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  Mad Science.

I used to have a great deal of respect for scientists, in fact in my early years I used to be one. Since I began to study astrology I became increasingly aware of an almost pathological need to ridicule and destroy a subject I believed to be - and still believe to be - a subject of great depth and truth with much to offer. If scientists really do think that astrology is rubbish why don't they just leave it at that; there is no need to mount open warfare on something deemed to be irrelevant. So why then do we have constant attacks and ridicule, and why are the people responsible so bigoted and blinded by their own egos? Things have now taken a more sinister turn, which has prompted me to fight back and treat the enemy like they treat us. 

  

I came across a web site for children run by the scientists at NASA in which astrology is completely misrepresented and made to look foolish. You can see it for yourself at: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/st6starfinder/st6starfinder2.shtml

  

Obviously the writer had based his or her assumptions on the ramblings of Sun Sign cowboys rather than from direct contact with genuine astrologers. Perhaps this was deliberate? I immediately responded with an e-mail outlining the false assumptions and mistakes. The main thrust centered around their inability to distinguish between the Constellations [which we never use] and the Zodiac, and an assumption that we believe the planets exude some strange 'influence' - which we do not. My e-mail was completely ignored. Ten further e-mails were sent in an attempt to get a reply - all were ignored. Not only is this the height of bad manners, it plainly shows that NASA has its own twisted agenda involving putting false ideas into the minds of innocent children and refuses to listen to alternative ideas. The Nazis, Communists, and other dictatorial regimes used the same principles. 

  

 Scientists - who needs them?.

  

It would be fitting to examine the behaviour of those who pour scorn on a subject they have never bothered to study and who will go to almost any lengths to provide their version of the 'truth'. 

  

Scientists, otherwise known as Bastards in White Coats, [BWC, for short] have been with us for some time, not as long as astrologers who predate them by several thousand years, but long enough for them to have established themselves as the 'authority' on all things worldly. The fact that this was done by ignoring any opposition rather than listening to it seems to have been overlooked. Even today any attempt by someone in their own ranks to step outside of the rigid framework or arrogance and bigotry which stands as the foundation of science will be rigorously hounded until they conform. So much for truth and open-mindedness. Yet, this arrogant, we-know-it-all face of the scientific establishment has for decades lulled us into believing that scientists are reliable, honorable people whose integrity is beyond question, and as a result we the public have allowed the BWC to run amok indulging in their fantasies and spending billions of pounds damaging the planet and its inhabitants. . 

  

The prime directive of the BWC is not as you would think that of helping mankind or even just advancing science - it is PROFIT. Why? Because all BWC worthy of note are owned by giant pharmaceutical and multinationals whose sole aim is not to rid the world of disease, rather it is to make huge profits from disease. Other BWC are gainfully employed in other useful areas, such as weapons of mass destruction. Yes, hard as it might be for you to visualise, there are actually people who seek to improve the killing efficiency of a gas or virus so that their masters can rack up even more impressive profits. Selling one's soul doesn't seem to bother your average BWC. 

  

Naturally, the scientific fraternity has a constant propaganda output designed to gloss over the huge cost of useless, egocentric projects [missions to Mars] or to spread disinformation about the latest insane interference with natural laws done for the sole purpose of generating of fat profits and flattering the ego's of certain 'cutting edge' BWC. But, don't be fooled, look carefully at the dubious benefits that science has given us. Here are just some:

  

All weapons of warfare, including such delights as nerve gasses and biological weapons. Millions more have died as a direct result of scientific 'improvements'. 

Pollution in all its forms is caused by noxious and toxic chemicals developed by BWC for pure profit. Pesticides and other lethal chemicals were poured onto the countryside almost wiping out the ecology - all in the interests of profit. You will be hard pressed even today to find food which is free from toxic substances absorbed during crop spraying. To add insult to injury the BWC have developed a whole range of poisons to be deliberately added to our food - after all they know best. The long term effects of this insanity has yet to be established, but you can bet that when the finger of blame points towards a pharmaceutical company they will spend decades, not to mention millions of pounds, avoiding any blame. 

