Ten days ago India witnessed a rare natural occurrence, a total solar eclipse that lasted around six minutes. In Chennai the eclipse was partial, yet the Tamil Nadu Science Foundation found that their 50,000 filter spectacles sold out in no time at all (five of them to my family). That sounds good until you mull it over: hmmm, they made only 50,000. Chennai’s total population is estimated at around 80 lakh. This statistic came to life during an immediate post-eclipse walk to Elliot’s beach. Most mornings the beach is abuzz with the elderly on their constitutional, huddled lovers, a team sport in progress, coconut hawkers, vegetable vendors, a couple of beggars, and several inquisitive dogs. This morning only the dogs were present. Nothing else moved (other than the higher-than-usual tides lashing the beach). Everyone was hiding from the Moon-hidden Sun.
People hid because thanks to those shameless confidence tricksters known as astrologers, they thought the eclipse would bring untold catastrophe. Of course there was a joint statement with Pakistan that few Indians seemed to like; there was a G8 resolution against nuclear trade with nations like India that hadn’t signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty; there was a visit from Hillary Clinton which left many with the same queasy feeling you get in a dentist’s waiting room; and there was a nuclear end users agreement that for many conjured visions of Americans marching into our secret nuclear labs and plants for unannounced inspection tours. But none of this heralded any global or even local catastrophe. Our prime minister forcefully told the country to stop fretting and leave business to him. The solar eclipse thus was astrologically an anti-climax. Otherwise, it was an awesome event: other than my surly sleepy-headed son, my family enjoyed watching it. You could say it was auspicious, even.
It may sound hypocritical for this columnist to lambast astrology since we carry a horoscope every day (and a full page on Sundays), but let me assure you that if it weren’t for the geniuses in the sales department who insist that the paper sells only because of the horoscope, we would drop it immediately. I rant against astrology not because I am an ultra-rationalist in the mould of Mr Kalaignar; indeed it can be argued that astrology has nothing to do with faith, even if its proponents would have you think that if you don’t believe in astrology then you are an ISI agent. Religion is about ethics, metaphysics and faith, but does not pretend to be predictive, the way astrology does.
Strangely, even as US President Barack Obama cites India when urging his nation’s children to study more science and technology, a large number of our own are still slave to this pseudo-science. It is a credit to our scientists that more and more people come out to view eclipses, but it is true that many scientists still depend on horoscopes when arranging marriages. Astrology is not our tradition or culture, and if it has been part of our social life for millennia, then it needs to be immediately discarded along with sati, child marriage, dowry and caste prejudice.
Biman Basu’s Astrology: Sense or Nonsense (NBT, 81 pages, Rs 50) demonstrates how astrology exploits ignorance and anxiety. The former editor of Science Reporter points out that though astrology preceded astronomy, it is the only “science” not modified in its practice since its formalisation. Astrology arose out of the study of the movement of heavenly bodies by the ancients with the naked eye. Since then technology has made our observations and measurements more precise — most dramatically with the invention of the telescope.
One of the inventors was Galileo Galilei, who proved Nicolaus Copernicus’s theory that the Earth was not at the centre of our solar system, and that it revolved around the Sun (and not vice-versa). This was so heretical that Copernicus did not publish his findings till he was on his deathbed; as for Galileo, the Church persecuted him. Still, it had a profound effect on Western thought: it modernised science and philosophy. Empiricism came to the forefront of knowledge; and man was no longer the central idea of the Universe. Strangely, astrology did not change a bit. Perhaps this rigidity contributed to the West marching ahead while India wallowed in backwardness and foreign subjugation.
Astrology is conveniently immune to testability or falsification, which the 20th century philosopher of science Karl Popper said were the hallmarks needed to distinguish genuine science from pseudo-science (his main target was psychiatry; he would not lower his dignity for astrology). Popper’s idea was that a science needed to have statements that if proven, would falsify the theory. Unfortunately, you cannot see whether an astrological prediction is false: astrologers make predictions that are so general in nature and vague in time that if nothing happens, the public forgets the prediction, and that if something does happen, the astrologers are able to shove the event into their broad prognostication. And woe to the fellow who makes a wrong specific prediction; other astrologers will not jump to his rescue. Rather, in a poor esprit de corps they dump their fellow professional and accuse him of ignorance of the proper practice of astrology.
Basu prefers a concrete attack on astrology rather than a conceptual one. Sense or Nonsense uses specific astrological terms to demonstrate the study’s obsolescence. “Retrograde” movements, for instance, are actually caused by Earth’s vantage point and are not an example of a planet’s sudden backward movement. Mars, which has a larger orbit around the Sun and has a different orbital speed, will occasionally seem to reverse direction, when actually the Earth is “overtaking” it in relation to the Sun. It is not just a matter of nomenclature but of ignorance. Similarly, the notion of rising constellations is also wrong-headed.
Sadly, some of our scientists or IT professionals take up astrology and this is shown to be proof of its intrinsic strength as a system of study. All that this proves, however, is that those individuals are worried about their future. Also, drawing up charts and the periods of dashas and mahadashas with the use of computers does not prove that astrology is scientific. That is akin to throwing a widow into an electric crematorium and saying that this is proof that sati is a modern practice.
The pervasiveness of this superstition was in evidence during the solar eclipse on the empty rooftops surrounding ours, and it was depressing. People were missing out on a wondrous miracle of nature because of a superstition. Superpower status is not going to be a consequence of the right actions at an astrologically propitious moment. It is going to happen, as former President A P J Abdul Kalam says, as the consequence of national determination to build a knowledge society. A knowledge society is based on knowledge. By no measure can astrology be called knowledge.
editorchief@epmltd.com
About The Author;
Aditya Sinha is the Editor-in-Chief of ‘The New Indian Express’ and is based in Chennai