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Astrology
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Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī
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Al Mansur
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Alfred Wegener
Alfred Lothar Wegener (1 November 1880 – November 1930) was a German scientist, geophysicist, and meteorologist.
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Alfred Witte
Alfred Witte (2 March 1878, 21:12:44 LMT, Hamburg – 4 August 1941, 4:01 MET, Hamburg) was a German surveyor, astrologer, an amateur astronomer, and the founder of the Hamburg School of Astrology. Witte revived and further developed the use of astrological midpoints for precision in astrological analysis and prediction.
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Andrew Fraknoi
Andrew Fraknoi, M.A., is an astronomy professor at Foothill College and the 2007 California Professor of the Year awarded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Fraknoi also won the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's 2007 Richard H. Emmons award, the American Institute of Physics's 2007 Andrew Gemant Award (given for a lifetime of contributions to the intersection of physics and culture), and the American Astronomical Society's 1994 Annenberg Foundation Award (for a lifetime of contributions to astronomy education.)
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Aristotle
Aristotle (, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.
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Averroes
'''Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad bin Aḥmad bin Rushd (), better known just as Ibn Rushd (), and in European literature as Averroes''' () (1126 – December 10, 1198), was an Andalusian Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy, geography, mathematics, physics and celestial mechanics. He was born in Córdoba, Al Andalus, modern-day Spain, and died in Marrakech, modern-day Morocco. His school of philosophy is known as Averroism. He has been described by some as the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe and "one of the spiritual fathers of Europe," although other scholars oppose such claims.
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Avicenna
, known as Abū Alī Sīnā () or, more commonly, Ibn Sīnā or Pour Sina, but most commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna (, Avitzianós), (c. 980 - 1037) was a polymath of PersianA) "Avicenna", in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Concise Online Version, 2006 ([http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9011433/Avicenna]); B) D. Gutas, "Avicenna", in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Version 2006, ([http://www.iranica.com/articles/avicenna-xi LINK]); excerpt: "That he should have written poems in Persian, his native and everyday language, is probable" C) Ibn Sina ("Avicenna") Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd edition. Edited by P. Berman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Henrichs. Brill 2009. Accessed through Brill online: www.encislam.brill.nl (2009) Quote: "He was born in 370/980 in Afshana, his mother's home, near Bukhara. His native language was Persian." D) Charles Lindholm,"The Islamic Middle East: Tradition and Change", Wiley-Blackwell, 2002. (2nd edition) " excerpt from pg 277: "Iranian Platonic philosopher". E) Fayz, M. Getz. "Avicenna" in Sandra Clayton-Emmerson (2005), Key Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages). Routledge. pg 54: "The Persian philosopher, poet, and physician Ibn Sina (Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdullah ibn Sina) is known in the west as Avicenna. He was born in Bukhara and died in Hamada, Persia". F) Joyce Moss, " Middle Eastern literatures and their times", Volume 6 of World Literature and Its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them. Thomas Gale, 2004. Excerpt: "One of the key figures whose views came under attack was the Persian philosopher and scientist Ibn Sina(also known as Avicenna; 980-1037)"" G) David Edward Cooper, Jitendranath Mohanty, Ernest Sosa, "Epistemology: the classic readings", Wiley-Blackwell, 1999. pg 98:"by the Persian philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna) in the eleventh century." origin and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time. He was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, Hafiz, Islamic psychologist, Islamic scholar, Islamic theologian, logician, paleontologist, mathematician, Maktab teacher, physicist, poet, and scientist.
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Buddhism
Buddhism (Pali/Sanskrit: बौद्ध धर्म Buddha Dharma) is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha (Pāli/Sanskrit "the awakened one"). The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. He is recognized by adherents as an awakened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end suffering (or dukkha), achieve nirvana, and escape what is seen as a cycle of suffering and rebirth.
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C.S. Lewis
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Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung (; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung is often considered the first modern psychologist to state that the human psyche is "by nature religious" and to explore it in depth. Though not the first to analyze dreams, he has become perhaps one of the most well known pioneers in the field of dream analysis. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, much of his life's work was spent exploring other areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts.