Safe medication. To hear a BWC actually trying to justify torturing an innocent animal to death for no other reason than to make fat profits is sickening. Make no mistake, these people are out to make profits - not to improve your life or health. Harming animals is the cheapest option. Not that such testing amounts to much. The millions who got hooked on Valium [now rebranded as Diazepam] or the thousands crippled with Thalidomide seem to have been badly let down by this so-called dependable system of testing. Every year, more and more products are withdrawn due to dangerous side effects. Yet the testing goes on and on, people are still being harmed by side effects, and animals are needlessly tortured.  

Asbestos.  Thousands of people have died as a result of a product that scientists told us was harmless. When it comes to admitting liabilty you won't see them for dust. 

Nuclear energy. Cheap energy of all - or so they told us. In actual fact these power stations were set up to produce weapons grade Plutonium used in the making of nuclear weapons, the electricity generated was a cynical attempt to cover this up. You will note that nuclear energy has consistently failed to provide even a fraction of our needs. In the meantime, the real problem of dangerous nuclear waste that will remain lethal for around 250.000 years is being swept under the carpet. And, whatever happened to all that Plutonium that we no longer need to fuel the Cold War? Apparently several tons of the stuff - enough to vaporise the entire planet - has gone missing. Well at least we know it isn't in Iraq! 

GM Crops.  No one wants this stuff, and the long term effects on the ecology haven't even been looked at. Why? PROFIT. Lots and lots of lovely money. But, if your children or grandchildren go down with strange illnesses you won't see these people for dust. And who are these people? BWC! 

Genetic engineering. Of all the ill thought out fantasies of deranged minds, this is without doubt the worst. Of course, we hear the usual excuses of wonder cures and scientific breakthroughs, but make no mistake this is all being done for PROFIT and BWC being what they are - soulless - will charge ahead with the same enthusiasm [and lack of care] they applied to Thalidomide, except this time we cannot even begin to imagine what the long term effects of genetic interference will be. The temptation to produce a 'special' kind of human will also prove too much. Doesn't this remind you of Nazi idealism about the Master Race? Be afraid - be very afraid. Unless stopped, the BWC will destroy life as we know it.

  

So there we have it, yet these people are treated with great respect by the media [and the courts - remember the farce of one 'expert' who successfully helped to imprison innocent people?] Whatever they say is taken as gospel. We, on the other hand are barred from presenting our view mainly due to the incorrect assumption that Astrology is connected to the paranormal - which it isn't. Granted, when one looks at the antics of some so-called Astrologers one could be forgiven for thinking that Astrologers were a bunch of idiots and, to make matters worse, the BWC use these people as an example of Astrology in action. No one seems interested in listening to the views of the few competent people who practice genuine Astrology. Plainly there is a mountain to climb before the subject is given the respect it deserves - in the meantime the bigoted BWC continue to dictate what is and what isn't seen in the media.

   

And finally...

How many billions of pounds are spent each year on:

Astronomy. What use is it to the human race? Do we ever see anything other than the occasional press statement? 

Space exploration. Again, what use is it it to you and I? How does it benefit the human race?

Weapons of mass destruction. Despite the obvious damage that can be done they are still developing these monstrosities. 

Big Brother. Who do you think is developing all manner of gadgets to spy on each one of us? Why are they doing this - other than to pander to the aspirations of those who would seek to dominate the World.  

  

Wouldn't the money be better spent on the poor and needy? Old people are still dying of hypothermia yet we can give money to some lunatic to grow an ear on the back of a Mouse! Mad, or what?

   

What is really going on behind closed doors? Who is keeping track of them? Who are they answerable to? Scientists are given almost godlike status by governments and believed despite the mistakes of the past. Why? 

   

Don't spend you your time pouring ridicule on Astrology, Mr. scientist. No genuine Astrologer has ever knowingly harmed a single human being  which is more than can be said for you!

    

 Spotlight on Science. 

How to dig yourself into a hole. 

I am not one to indulge in scientist bashing - at least not on my day off - but I never cease to wonder at the know-it-all arrogance of these people. After watching ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: THE EVIDENCE [BBC2 @ 9 p.m.], Kathy Sykes - a nice girl with a lovely smile, or is it a smug grin?  - investigated natural healing; faith healing to we lesser mortals. To cut a long story short, she came to the conclusion that it was all down to the placebo effect - in other words if you believe you are cured then you are cured. What a strange conclusion for a scientist to reach.

