Reverting

We've come a long way, haven't we? Humans, I mean.

Maybe not.

Who else is entirely unsurprised that this woman's training is in psychology? I mean, if I had heard that Carl Jung thought something, I'd be suspicious of it on its face. I tend not to trust the word of a psychotic, after all (quick question - why are psychologists so crazy? Jung was a psycho and Freud was so neurotic he had to claim that everyone was, at heart, a neurotic, or else he'd have to admit that his shortcomings were beyond the pale.). However, when your discipline calls Carl Jung a genius and a god among men, anything he says is likely to be viewed as sacrosanct. So if Carl Jung has a crazy belief, then even a skeptic begins to doubt that the belief is so crazy.

Poor woman. Philosophy is so much easier, since we seem to have no problem calling a philosopher nuts if he says something nuts. Philosophers do not constitute a big happy brotherhood, and internecine quarrels are one of those perks we hold dear. A Treatise of Human Nature was nothing more than a big "Fuck You" to the rationalists.

I suppose we have to be so sensitive to someone's crazy beliefs that science is intolerant. Now let's see some quotes.

Astrology is based on the positions occupied by the sun, moon and planets, relative to the Earth at the time, date and place of a person’s birth. So popular “sun sign” horoscope columns that only use the sun are neglecting 90 percent of the chart, Seaman says. “That’s why sun sign columns are pretty meaningless.”

Funny - I thought sun sign columns were meaningless because it's silly and childish to believe that the observed motions of the sun, other stars, and planets could possibily have any relation to one's fate. Obviously, though, I'm the silly one. It's good to see that she has some discernment - no two-bit astrology for this lady! No, we have to be precise and accurate when conducting bullshit pseudoscience.

A member of MENSA, the international high IQ society...

Even geniuses can deceive themselves or simply be insane. Noam Chomsky comes to mind.

Quoting Richard Tarnas, Ph.D., a Harvard University professor, she says, “Psychology textbooks of future generations will look back on modern psychologists working without the aid of astrology as being like medieval astronomers working without the aid of the telescope.”

My respect for Harvard professors was pretty low already. I suppose the good professor missed his own joke; belief in astrology reminds me much more of the credulous and superstitious people of the Middle Ages than of anything profound. And, after all, since the invention of the telescope was simply one ascept of the Scientific Revolution, that narrow-minded time where people began believing in objective facts and the rigors of the scientific method (in opposition to subjective fantasy and baseless conjecture), then why act as if that invention was an advance of any kind?

Kant said it best: "Contemplation of the world started from the most splendid spectacle that could ever be put before human senses and that our understanding could ever bear to pursue in its vast range, and it ended - with astrology. Morals started with human nature's noblest property, whose development and cultivation point to infinite benefit, and it ended - with fanaticism, or with superstition."