Re: (Tears) Fads and Fallacies by Martin Gardner

On Tue, 30 Apr 2024 02:49:22 -0000 (UTC), davidd02@tpg.com.au (David
Duffy) wrote:

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 29 Apr 2024 07:57:40 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer

On Sun, 28 Apr 2024 13:06:32 +0000, James Nicoll wrote:

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science by Martin Gardner

Was there no chapter on astrology?

 
Apparently, it was about /modern/ weirdness, not about traditional
weirdness.
 
Even Aquinas, who expressed doubts about astrology in general, was

>
Augustine says that everyone knows of twins, who despite having the same birth chart,
have quite different life courses. I did once read an MS on personality of twins
whose birthdays were before and after midnight of the cusp...

Aquinas uses that to argue that all twins were intended by God to have
two of the same gender -- so the fact that some have one of each shows
that /what God wants/ and /what God gets/ are sometimes two different
things. This is why he mentions astrology.

The reason for this is the use of secondary causes, which sometimes
don't work as expected.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"