   

This raises two important points. Firstly, what about the energy being transferred from the healer to the subject, usually experienced as a gentle warmth or tingling in the area being treated? Secondly, if all we have to do is believe, why then to we need science? Obviously this latter point is not one that any supposedly open-minded scientist is ever likely to explore. 

  

Over to you Kathy...

 

13th August 2007. Astrology Vs Science.

It is widely assumed by critics, and indeed many others, that the scientific method is the only way in which Astrology, or indeed any other hypothesis can be tested, and it is further assumed that scientists and the scientific method are infallible. On this basis, two assertions are made by critics.

1] Astrology has been repeatedly tested and no evidence of its validity has been found. [This is not quite true - Michael Gauquelin established beyond doubt that certain types of people have a statistically significant placing of a Planet in a particular House]. However...

2] Astrology is paranormal because James Randi said so. [Hardly proof positive, but they believe him]. Many scientists hold to this view as well.

The infallibility of scientists.

The assumption that scientists are infallible is a gross mistake and has been proved to be incorrect on many occasions. Here is a list of the top 10 scientific blunders published by the highly respected Guardian newspaper. This is not sensational journalism - it is fact.

  

Top 10 scientific blunders

Albert Einstein once said: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe." Never a truer word was said.

  

The revelation that scientists have been erroneously using cow, not sheep, brains in a government-funded BSE research project is just the latest in a long tradition of blunders that have existed since scientific investigation began.

  

As any researcher will tell you, science progresses through trial and error, and mainly error. "One step forward, two steps back" might be the researcher's motto. They are, after all, much more human than we ever give them credit for.

  

Here we list the 10 biggest cock-ups of all time. It is a highly subjective hall of shame. But it covers the full range of academic disciplines - showing that all academics are capable of making big mistakes. Sometimes they are unintentional, sometimes not.

  

The famous biologist, Stephen Jay Gould, has argued that scientists can delude themselves - so keen are they to uncover a new discovery. Sometimes blunders can be highly fortuitous - showed most dramatically by the discovery of penicillin from an exposed Petri dish.

  

But they all show that even our brightest brains - even Einstein - can get it horribly wrong. "There is not the slightest indication that energy will ever be obtainable from the atom," the great scientist said just before the atomic age was born.

  

1] Brain power: Scientists at the Institute for Animal Health in Edinburgh secured a £200,000 government grant to find out whether BSE has jumped the "species barrier" from cows into sheep. An inquiry is now under way after it was found that scientists had been mistakenly testing cattle brains instead of sheep brains for five years.

2] Scientific Watergate: The US National Institutes of Health investigatory panel found the immunologist Thereza Imanishi-Kari had fabricated data in a 1986 research paper authored with the Nobel prize winner David Baltimore. The findings claimed in the paper promised a breakthrough for genetic modification of the immune system.

3] Mein bumph: Oxbridge historian Hugh Trevor-Roper authenticated the Hitler Diaries, unveiled as an exclusive by the German-based Stern magazine. The diaries were later exposed as a hoax.

4] Cold Fusion: In 1989 chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman, of the University of Utah, claimed to have solved the world's energy problems by discovering cold fusion. However, no-one has since been able to replicate their findings of nuclear fusion in heavy water.

5] Hubble Space Telescope: NASA scientists launched the Hubble telescope to create a lens 10 to 20 times more powerful than those based on earth. A gross design error in the main mirror was discovered immediately after launch in April 1990. Hundreds of millions of pounds were needed for the astronaut repair of the mirror.

6] N-rays: A French physicist, René Blondlot, claimed to have discovered a new type of radiation, shortly after Roentgen had discovered X-rays. American physicist Robert Wood, however, revealed that N-rays were little more than a delusion. Wood removed the prism from the N-ray detection device, without which the machine couldn't work. Yet, Blondlot's assistant still claimed he found N-rays.

7] Academic standards: Cyril Burt, the 1960s guru of British psychology, produced research into the intelligence of identical twins which, among other findings, led to the assertions that academic standards were falling. Years later the statistics were found to be "too perfect" and it was discovered the twins - and even the researcher alleged to have carried out the work - never existed.

8] Piltdown man: In 1913 an ape's jaw with a canine tooth worn down like a human's was uncovered at a site near Piltdown. British paleoanthropologists came to accept the idea that the fossil remains belonged to a single creature who had a human cranium and an ape's jaw - offering the missing link between apes and humans in the evolutionary chain. In 1953, Piltdown 'man' was exposed as a forgery. The skull was modern and the teeth on the ape's jaw had been filed down.

