If you're reading this, then thanks so much for reading- and I hope what you've read has been fun, informative and interesting.
For the last time (for now), I sign off. Have an amazing day!
-StarKid
PS- Picture above= M31 taken by R. Gendler in 2002
Farewell
Well, looks like that's it for posting from now on. Its interesting that, since I love discussing classics so much, I actually found this to be somewhat therapeutic; almost as if classics was this deep dark secret I just needed to tell somebody-anybody! In any case, its been a blast. Maybe I'll continue with something like this, or even this very blog in the future, but for now, as exams are looming nearer and I realize that I've got three essay all due next week...I'll put this away.
If you're reading this, then thanks so much for reading- and I hope what you've read has been fun, informative and interesting.
-StarKid
PS- Picture above= M31 taken by R. Gendler in 2002
If you're reading this, then thanks so much for reading- and I hope what you've read has been fun, informative and interesting.
-StarKid
PS- Picture above= M31 taken by R. Gendler in 2002
Astrology continued...
Alright, so moving right along from the last post, here’s precisely why Astrology fits none of these categories:
1. Consistency- I find it quite ridiculous that while one magazine may say that my love life will be grand and lavish one month, another may tell me that I’m doomed to break-up with whatever love I have now. Consistent? I think not.
2. Based on Evidence. What evidence?!?! That is all.
3. Falsifiable- Astrologers tend to latch onto the weakest forms of evidence of their success in order to claim themselves correct, thereby making the ability to falsify its principles impossible! ie. “No, your boyfriend may not have broken up with you like I predicted, BUT you did break that bowl the other day- bet you loved that bowl, right? Aha! Broken heart!”
4. Based on controlled Experimentation. This also means that others studying the same subject arrive at the same conclusions. How is this possible when the signs on which they base their conclusions are completely arbitrary, changing and irrelevant, and their consistency amongst one another is that of the consistency of religion itself?! Because no universal periodic table of the future has yet been made, it can’t possibly be ‘experimented’ upon.
5. Correctable. Because much of what astrology is based on is on the stars themselves, which are entirely unchanging, the science can never be corrected or changed.
6. Not Parsimonious. The entire principle of astrology is based on spirits, Fate and other intangible proofs that do not plausibly exist in a way that we can see and study them.
Of course, this only breaks the surface of the insurmountable evidence for the improbability that one can tell one’s future, personality traits etc. from the stars. It was fun however to investigate the legitimate reasons as to why Astrology is not a science in and of itself, whereas Astronomy is.
The last and final piece of evidence for the non-scientific nature of Astronomy is the principle of Occam’s Razor. This being that if two possibilities are presented, the simpler of the two should be trusted. In this way, it is much easier to believe in coincidence as opposed to the idea that our day of birth and the position of the stars lay the foundation for our entire lives.
Somewhat of a rant, but very fun to examine I think. Oddly enough, I atill have to refer to my Astronomy class as ‘Astro’ because I keep accidently saying Astrology instead. Guess that’s just another example of the presence of propaganda.
In any case, I hope you’ve enjoyed the rant, and I hope to write at least one more blog before I shut this lovely site down forever.
-StarKid
3. Falsifiable- Astrologers tend to latch onto the weakest forms of evidence of their success in order to claim themselves correct, thereby making the ability to falsify its principles impossible! ie. “No, your boyfriend may not have broken up with you like I predicted, BUT you did break that bowl the other day- bet you loved that bowl, right? Aha! Broken heart!”
4. Based on controlled Experimentation. This also means that others studying the same subject arrive at the same conclusions. How is this possible when the signs on which they base their conclusions are completely arbitrary, changing and irrelevant, and their consistency amongst one another is that of the consistency of religion itself?! Because no universal periodic table of the future has yet been made, it can’t possibly be ‘experimented’ upon.
5. Correctable. Because much of what astrology is based on is on the stars themselves, which are entirely unchanging, the science can never be corrected or changed.
6. Not Parsimonious. The entire principle of astrology is based on spirits, Fate and other intangible proofs that do not plausibly exist in a way that we can see and study them.
The last and final piece of evidence for the non-scientific nature of Astronomy is the principle of Occam’s Razor. This being that if two possibilities are presented, the simpler of the two should be trusted. In this way, it is much easier to believe in coincidence as opposed to the idea that our day of birth and the position of the stars lay the foundation for our entire lives.
