Essay On Pseudo Science Essay, Research Paper

Pseudo-science is all around us, trying to fool us into believing something that is false. What is pseudo-science? It’s a set of beliefs, often hidden in a collection of scientific-sounding gibberish, that is usually put forward by people who may be sincere in their beliefs, but often are trying to make money by fooling you. Astrology is the oldest pseudo-science that influenced modern day astronomy. It is said that planets giving off a certain force are the reason why astrology can be accurate, yet there is no proof of it effecting us in the ways it gives. Astrology is invalid for many other reasons such as the vagueness involved in the practice.

Astrology is the oldest pseudo-science. Astrologers claim that they can predict your future by analyzing the position of the planets and the stars at the time of your birth, using ancient rules & star charts. The basis of this pseudo-science is centuries old, and in fact its practitioners were originally very scientific in their methods. They were the first to study the heavens, and use their data to predict the positions of the planets. These studies actually formed the beginning of the science of astronomy. The original astrologers went a step further, however. They believed that the positions of planets and stars could influence events on earth and could infact determine the success or failure of individual humans.

Our modern knowledge of planetary and stellar positions and the forces they exert on us cannot suggest a method by which any such influence is possible. Could the effects be caused by gravitational forces? No, not even remotely. These celestial objects(the planets and the stars) are so far away that their gravitational force is hardly measurable. You experience more gravitational force from the Rocky Mountains while visitn Alberta than you do from the planet Saturn; a person across the room pointing a finger at you is exeerting more force on you than even the nearest star is.

Modern science can suggest no force by which planets and stars can influence human behaviour directly. Astrologers might say that perhaps then the force they exert is one that science knows nothing about. This is a commonly used arguement amongst the practitioners of pseudo-science, and in fact it is a valid arguement. Our body of scientific knowledge is continually growing, so we do learn new things daily. Unfortunately this is not a scientific arguement. Until a thing can be observed, ot it can be measured, or some sort of explanation can be made, even a wrong one, speculation about an unknown force is never certain.

But astrology can not be considered valid for other reasons. We have no evidence of ancient predictions, but there certainly is enough modern-day astrology around us to test its worth. Just about every newspaper has an astrology column. A number of reasons that horoscopes are just bologna are: predictions will work because they are so vague that anything even remotely similar that happens to you could be considered a fulfillment of the prediction, human nature will tend to allow us to forget the numerous times when these horoscope are wrong, but will remember when the few horoscopes were right.

How can we as a society protect ourselves from this inaccurate pseudo-science? We must constantly remember that there are other reasons that make us who we are. Enviroment, genetics, etc. With these things considered we will not need to rely so much on our daily horoscopes that we would read in our magazines and newspapers.