Seeing Stars
Astronomy in the blue corner, astrology in the red corner. Is this the most pointless fight in the universe? asks Pat Thomas
Early in January BBC2 broadcast Stargazing Live, a three-night experiment in looking at the stars. The programme, truth be told, was nearly as dull as the night skies over that period. Until…
Dara O’Briain said it first: “Let’s get this straight once and for all, astrology is rubbish”. Then Brian Cox, agreed: “in the interests of balance on the BBC, yes astrology is nonsense.”
This was the second time I’d heard the normally pleasant Brian Cox say something like this and while I admire both men, they completely lost me at that point. I switched off.
Offended is too strong a word. I’d have to care about their opinions to be offended. So, ‘miffed’ maybe. Because I enjoy astrology as a hobby, and who the fuck are these big-headed blokes to tell me that my hobby, something that I derive pleasure from, is “nonsense” or “rubbish”?
I was miffed, also, by the beside-the-pointness of it all. If Madonna had exposed her breasts on stage, or Russell Brand had humiliated yet another unsuspecting victim live on radio we would all have dismissed it as a tiresome and rather desperate grab for attention. Since the clouds in the sky failed to part during their three-night, mid-winter experiment in real time astronomy, maybe that’s just what it was.
The Guardian’s ‘proper science’ bores got involved in the ensuing controversy this week. When the British Astrological Society started up a small petition to ask the BBC to apologise for this unnecessary, ignorant outburst, reporter Martin Robbins, the ‘Lay Scientist’ (surely an oxymoron, since in the ‘proper science’ club the right credentials are sooo important) said he wanted to start his own petition for people who think astrology is rubbish.
Robbins marvelled at the “continued ability of the astrological industry to lift hundreds of millions of euros, pounds and dollars out of the pockets of customers each year.”
All I can say is phew!, and thank goodness that ‘proper science’ hasn’t been corrupted by money. It would be a disaster if it ever got hijacked by the corporate machine and started concluding conclusions that were predetermined by whoever footed the bill.
For instance like in the 2005 a survey of 3247 publicly funded scientists, published in the journal Nature, which found that 15.5% of those questioned admitted to altering design, methodology or results of their studies due to pressure of an external funding source. Nature light-heartedly referred to it as Scientists Behaving Badly.
The same year the New England Journal of Medicine explored what it called Academic Medical Centers’ Standards for Clinical-Trial Agreements with Industry and revealed that a similar proportion of the 107 medical research institutions questioned were willing to allow pharmaceutical companies sponsoring research to alter manuscripts according to their interests before they were submitted for publication.
Think things have got better in the ensuing 5 years? See the report Science and the Corporate Agenda: The detrimental effects of commercial influence on science and technology by Scientists for Global Responsibility.
Glass houses? Stones? Cleaning up you own back garden first? Anyone? Seems to me that it’s not astrology that needs defending. Or criticising.
With that in mind I would venture, however, that good, intelligent astrology – as opposed to the pap that the Coxes/O’Briains/Robbinses unfailingly hold up as relevant examples – is a journey into in perception and non-linear thinking. It is a journey into symbolism, metaphor, alchemy and psychology. It is also a journey into humility, since it reminds us that we are not masters of the universe but simply, humbly part of a greater whole.
I enjoy Brian Cox and Dara O’Briain for their entertainment value – except possibly when they are doing a double act, which was frankly lacking in any real chemistry – human chemistry, that is, rather than the kind that gets so lavishly funded by Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, BASF, Syngenta and all the rest.
But clearly they are both very limited, linear thinkers and, it seems to me, deeply – if unconsciously – insecure about the limitations this places on their understanding of the world. Why else would they choose to make such beside-the-point interjections about astrology on a show about astronomy? The only thing that would have been more beside-the-point would have been one of Dara’s famous rants about herbal medicine.
Linear thinkers are, frankly, last year’s models. Linear thinkers’ obsessive focus on what is makes it impossible to envison what could be. The world is more complex and more wondrous than any of us can know and the creative, non-linear thinking that disciplines like astrology, mythology and psychology (not to mention all of the arts) require is what’s in demand to solve our current and future problems. Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognised leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources, refers to the need for more non-linear thinkers as our learning revolution.
I for one would hate to look up into the sky and only ever see a bunch of rocks, dust particles, ice crystals and gases (though I appreciate the wondrousness of these things too). I want to look up and feel inspired, awed, comforted, proud of my human sentience but likewise humbled by how little I really know and full of anticipation of how much I have yet to learn.
Humans have a long history of making sense of their lives through storytelling, metaphor and symbolism. It’s helpful particularly in situations that are complex or where there are overwhelming emotions to deal with, or new territory to negotiate. Some of us make sense of our lives by comparing our stories to those we see on TV or in the movies. Others prefer older stories, symbolism and myth. Indeed Carl Jung the founder of modern psychology, believed astrology was an early human attempt at understanding the psyche and making sense of the world. He studied astrology in relation to his work on projection and collective archetypes. He noted in his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul: “We are born at a given moment, in a given place, and we have, like the best wines, the quality of the year and the season which witness our birth.”
For some of us the stories and symbolism of astrology are just that bit richer, deeper and more consistent than EastEnders or Jordan’s most recent love trauma or the latest Posh and Becks saga.
To dismiss something that, at worst, is a harmless pleasure for many and at best a means to genuine insight for others is not just insensitive, it’s crass. I broadly agree with the British Astrological Society. The BBC should own up to encouraging a kind of ‘profiling’ that characterises anyone with an interest in astrology as a brainless kook while holding up those who choose to criticise it as intellectuals. I doubt the BAS will get satisfaction. There is nothing in the BBC Charter that says you can’t be an arrogant asshole on TV.
Logic has its limits, as Edward De Bono would say. There’s room for all of us, for a whole diversity of interests and ways of looking at things. And I’d certainly match my brain, my ability to reason, my logic and my perception against that of Brian Cox or Dara O’Briain or the geeks at the Guardian who see themselves as defenders of some absolute, unbending ‘truth’. Whatismore, it amuses me that none of these men seems to possess enough insight to ‘get’ that the need to somehow protect ‘proper science’ from astrology is indicative of just how fragile and unsteady and biased and unreliable that science has become.
More open-minded and less (pre)judgemental, boys – isn’t that the basis of all good science?
© Pat Thomas 2011. No reproduction without the author’s permission.
