Is Astrology a science?

[inquiring mind]

The Brits knew their population at the time of the Magna Carta and the Domesday book (one of the most comprehensive surveys done by any country to that time). Having a formal census isn't the same as totalling everyone for the purpose of taxes and knowing what workforce one had. And the Babylonians counted those things as well as the population. And the Mongols ruled the largest empire the world has ever seen.

These are examples of ancient knowledge that you said didn't exist. There's countless more. Population has remained pretty much static this last millennium or so up until recent times. Literally all the evidence points to it and none points to anything remotely like a doubling every 150 years.

You've been told a lie. It's patently obvious. The only problem is, they seem to be the ones that know it's a lie and you don't. But hey, you 'read it somewhere'. Versus all the knowledge of population growth you're ever likely to find anywhere.

Seriously?

Just like I read this somewhere... but unreliable before 1800 still makes more sense.

 

[inquiring mind]

What about the Mongols?

You've been pretty busy... you'd have to read my portion of the thread to get it. Their population model includes areas of omission, counting butter, corn, and livestock stashes, and apparently a door-to-door Mongol census.

 

[Diamond72]

You believe in a God that will drown infants who have no opportunity to make choices.

I also believe in cats that like to eat rabbits. If it were up to me I would not even kill a spider.

Genesis 6 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown. 5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time. 6 And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

My dad was a pediatrician. He worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for 50 years taking care of children. Then you have the audacity to accuse me of worshiping a God who wants to destroy children.

Isaiah 11:6 says: "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them."

NOW you are without excuse because you have all this compassion for little children and SO DOES GOD. Jesus said in Matthew 19:14 "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for it is to those who are childlike that the Kingdom of the Heavens belongs."

The Kingdom of God is all about the children. Even the children you are so concerned about are in Heaven. Their parents did not make it but you have a chance to repent and come to a saving knowledge of the truth. So you can help to educate those children who had parents perish in Noah's flood. Because you are so concerned about them and their welfare. I am sure they are happy to know that you care and have compassion for them.

 

[Astrid]

You can also measure the density of settlements and determine the typical population of each and get reasonable estimates of populations.

Area density. It's used in fisheries science.

 

[Diamond72]

a door-to-door Mongol census.

Genghis Khan has 16 million descendants today. He made it a law that only his descendants could own land. So he made sure that his descendants had food to eat.

 

[Astrid]

Genghis Khan has 16 million descendants today. He made it a law that only his descendants could own land. So he made sure that his descendants had food to eat.

Must be why I own land.

 

[Hans Blaster]

That only holds true if they knowingly distort information. Yes, that has happened on occasion. It's happened on occasion in mainstream science, too. And both sides show a hostility at being questioned.

AIG, DI, CMI, et al. regularly and *knowingly* push false narratives about science. Their attacks are too precise and require too much knowledge of the *actual* science. If they didn't understand what they were attacking, they wouldn't be able to attack it as they do. (It is possible that Ken Ham is as ignorant as he appears, but I have my doubts. His gaggle of PhD employees though are professional liars without doubt.)

 

[sjastro]

That's circular reasoning. You could just as well define pseudoscience as anything you disagree with.

It is not circular reasoning but rather you setting up a strawman fallacy.
There are many things I disagree with such as Bohmian mechanics but I don’t automatically define them as being pseudoscience.

Here we go again for umpteenth time.
Hopefully an illustration with science as a comparison will give you a better understanding of what pseudoscience is about.

One doesn’t have to go past the first and most important criterion on the list.
Science demands evidence where the evidence in this case leads to the conclusion for the great flood; no such evidence exists.
“Catastrophic plate tectonics hypothesis” assumes a global flood without evidence, where the conclusion becomes the premise and the hypothesis is developed to confirm the conclusion.
This is how a circular reasoning works which is characteristic of pseudoscience.

Yet by his own words the inspiration of his hypothesis came to him in a daydream. Giving that a pass while labeling the catastrophic tectonic plate hypothesis a pseudoscience due to its origin is a double standard. What separates the two is not the inspiration, but the final results.

And here you have gone from making a strawman fallacy to one of false equivocation.
Do I need to explain again that while Kekule’s dream is a nice story the observation or more precisely the data from experimentation provided the impetus for Kekule to find an explanation for the low reactivity of benzene.
“Catastrophic plate tectonics” is not based on observations but illogical circular reasoning.

Sigh. That is precisely why I used that as an example. It's a refutation for the catastrophic tectonic plate hypothesis. The first time I heard of catastrophic tectonic plate hypothesis, the sea mount and island chain as the Pacific Plate passed over the Hawaiian hot spot came to mind almost immediately (if anyone wants to see why, go to Google Earth, rotate the globe to the Pacific, and note the sea mount and island chain that stretches from Asia to Hawaii).

Now, the catastrophic tectonic plate hypothesis doesn't hold up. That in itself doesn't make it a pseudoscience. What makes it a pseudoscience is its persistence despite the hypothesis not holding up.