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Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan (; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, author, cosmologist, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated skeptical inquiry and the scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
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Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, FRS (, ; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a prominent Dutch mathematician, astronomer, physicist, horologist, and writer of early science fiction. His work included early telescopic studies elucidating the nature of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan, the invention of the pendulum clock and other investigations in timekeeping, and studies of both optics and the centrifugal force.
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Distinguished Iyers
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Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount Saint Alban, KC (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist and author. He famously died of pneumonia contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method and pioneer in the scientific revolution.
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Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (September AD 129 – 199/217; , Galēnos, from adjective "γαληνός", "calm"), better known as Galen of Pergamon (modern-day Bergama, Turkey), was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher. Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen contributed greatly to the understanding of numerous scientific disciplines including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, neurology, philosophy, and logic.
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Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei (; 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy," the "father of modern physics," the "father of science," and "the Father of Modern Science." Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."
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Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars as the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular Middle English, rather than French or Latin.
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George O. Abell
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George Saliba
George Saliba is a Palestinian Christian Professor of Arabic and Islamic Science at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University, New York, United States, where he has been working since 1979.
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Guido Bonatti
Guido Bonatti from Forlì (d. between 1296 and 1300) was a famous Italian astronomer and astrologer. He was the most celebrated astrologer in Europe in his century.
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Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodor von Holst, 21 September 187425 May 1934) was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets.
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Hesiod
Hesiod (Greek: Hēsíodos) was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active around 700 BC. No date before 750 BC or later than 650 BC fits the evidence. Since at least Herodotus's time (Histories, 2.53), Hesiod and Homer have generally been considered the earliest Greek poets whose work has survived, and they are often paired. Scholars disagree about who lived first, and the fourth-century BC sophist Alcidamas' Mouseion even brought them together in an imagined poetic agon, the Contest of Homer and Hesiod. Aristarchus first argued for Homer's priority, a claim that was generally accepted by later antiquity.
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Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC) - Greek: ; Hippokrátēs was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Athens), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the father of Western medicine in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic School of medicine. This intellectual school revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other fields that it had traditionally been associated with (notably theurgy and philosophy), thus establishing medicine as a profession.
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Ibn al-Haytham
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Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727 ) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is considered by many scholars and members of the general public to be one of the most influential people in human history. His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the Scientific Revolution.
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Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville (Spanish: or , Latin: ) (c. 560 – 4 April 636) was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien" ("the last scholar of the ancient world"). Indeed, all the later medieval history-writing of Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal) was based on his histories.
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J K Rowling
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Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (; December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy. They also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation.
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John Goad
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Liz Greene
Liz Greene, (born 4 September 1946 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA) is an American-British astrologer, psychologist and author. She is the sister of the late author Richard Leigh. Her father was born in London, and her mother in the USA.
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Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her epic novel Gone with the Wind, her only major publication. This novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 30 million copies (see list of best-selling books). The film adaptation of it, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and it received a record-breaking ten Academy Awards. Mitchell has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 1¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
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Michel Gauquelin
Michel Gauquelin (November 13, 1928 – May 20, 1991) was a French psychologist and statistician. Along with his first wife Françoise Schneider-Gauquelin (born June 19, 1929), he conducted statistical research in an attempt to develop a scientific basis for astrology.
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Paracelsus
Paracelsus (born Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 11 November or 17 December 1493 in Einsiedeln – 24 September 1541 in Salzburg) was a Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist. "Paracelsus", meaning "equal to or greater than Celsus", refers to the Roman encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus from the first century known for his tract on medicine. He is also credited for giving zinc its name, calling it zincum and is regarded as the first systematic botanist.
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Paul Feyerabend
Paul Karl Feyerabend (January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (1958–1989). His life was a one, as he lived at various times in England, the United States, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and finally Switzerland. His major works include Against Method (published in 1975), Science in a Free Society (published in 1978) and Farewell to Reason (a collection of papers published in 1987). Feyerabend became famous for his purportedly anarchistic view of science and his rejection of the existence of universal methodological rules. He is an influential figure in the philosophy of science, and also in the sociology of scientific knowledge.