9] Alchemy: Sir Isaac Newton, the scientist who single-handedly created the foundations of modern day physics, had a little known obsession with alchemy, and was convinced for much of his life that he would be able to change base metals into gold. Such a discovery would have helped with his later job as master of the mint, but never materialised.

10] Flat Earth: Even though Christopher Columbus gave flat earth theorists a reason to think twice, there are still flat earth societies where people propose (and prove) elaborate explanations for why the world actually is shaped like a pancake.

  

There are of course many other examples.

  

Faced with this sort of crackpot mentality, how can we be certain that the same lack of foresight - even basic common sense - is not being applied to Astrology? What guarantee do we have that that scientists testing Astrology are indeed infallible, beyond reproach, and above all else - open-minded. [More on this point later]. The answer is we have no such guarantee, and we may never have one. Scientists are NOT infallible, but what about the scientific method itself?

 

16th August 2007. Astrology Vs science. The scientific method.

Critics suggest that the scientific method is the best method of testing anything, and it is further guaranteed by what is known as ‘peer review’, which simply means that scientists check the work of other scientists and approve or reject their findings. It is very similar to the procedure used by the police in this country, who investigate themselves when there has been a major blunder - such as shooting an innocent person. It hardly fills me with confidence, especially when very few are brought to book. The term ‘whitewash’ comes to mind. So what guarantee do we have that the scientific procedure is any better? We don’t. Why was it that Thalidomide and Valium were released on an unsuspecting public? How many drugs that were ‘tested’ have since been mysteriously withdrawn due to unseen and dangerous side-effects? The scientific method didn’t work in these cases.

  

Time and time again we hear rumours in the Media that scientists have withheld vital information or in some cases have deliberately falsified data in order to improve the profits of their paymasters. I quote from Physics Today:

  

Scientific misconduct is not unique to industry, for the professional pressures in universities, non-profit organisations, and federal laboratories are similar and in many respects greater. The 1974 painted mouse episode at Sloan-Kettering Institute and the recent report of data fabrication at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are cases in point. However, the economic inducements to misconduct are especially easy to understand in the case of private-sector research. Anyone who has worked in industry long enough to have experienced a business cycle knows how unbearable the job pressure can get when a company is in trouble and how this pressure can turn otherwise excellent and honest scientists into willing deceivers. It is neither uncommon nor hard to understand. Threaten a resourceful person with loss of home and endangerment of family and it is scarcely surprising that the person "innovates." The recent findings of fraud at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies the ostensibly false claims of a new technology to suppress avalanche breakdown in field-effect transistors are noteworthy only because of Bell's special stature in American science and its reputation, both partly attributable to Bell's having been shielded from such pressures by the old AT&T monopoly.

  

When applied to Astrology, the scientific method suffers from serious flaws. The basic principle followed by scientists is to assume that Astrology is without merit of any kind and then try to prove it. Without doubt, when the prime motivation is to destroy and ridicule is it any wonder that their tests bear out their assumptions? Basically, you get what you expect. I have always held to the view that in order for Astrology to be investigated properly, one must use the open-mined approach of assuming that there just might be something truthful here, then go looking for it. If after leaving no stone unturned one still comes up with no proof then the best way forward is not to declare that Astrology is ‘unscientific’ or complete nonsense, but instead to leave the matter in abeyance until new information comes to light. Alas, this simple idea has yet to penetrate the dull brains of the unenlightened critics and, dare I say, the bigoted scientists.

  

Motivation is everything, and when that motivation is sensation-seeking, often with an eye to profit and the adulation of fellow-critics, then the whole system of scientific testing is undermined. Add to this the plain truth that some tests have clearly shown bias and the withholding of vital information, as in the infamous Carlson test, then we must assume that the motivation is some circles is far from healthy. Add all this together and it is very obvious that in the present climate Astrology is not being treated fairly and is certainly not being tested in an unbiased way. For some scientists, there is big money, accolades, and lots of publicity, and that I suspect is one of the main motives for Astrology testing. When there are definite rewards for being destructive and contriving biased tests rather than adopting an open-mined approach, what hope for the future? Sad, isn’t it?

  

   

  

 

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