Somewhat of a rant, but very fun to examine I think. Oddly enough, I atill have to refer to my Astronomy class as ‘Astro’ because I keep accidently saying Astrology instead. Guess that’s just another example of the presence of propaganda.
In any case, I hope you’ve enjoyed the rant, and I hope to write at least one more blog before I shut this lovely site down forever.
-StarKid
Astrology
Astrology; Why you can’t call yourself a scientist because you can predict someone’s love life.
I was talking to my Dad the other day and he asked me how my Astrology was coming along. As I think was fully warranted, my friend and I proceeded to rant about how useless Astrology was that I was by no stretch of the imagination wasting my time studying something so frivolous and unjustified. Which got me thinking- wouldn’t my plethora of avid readers want to know just why astrology is such a bogus science (aka. why it’s not a science at all)?
Firstly- the term pseudoscience refers to an activity that resembles science on the surface, but is backed up by none of the requirements for an actual science. Here are the requirements for a justifiable scientific study:
1. Consistency. If you say that when you drop this apple, it will fall, and it does, it’ll happen the next time you do it too. And the next, and the next, and the next…
2. Based on Evidence. I have 100 scientists who have calculated the velocity and precise moment that this apple will hit the ground, and behind them is evidence of the existence of gravity, and behind that is thousands of years of humanity backing up that existence with concrete examples etc…
3. Falsifiable. I cannot therefore say that, even if this apple doesn’t fall, that’s only because you don’t believe hard enough- therefore it’s your fault and either way I’m still right. Wrong.
4. Based on controlled experimentation. I didn’t see this apple fall on TV, I actually dropped this apple and heard the tell-tale thunk of it hitting the ground. So did my 100 scientists. And the bazillion measurement instruments…inside of a sealed room with no air flow.
5. Correctable. If for some reason my apple doesn’t fall, we can come up with a hundred new theories as to why that happened. I cannot therefore speculate that God willed it thus that one time, and therefore my theory still stands.
6. Not Parsimonious. In other words- there’s not some ridiculous explanation for why my apple falls, such as the existence of a bazillion invisible fairy elephants that like to sit on my apple and have the ability to propel objects downwards, thereby forcing it into the ground where it otherwise would have simply hung there. As if.
Although there’s a ton of other qualities of true science, and this is by no means a formal list of legitimized requirements for something to be science, it round about describes its basic qualities. And Astrology? I’d like to see one person debate why Astrology fits any one of these qualifications. Seriously. Next blog, I’ll discuss exactly why they don’t fit into these six categories, and introduce a magical theory called Occam Razor. Hopefully that’ll be fun!
-StarKid
I was talking to my Dad the other day and he asked me how my Astrology was coming along. As I think was fully warranted, my friend and I proceeded to rant about how useless Astrology was that I was by no stretch of the imagination wasting my time studying something so frivolous and unjustified. Which got me thinking- wouldn’t my plethora of avid readers want to know just why astrology is such a bogus science (aka. why it’s not a science at all)?Firstly- the term pseudoscience refers to an activity that resembles science on the surface, but is backed up by none of the requirements for an actual science. Here are the requirements for a justifiable scientific study:
1. Consistency. If you say that when you drop this apple, it will fall, and it does, it’ll happen the next time you do it too. And the next, and the next, and the next…
2. Based on Evidence. I have 100 scientists who have calculated the velocity and precise moment that this apple will hit the ground, and behind them is evidence of the existence of gravity, and behind that is thousands of years of humanity backing up that existence with concrete examples etc…
3. Falsifiable. I cannot therefore say that, even if this apple doesn’t fall, that’s only because you don’t believe hard enough- therefore it’s your fault and either way I’m still right. Wrong.
4. Based on controlled experimentation. I didn’t see this apple fall on TV, I actually dropped this apple and heard the tell-tale thunk of it hitting the ground. So did my 100 scientists. And the bazillion measurement instruments…inside of a sealed room with no air flow.
5. Correctable. If for some reason my apple doesn’t fall, we can come up with a hundred new theories as to why that happened. I cannot therefore speculate that God willed it thus that one time, and therefore my theory still stands.
6. Not Parsimonious. In other words- there’s not some ridiculous explanation for why my apple falls, such as the existence of a bazillion invisible fairy elephants that like to sit on my apple and have the ability to propel objects downwards, thereby forcing it into the ground where it otherwise would have simply hung there. As if.