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Percy Seymour
Percy Ambrose Seymour (died 1954) was an Australian classicist and university administrator.
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Plato
:For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation) and Platon (disambiguation).
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Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 AD – August 25, 79), better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an encyclopedic work, Naturalis Historia, which became a model for all such works written subsequently. Pliny the Younger, his nephew, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus:
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Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: Klaúdios Ptolemaîos; c. AD 90 – c. 168), known in English as Ptolemy (), was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and a poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid. He died in Alexandria around AD 168.
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Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos (, O Pythagoras o Samios, "Pythagoras the Samian", or simply ; c. 570-c. 495 BC) was an Ionian Greek philosopher and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of our information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, thus very little reliable information is known about him. He was born on the island of Samos, and may have travelled widely in his youth, visiting Egypt and other places seeking knowledge. Around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, a Greek colony in southern Italy, and there set up a religious sect. His followers pursued the religious rites and practices developed by Pythagoras, and studied his philosophical theories. The society took an active role in the politics of Croton, but this eventually led to their downfall. The Pythagorean meeting-places were burned, and Pythagoras was forced to flee the city. He is said to have ended his days in Metapontum.
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Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941) is a British ethologist and evolutionary biologist. He is a fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.
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Richard Tarnas
Richard Theodore Tarnas, Jr. (born February 21, 1950) is a philosopher and cultural historian known for his 1991 book The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View and Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, published in 2006. Tarnas is professor of philosophy and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is the founding director of its graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness.
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Sahl ibn Bishr
Sahl ibn Bishr al-Israili, often known as Zahel or Zael (c. 786-845 ?) was a Jewish astrologer, astronomer and mathematician from Tabaristan. He was the father of Ali ibn Sahl the famous scientist and physician, who became a convert to Islam.
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Scarlett O'Hara
'''Scarlett O'Hara (full name Katie Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler''') is the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the later film of the same name. She also is the main character in the 1970 musical Scarlett and the 1991 book Scarlett, a sequel to Gone with the Wind that was written by Alexandra Ripley and adapted for a television mini-series in 1994. During early drafts of the original novel, Mitchell referred to her heroine as "Pansy", and did not decide on the name "Scarlett" until just before the novel went to print.
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Shawn Carlson
Shawn Carlson (born 1961) is an American science educator, founder of the Society for Amateur Scientists.
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Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942). is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific career spans over forty years. His books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.
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Theodor Landscheidt
Theodor Landscheidt (born in 1927 in Bremen, Germany, died on May 20, 2004) was an author, astronomer and amateur climatologist.
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Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe (14 December 1546 – 24 October 1601), born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. Coming from Scania, then part of Denmark, now part of modern-day Sweden, Tycho was well known in his lifetime as an astronomer and alchemist.
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V.K. Choudhry
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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
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Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (April 25, 1900 – December 15, 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after being nominated by Albert Einstein, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his "decisive contribution through his discovery of a new law of Nature, the exclusion principle or Pauli principle," involving spin theory, underpinning the structure of matter and the whole of chemistry.
http://wn.com/Wolfgang_Pauli
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Alexandria
Alexandria (Arabic: al-Iskandariyya; Coptic: ; ; ; Egyptian Arabic: اسكندريه ), with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving approximately 80% of Egypt's imports and exports. Alexandria is also an important tourist resort. Alexandria extends about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in north-central Egypt. It is home to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (the new Library). It is an important industrial centre because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez, another city in Egypt.
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Baghdad
Baghdad (, , ) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a population estimated between 7 and 7.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo, Egypt).
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Greece
Greece (; , Elláda, ; , Hellás, ), also known as Hellas and officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Ellīnikī́ Dīmokratía, ), is a country in southeastern Europe. Situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula, Greece has land borders with Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the tenth longest coastline in the world at in length, featuring a vast number of islands (approximately 1400, of which 227 are inhabited), including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and the Ionian Islands among others. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at .
