JamesCronen.com

In the past few days there have been news reports of unidentified flying objects darting about the skies over Lubbock, Texas. It’s more of the same — don’t even bother looking for anything new in these articles. People see things they can’t explain and it must be magic. The same old claptrap that UFO-chasers have spouted for years is in this story.

Pyramids in the desert! How is that possible?! It must have been aliens! No, a lot of time and horribly oppressed slaves.

Crop circles in the English countryside? Aliens! No, pranksters.

Whether UFOs, pareidolia, Bigfoot, yetis, ghosts, poltergeists, little green men, Nessie, leprechauns, mermaids, or magical beings that command you to live your life a certain way, people somehow gravitate to the unexplained. Anything that cannot be proven immediately must, therefore, be extraterrestrial, magical, or otherworldly.

People are so desperate for magic in their lives that they ignore science — questionably the closest real thing to magic we have. Two hundred years ago it was completely unimaginable that you would be able to talk to any person on the planet by dialing a couple numbers on a keypad. The idea of hurtling through the sky at 500 miles per hour was ridiculous — now air travel is (relatively) cheap and available to everyone. And while there’s no physical mechanism for casting spells, we know enough about the human brain to fool it into thinking events did or didn’t happen.

Want to see some magic? Send an electron at a wall and watch it go straight through. Flip the spin of one particle and watch another flip in the opposite direction, no matter where they are. Make a particle that lives for 0.000 002 2 seconds travel for much, much longer in a particle accelerator. You can even double your mass merely by traveling 87% of the speed of light!

I’m not optimistic that everyone will stop chasing fairies and start following science. But if we want to live in a Star Wars society with spaceships and robots and cute fuzzy space aliens, we need to glorify the real magic.

From Pharyngula:

The Washington Post tallies up congressional votes, and in an astounding display of technological mastery, [now] allows you to sort and display them by the congressperson’s astrological sign.

Here’s an actual screenshot of this, taken from the page for bill HR 2 of the 110th Congress’ session.

Humans since homo erectus have been looking for ways to predict the future. Tarot cards, tea leaves, and crystal balls have been used (and still are used) by people around the world to obtain some kind of glimpse into their future. Surely the unknown is frightening, and to have even the slightest bit of surety of where you’re headed can be very comforting.

Unfortunately for the true believers, astrology has no basis in science whatsoever. Science requires us to produce hypotheses and theories based on only what we observe. If future observations do not comply with the way we understand the universe (and the observations can be reproduced at will) then we must change the theory. Or, if we can’t make the new data match the old theory, we throw out the theory and start over.

Astrology isn’t based on observation. In fact, most astrologic “forecasts” are vaguely-written bits of generalized fluff written that can apply to you (if you have the slightest bit of imagination). Here’s the first sample astrologic forecast I found from Google. It comes from SpiritSingles.com:

Transit NEPTUNE sextile natal Uranus
Nov 24, 2004 through Jan 9, 2005

Though long-term, this is not a particularly strong influence, but it is of a positive nature and suggests that some element of mystery, glamor, illusion, or spirituality in the current circumstances will afford an opportunity to introduce changes within society. Strange and whimsical fads in fashion, behavior and attitudes may arise. However, their impact may only be meaningful to the extent of your personal interest or involvement in such trends. (link)

I couldn’t personally dream up anything more general than this. Please note that you will never, never, find an astrological forecast, no matter how personalized, that reads like this:

Because Neptune is passing through Aries, in the coming week you will go on a second date with a man named Mitchell, find thirty-seven cents (Canadian) on the subway seat next to you, and find that your two children have both contracted the flu from playground interactions with the school bully. Oh, and you’re pregnant.

If astrology were scientific, it might be possible for us to construct an experiment to prove the truth of my forecast, but not the SpiritSingles.com forecast.

I would sarcastically recommend that the Post also sort the votes of the members of Congress by favorite NFL football team or genre of movie, but I don’t want to be on record of having suggested it if they happen to like either of these “ideas”.

Shame on you, Washington Post. As one of the few newspapers left in the mainstream media worth reading, you’ve fallen into the trap of your print-brethren, catering to the desires of a populace who wish to remain ignorant about science. While I might expect this from a group of conspiracy theorists, this isn’t acceptable behavior by an institution with the public responsibility that your reputation requires you maintain.