Intuition and Empirical Evidence

Kepler's Orbits

While recently doing research on astrology, I've come to the conclusion that there's no evidence that astrology can predict future events, or accurately describe someone's personality based on celestial bodies, beyond the vague generalities that can apply to anyone. But this leads me to a bigger question about why astrology is so compelling to so many people. Simply put, it has a common sense appeal, or an intuitive appeal primarily because it seems on its surface to be rather scientific. Moreover, celestial bodies can be observed and mapped and predicted mathematically.

But unfortunately, we can't always trust our intuitions in such matters. This is where empirical testing is necessary to pry apart what works from what doesn't. Consider these examples in scientific history of what seemed intuitively obvious (to some) but turned out to be mistaken.

In the late 1600s, King Charles helped establish the scientific organization, The Royal Society of London. He set the members of the organization with a tough question, asking “Why is it that when a glass is full to the brim, and you put a frog in the glass, the water does not overflow?” Well, the scientific minded members contemplated this question for some days until one experimental fellow filled a glass with water, placed a frog in it, and the water actually did overflow!

Aristotle made a common sense mistake that took until Galileo to remedy. Aristotle thought that a heavier object will fall faster than a lighter object. And of course a rock will fall faster than a feather, but once the objects being dropped are heavy enough that air resistance plays relatively no role, then the two objects will fall at about the same speed.

Aristotle believed that objects tend to seek their "proper place," and thus it is that lighter objects fall slowly because they have more lighter elements (air and fire) which tend to rise. On the other hand, heavier objects fall faster because they contain more heavier elements (earth and water) pulling the object down faster.

But Galileo showed that a heavier object and a lighter object will fall at the same rate by experimenting with rolling balls of different weights down inclined planes, in effect slowing down the effect of gravity and measuring the speed traveled with his primitive but useful water clock.

Johannes Kepler did some mathematical experimentation based on observation, and came to the conclusion that the orbits of the planets are eliptical, not perfect circles, which had seemed intuitively obvious.

This conclusion seemed so strange to Kepler that he was initially reluctant to accept it, since the idea of planetary orbits as perfect spheres goes back at least to the ancient Greeks. But he realized that, as counter-intuitive as it seemed, nothing could predict the movement of planets so simply as elliptical orbits.

In fact, even Galileo refused to accept Kepler's claim about elliptical orbits since it seemed to disagree with what he thought was common sense.

There may be times when it makes sense to trust common sense, and we would be fools to dismiss it completely. But in some cases it is best to test our beliefs against nature by seeking out empirical evidence through experimentation when we can. When intuition has failed some of the greatest thinkers in history, we would be wise not to fall into the same trap.

New Book--in the works

After co-writing the pro-evolution book The Top 10 Myths about Evolution (Prometheus Books 2007) with Cameron M. Smith, I'm striking out on my own with a new book idea. This book aims to debunk a host of New Age beliefs.

I was quite impressed with all of the atheist books that have come out in the last few years, namely, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, The End of Faith by Sam Harris, Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett, and God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger. And once Dawkins' book made it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, it was great good news for infidels, skeptics, and humanists.

The idea of writing an atheist book did cross my mind . . . for about ten seconds. But it occurred to me that Dawkins' success would spawn a host of philosophers--or those who have taken a philosophy of religion class--to write their own atheist books. Soon the market would be flooded with atheist books, and what once seemed like an impossibility--a successful atheist book--would again be an impossibility because there will be too many damn atheist books. And really, how many times can these same arguments be rehashed without getting old? I have the above five atheist books on my bookshelf, but five seems good enough for me, and I imagine it would be good enough for many others.

So I've decided to stay within the realm of belief, faith, and general credulity, but move outside of organized religion, focusing on so-called New Age spiritual beliefs. I've met a number of New Age believers who reject the traditional Christian idea of God, and are even agnostics or atheists, but who embrace all sorts of hocus pocus with no evidence to support their beliefs. I can admire some New Agers who were raised Christian and found the courage to reject those beliefs. But many just replace those old beliefs with new feel-good ones. It's as if some have traded in the Bible for astrology, or heaven and hell for reincarnation, or faith healing for homeopathy, and the resurrection with alien abductions.

Generally, I don't think that New Agers pose the same kind of threat to America that conservative Christians do. But there is a strong anti-science thread that runs through much of the New Age. Curiously, the distortion of scientific terminology to support New Age thinking does not help promote scientific literacy. We see this in talk of quantum consciousness, and energies in other dimensions, or how those who claim to have ESP can't perform their feats when skeptics are present with their negative vibrations, and so on. I see parallels between this form of scientific distortion and the views of so-called scientific creationists. Even though the targets and explanations are different, they're both attempts to make room for superstition with scientific-sounding terminology.

A few books have been written to debunk New Age beliefs, but not many in the last 10 years or so. But these beliefs are still with, as polls show that 34% of Americans believe in UFOs, 34% believe in ghosts, 29% believe in astrology, 25% believe in reincarnation, and 20% believe in alien abductions.

Right now I'm preparing two chapters and a book proposal which I hope to give to my agent by the end of December. At this point one chapter is finished, and I'm beginning work on the second.

It's my hope that many of the same readers who enjoyed the books debunking religion will also enjoy a book debunking New Age hocus pocus. Maybe I'll ask an astrologer if this idea is a good one or not.