In a recent pit thread, Reason Totters On Its Throne: An Accredited Astrology School!, many dopers have decried astronomy schools as the end of reason.
At first, I thought “Of course it is, we all know that astrology is pute bunkum!”, but then I got to thinking. Even if we factor in that astrology is pure bunk (and anyone that disagrees is free to open up a thread debating that- in this thread I’d like to assume that it is), does that astrology schools are a threat to reason?
One of the schools that got accredited is a trade school. It has classes like “Writing the astrological column”. The job of a trade school is, to my understanding, to train people to produce a product or supply a service which people are willing to pay for. Accredidation of a trade school involves making sure that the students will get what they pay for- training in a trade that will reasonably lead to employment.
Now, plenty of suckers out there are willing to pay to have their star charts drawn out. As far as I know, as long as astrologers don’t make too many claims, selling star charts is legal. I think that while astrology is not a valueable science, it is certainly a viable trade. Seems to me that an astronomy trade school is not that outlandish.
After all, we don’t deride beauty school because beauticians don’t actually make their clients more beautiful. Or acting schools because they don’t actually turn the students into Hamlet. Or cooking schools because we all know that home cooked food is better.
The other school I know about it a little trickier. It is called the Kepler College of astrological Arts and Sciences, and it recently opened in Seattle. A Seattle Weekly article describes it.
This school definately sees itself as a place of knowledge, not trade, which is a major difference. But, they seem to have a somewhat reasonable approuch to astrology,
It seems that they view astrology as an important historical practice. They point out quite rightly that for much of history, astrology has had a major influence on almost every sphere of knowledge. The first part of the cirriculum is focused on the history of astrology. They do assignments like “Outline the main philosophical changes that took place in the Renaissance and explain how these affected astrological practice.”
Studying the history of astrology seems somewhat innocuous to me. There are plenty of medieval studies majors out there studying the same thing. We can’t deny that astrology did exist in history, and that there is some benefit to understanding how astrology affected the world of the past.
The college carries a variety of general education courses. These courses are all presented through astrology. In a writing class, essay topic will relate to astrology. In human anatomy class, while they learn about the human body by looking at the historical associations of different planetary objects to different body parts. They leanr statistics through different kinds of astrological calculations. They even apparently learn about the scientific method by looking at failed attempts to prove that astrology is scientific. Many students say that by studying general education through astrology, they are more interested in it and perform better.
And Kepler college does try to promote critical thinking. They present a variety of viewpoints. They do a lot of thinking and considering, but not really a lot of indocternation. Kepler is hardly the BJU of the New Age world.
I don’t see the problem with this, either. In my “serious” college we do plenty of general education classes that work through the filter of something else. We have a writing class that focuses on female madness, where one looks at old ideas about feminine craziness (hysteria and the like) and writes about that. We have Chinese language/culture classes that study that by looking at theories of Eastern medicine. Using one subject, even a subject of dobios value, to look at another subject is a common practice. As long as these kids learn anatomy and writing and Chinese, doesn’t it all work out okay?
Finally, they do learn about celestial movements. Even this is defensable. After all, the angle between star X and star Z is still the same, even if you don’t believe that that has any special signifigance. If it isn’t tied to too many claims about the signifigance of the angles between X and Z, they are learning something. It isn’t really something of value, but it is genuine learning.
I can see some value in the study of astrology, just like I can see value in the study of folklore, pop culture and art history (considering art has long been tied to religion). I don’t see much value, considering it is bunk, but I do see enough value to think that an astrology school isn’t an outlandish insult to reason. I think that anything that can promote knowledge and critical thinking at the same time is a benefit to the world.
And I don’t think these schools should be shunned by the state. When asked about Kepler, the board that granted accreditdation stated “It is not the responsibility, nor should it be, of government to dictate what citizens should study or think.” At first, this seems outlandish, but if you think about it, it is a valid point. We should not use the government to restrict the pursuit of knowledge, even dubious knowledge. I’d rather the decision about what is or is not worth learning in a secondary school situation be left up the the student, not the state.
This is especially relevent to the crusade of one University of California regent to end women’s studies and ethnic studies. He says that these are not real pursuits and should not be taught. He believes that to study the world of war, drinking and general masculiness by reading Hemingway in an American literature class is knowledge, but to study race and gender by reading Angela Davis is not. I say crew him. It is not his job to decide what I should pursue. Our schools should be devoted to the aquisition of knowledge, not the censoring of it.
So whaddaya think?