I suggest you take another look at the criteria for pseudoscience.
Your definition falls in the category of “dogmatic and unyielding” which is at the bottom of the list and probably reflects the order of importance given by the author.
Personally I wouldn’t consider this as pseudoscience.
Fred Hoyle one of the founders of Steady State cosmology argued to the day he died his model was superior to the BB model.
This doesn’t make the Steady State model pseudoscience it follows the science criteria in the list but fell out of favour due to the final point “changes with new evidence”.

 

[sjastro]

You've been pretty busy... you'd have to read my portion of the thread to get it. Their population model includes areas of omission, counting butter, corn, and livestock stashes, and apparently a door-to-door Mongol census.

Better this than your boneheaded link which assumes populations have access to infinite resources.

 

[Bradskii]

You've been pretty busy... you'd have to read my portion of the thread to get it. Their population model includes areas of omission, counting butter, corn, and livestock stashes, and apparently a door-to-door Mongol census.

There was no omission and the Mongol survey was more than accurate enough for purpose. If you really thought that population figures were so wrong and they actually were doubling every 150 years then you'd make some sort of effort to investigate. You've given all indications that you're not interested in the slightest.

 

[Bradskii]

My dad was a pediatrician. He worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for 50 years taking care of children. Then you have the audacity to accuse me of worshiping a God who wants to destroy children.

You've explained your position quite well. The facts are that you worship God. The bible tells us He flooded the planet and drowned everyone. Including children. I don't think that happened but you have confirmed that you believe it and, to quote your own words, they all got what they deserved. All that has been stated quite plainly.

As I said, I have no personal concept of God. God is what other people tell me He is. You have given your version.

 

[Diamond72]

For one thing, they don't stay infants for long.

Actually they do stay infants for a long time in Heaven.

they all got what they deserved.

You twist everything into a lie.

 

[Tuur]

AIG, DI, CMI, et al. regularly and *knowingly* push false narratives about science. Their attacks are too precise and require too much knowledge of the *actual* science. If they didn't understand what they were attacking, they wouldn't be able to attack it as they do. (It is possible that Ken Ham is as ignorant as he appears, but I have my doubts. His gaggle of PhD employees though are professional liars without doubt.)

Except you can find the same things elsewhere. Call it a mindset. Call it blinders. Call it stubbornness. The upshot is that not all on opposing sides of such things are deliberate frauds. I've heard archeologists who argued for an earlier arrival of humans to the Americas half-jokingly refer to the "Clovis Police," meaning the then accepted view of settlement of the Americas (this was at a secular forum BTW).

You will find some who deliberately falsify data. That goes for both. That doesn't mean all do so, or all hold to an opinion that they know is unsupportable. That may seem hard to believe at times - as an Old Earth Creationist who's denomination seems to be now dominated by Young Earth Creationists, I've wondered about that. But I've met too many quite sincere YEC supporters to think they're all frauds.

That doesn't mean I can stand some of them, and some I avoid in the interests of civility.

 

[AV1611VET]

Actually they do stay infants for a long time in Heaven.

True.

You twist everything into a lie.

Not true.

 

[Bradskii]

You twist everything into a lie.

You do know that we can see what you've already written?

'and everyone is going to get what they deserve.'

 

[Diamond72]

Not true.

You deal with him. I am not interested.

 

[AV1611VET]

You deal with him. I am not interested.

I apologize, Diamond.

I thought you were talking to me, when you said that.

My fault!

 

[Hans Blaster]

Except you can find the same things elsewhere. Call it a mindset. Call it blinders. Call it stubbornness. The upshot is that not all on opposing sides of such things are deliberate frauds. I've heard archeologists who argued for an earlier arrival of humans to the Americas half-jokingly refer to the "Clovis Police," meaning the then accepted view of settlement of the Americas (this was at a secular forum BTW).

This is a fairly small aspect of science, which eventually self-corrects.

You will find some who deliberately falsify data. That goes for both. That doesn't mean all do so, or all hold to an opinion that they know is unsupportable. That may seem hard to believe at times - as an Old Earth Creationist who's denomination seems to be now dominated by Young Earth Creationists, I've wondered about that. But I've met too many quite sincere YEC supporters to think they're all frauds.

Those organizations (DI, CMI, AiG) don't have any data of their own. They only offer commentary and do so from a predetermined position.

That doesn't mean I can stand some of them, and some I avoid in the interests of civility.

Avoid them all. The all produce "new" materials that are knowingly false.

 

[Astrid]

This is a fairly small aspect of science, which eventually self-corrects.


Those organizations (DI, CMI, AiG) don't have any data of their own. They only offer commentary and do so from a predetermined position.

Avoid them all. The all produce "new" materials that are knowingly false.

I dunno...some cops fake evidence
so the cops are just the same as the
robbers.

 

[inquiring mind]

This is a fairly small aspect of science, which eventually self-corrects.


Those organizations (DI, CMI, AiG) don't have any data of their own. They only offer commentary and do so from a predetermined position.

Avoid them all. The all produce "new" materials that are knowingly false.

So much for embracing criticism and properly considering all evidence & arguments on the science side of the 'science vs. pseudoscience' chart in post # 648.