accepted. Since new evidence could show a theory to be false or to require modification it remains a theory and can never become an eternal proof or universal law. That is why Darwin’s theory of evolution is not his law of evolution.”

Scientific laws are descriptions (often mathematical) of natural phenomenon. They describe an observation, not how or why it works. In general a scientific law does not change when new information relevant to the phenomenon is found. For example, Newton’s law of gravity is still useful when building a skyscraper, but it doesn’t explain how gravity works. It wasn’t until Albert Einstein developed his theory of relativity that we started to really understand how gravity works; Newton’s law of gravity remains unchanged however and is still useful for many purposes.

A hypothesis is like an educated guess as to why something happened. When we question why something happens we then formulate a hypothesis, this hypothesis can then be tested with research which will either support or reject the hypothesis. If the hypothesis is re-tested by other scientists who get the same results then the hypothesis becomes a theory. This is called the ‘scientific method.’

As the radical pace of technology sweeps us all along with it, this millenium is increasingly becoming a time when an astrologer’s technological or statistical skill will be the limiting factor in their ability to do research. And, it does not take an astrologer (he he) to forecast a steep rise in the amount of evidence that will accumulate in scientific support of astrology given the direction it has been going or the recent developments. The publication Correlation, The Astrological Association Journal of Research in Astrology seems like a good place to start for those astrologers who are serious in joining the astrologers convoy to the Academy of Sciences. Specifically in volume 32 (2) of the journal there is an ‘Evidence List’ of 63 studies that have over the past fifty years passed through a very rigorous filtration system set to weed out all but the highest level of objective evidence of correlations between celestial positions and terrestial life.

“Knock Knock”