Although there’s a ton of other qualities of true science, and this is by no means a formal list of legitimized requirements for something to be science, it round about describes its basic qualities. And Astrology? I’d like to see one person debate why Astrology fits any one of these qualifications. Seriously. Next blog, I’ll discuss exactly why they don’t fit into these six categories, and introduce a magical theory called Occam Razor. Hopefully that’ll be fun!
-StarKid
Animals in the sky!
(Yes…the same topic as in the past 4 or so blogs- awesome right?!)
Moving swiftly on to…
9) Scorpio: Where we last left our heroes, Orion had just been beset by a scorpion sent by Apollo in order to kill him and keep his sister Artimis’ chastity intact. Enter the deadly scorpion. To make a long story short, the scorpion succeeded, by Artimis decided to put the pair of them up in the sky for all time in order to commemorate their fierce battle (although, as far as I know…it wasn’t much of a battle so much as Orion stepped on a scorpion…and died). However, because the pair were so at odds, the constellations were placed on the complete opposite sides of the sky, so they never meet and their fury never comes to fruition.
And since I feel that although I love Greek myth with all of my heart, I should really explore some other topics, this will be the last one:
10) Gemini: I thought this would be perfectly scandalous constellation to finish with! As the myth would have it, Leda, mother of the infamous Helen of Troy, was all in all raped by a swan. I should just leave it there- that sentence in itself is priceless. But…moving on. The swan of course was Zeus in disguise, because he’s messed up like that. Leda then gave birth to two twin boys, Castor and Pollox (the two brightest stars in the constellation), of which one was born by Zeus and another by Leda’s husband, King Tyndarus of Sparta. Pollox, the son of Zeus was immortal and abnormally strong. Castor was especially gifted with horses. The pair of them helped to save their sister Helen when she was kidnapped by Paris in the battle of Troy. The story goes that when Castor died, Pollox begged his father to give his beloved brother the same gift of immortality that he himself was privy to. Zeus granted his wish and therefore the pair of them are immortalized by the constellations in the sky.
I just thought I'd include this- found it online and thought it was gorgeous...not to mention it accurately has elements of the myth integrated into the art. Love it!
Well, that’s all I suppose. Of course there’s lots and lots of other constellations to explore, and I definitely encourage you to look them up yourself, but I feel as if I should discover some other awesome classically related astro stuff. Hope the myths were good while they lasted!
-StarKid
What’s this?! MORE myth!?!
Yup. Onwards and upwards…
7) Hydra: Since we now know a bit about Herakles, I think it might be nice to tie in his second labour, that of the slain hydra. If you’ve ever heard of the hydra, you’ll surely remember that it represents a best with many head and that the main rule that goes along with the creature is that every time one of its heads is severed off, two new heads grow back in its place. Potentially problematic, I’d say. However, although Herakles was never really thought to be all that bright, his ways of slaying beasts seems to have been quite clever in my opinion. In this case, Herakles enlisted the help of another bay, his nephew, cauterize the stump after he’d decapitated one of the many hydra head, thus disabling its ability to grow two more. He then buried the heads underground so they would never pose a problem again.
8) Orion: Orion was bestowed with the characteristics of the world’s greatest hunter. With a few different perspectives of the myth, his heritage changes somewhat, yet it is mostly agreed that whether his parents were Queen Euryale and Poseidon or the parentless gift to a lowly peasant from Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes, its mostly agreed that he was given the gift of incredible hunting skills, and some other skills that make him a bit ‘showy’ if you ask me (walking on water, incredible strength etc…). In any case, he was also said to have been a skilled blacksmith and to have built great temples to the Gods in his lifetime. Its also said that he had a bit of a fling with Artemis, the chaste God of fertility and the hunt. Two stories are told about this- one that Apollo, worrying for his sister’s chastity, tricked her into shooting Orion while he was at sea, killing him. Another version has Apollo simply sending a scorpion to kill Orion, which leads us to…the next blog!
7) Hydra: Since we now know a bit about Herakles, I think it might be nice to tie in his second labour, that of the slain hydra. If you’ve ever heard of the hydra, you’ll surely remember that it represents a best with many head and that the main rule that goes along with the creature is that every time one of its heads is severed off, two new heads grow back in its place. Potentially problematic, I’d say. However, although Herakles was never really thought to be all that bright, his ways of slaying beasts seems to have been quite clever in my opinion. In this case, Herakles enlisted the help of another bay, his nephew, cauterize the stump after he’d decapitated one of the many hydra head, thus disabling its ability to grow two more. He then buried the heads underground so they would never pose a problem again. As you can see, the constellation of Hydra actually depicts a long, dragon-esque creature. This might simply be because the Hydra was sometimes referred to as the great water snake.
8) Orion: Orion was bestowed with the characteristics of the world’s greatest hunter. With a few different perspectives of the myth, his heritage changes somewhat, yet it is mostly agreed that whether his parents were Queen Euryale and Poseidon or the parentless gift to a lowly peasant from Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes, its mostly agreed that he was given the gift of incredible hunting skills, and some other skills that make him a bit ‘showy’ if you ask me (walking on water, incredible strength etc…). In any case, he was also said to have been a skilled blacksmith and to have built great temples to the Gods in his lifetime. Its also said that he had a bit of a fling with Artemis, the chaste God of fertility and the hunt. Two stories are told about this- one that Apollo, worrying for his sister’s chastity, tricked her into shooting Orion while he was at sea, killing him. Another version has Apollo simply sending a scorpion to kill Orion, which leads us to…the next blog!Aha! A cliff hanger, I know! Stay tuned my plentiful avid fans…
-StarKid
One more time...
More constellations! (There’s so many!)
6) Hercules: Hercules, originally Heracles or Herakles, was ironically most greatly threatened in mythology by the wife of Jupiter, Juno (ironically because ‘Heracles’ can literally be translated as the ‘glory of Hera’, Juno’s Greek name). At birth, Heracles was beset upon by snakes sent by Juno into his crib as an act of vengeance for her husband Jupiter’s infidelity with a mortal woman. Easily strangling the twin snakes, this began Heracles career as a monster killer. He later married Megara who, as it was believed (possibly to retain Heracles’ heroic persona), was put under a spell of madness by Juno and killed Megara along with his own children. As atonement for these sins, however, he completes twelve necessary labours (one of which was of course the slaying of the Nemean lion…Leo!).The constellation of Hercules is shown with him and his Nemean lion skin and club. An interesting parallel however- Heracles was never thought of as being intelligent, but was always famed for his brute strength. The Hercules constellation is the fifth largest in the sky, yet also one of the dimmest.
7) Cassiopeia: If you’ve read the blogs before this one, you actually know a bit about this myth already! Cassiopeia is the mother of Andromeda- the same mother that bragged how her daughter (or herself, according to different versions) was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. As penance for her pride, she was forced to have her daughter strung up and fed to the sea monster sent by a vengeful Neptune, God of the Seas and of the sea Nymphs themselves. Enter Perseus, the saviour and future husband to the daughter of Cassiopeia. He saves Cassiopeia’s daughter and runs off with her to be married.In the constellation, Cassiopeia is assumed to be sitting on her throne in all her vanity.
And there we have it. Two more to add to your mounting repetoir of constellation/mythological knowledge.
-StarKid
More Constellations!!
I thought I’d give a bit more background on some more of the constellations drifting around the night sky:
4) Leo: Leo, the lion, is typically associated with the story of the Nemean lion faced by Heracles as one of his twelve labours. It was said that the skin of the Lion was perfectly impenetrable; therefore Heracles strangled the cat to death and subsequently used the creature’s own claws to skin the beast. Heracles is constantly depicted as having worn the skin of the Nemean lion on all of his adventures and seems to have been his key symbol apart from the club he bore as well. Leo is most recognizable in the night sky by the bright star Regulus, representing the supposed heart of the lion. The curved “sickle” makes up the Lion’s head, and the triangle towards his flank makes up the back portion of Leo.
5)Draco: Draco, the snake (or dragon as it is sometimes depicted) has many originations, each of which is just as likely to be the true myth behind the constellation. Here, I’ll simply tell my favourite; the story of Cadmus and the founding of Thebes. Cadmus was given probably one of the most peculiar tasks of literally following a cow until the cow lay down, and here he was told to found the city of Thebes. Once reaching the site, however, his men were set upon by the ‘monster of Mars’. Mars being the god of war and perhaps the most violent of the Roman Gods, it’s understandable why the men were killed so quickly. Cadmus took up arms however and slew the dragon, planting its teeth in the ground (some of these myths are pretty crazy) from which sprung a legion of warriors to fight for Cadmus. They fought amongst themselves until there were but 5 soldiers left, and they, with Cadmus, became the first people of Thebes.Draco ‘snakes’ up in between the constellations of Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, distinctively curving in on itself.
Hope that was enjoyable!!
-StarKid
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)