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India
India (), officially the Republic of India ( ; see also official names of India), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east; and it is bordered by Pakistan to the west; Bhutan, the People's Republic of China and Nepal to the north; and Bangladesh and Burma to the east. In the Indian Ocean, mainland India and the Lakshadweep Islands are in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share maritime border with Thailand and the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the Andaman Sea. India has a coastline of .
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NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, ) is an Executive Branch agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's civilian space program and aeronautics and aerospace research. Since February 2006, NASA's self-described mission statement is to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research."
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New Delhi
New Delhi (, naī dillī) is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi.
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Piazza San Marco
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United States
The United States of America (also referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.
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University of Texas
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Venice
Venice ( , Venetian: Venesia) is a city in northern Italy known both for tourism and for industry, and is the capital of the region Veneto, with a population of about 272,000 (census estimate 1 January 2004). Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area (population 1,600,000).
http://wn.com/Venice
- Abbasid Caliphate
- Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī
- acausal
- Age of Aquarius
- Al Khwarizmi
- Al Mansur
- Al-Farabi
- alchemy
- Aldebaran
- Alexandra David-Neel
- Alexandria
- Alfred Wegener
- Alfred Witte
- algebra
- algorithm
- Alkindi
- Almagest
- Altair
- Ancient Greek
- Andrew Fraknoi
- Angle (astrology)
- Appeal to authority
- Aquarius (astrology)
- archetype
- Aries (astrology)
- Aristotle
- Artifact (error)
- Ascendant
- Asia
- Astrocartography
- Astrologer
- Astrological aspect
- Astrological aspects
- Astrological sign
- Astrological signs
- Astrological symbols
- Astrological_aspect
- Astrology
- Astronomy
- Astrophysicist
- Averroes
- Avicenna
- Babylon
- Babylonian astrology
- Babylonians
- Baghdad
- Betelgeuse
- Blind experiment
- Buddhism
- C.S. Lewis
- caliph
- Cancer (astrology)
- Carl Jung
- Carl Sagan
- case study
- celestial bodies
- Chinese astrology
- Christiaan Huygens
- Chronicles of Narnia
- Classical Greece
- Classical planets
- cognitive bias
- Computer modelling
- conjectural
- continental drift
- correlation
- Creation
- Cultural astronomy
- cybernetics
- Dane Rudhyar
- dasha (astrology)
- determinism
- disposition
- Distinguished Iyers
- diurnal motion
- divination
- ecliptic
- Effect size
- Electional astrology
- empirical
- Esoteric astrology
- Europe
- falsify
- Financial astrology
- Francis Bacon
- Galen
- Galileo Galilei
- Gemini (astrology)
- Geoffrey Chaucer
- George O. Abell
- George Saliba
- Girolamo Cardan
- Gone with the wind
- Greece
- grounded theory
- Gudea of Lagash
- Guido Bonatti
- Gustav Holst
- Harmonices Mundi
- Harry potter
- heliacal rising
- Hellenistic Egypt
- Hermeticism
- Hesiod
- Hindu astrology
- Hippocrates
- History of astrology
- Horary astrology
- House (astrology)
- hypotheses
- Ibn al-Haytham
- Imum coeli
- Index (economics)
- India
- influenza
- Isaac Newton
- Isidore of Seville
- Islamic astronomy
- J K Rowling
- Johannes Kepler
- John Goad
- John_Goad
- Judicial astrology
- Jupiter
- Jupiter (astrology)
- Jupiter (astrology)
- Karen L. Brazis
- karmic astrology
- Kepler College
- Latin
- Lawrence E. Jerome
- Leo (astrology)
- Leonard D. Goodstein
- Libra (astrology)
- List of astrologers
- Liz Greene
- Locational astrology
- Lunar phase
- manifesto
- Manilius
- Margaret Mitchell
- Mars
- Mars (astrology)
- Mars (astrology)
- Mars effect
- Mashallah ibn Athari
- Medical astrology
- medicine
- Mediterranean Basin
- Mercury (astrology)
- Mercury (astrology)
- Mercury (planet)
- Mesopotamia
- Metaphysics
- meteorology
- methodologies
- Methodology
- Michel Gauquelin
- Middle Ages
- Middle East
- Midheaven
- Midpoint (astrology)
- Moon
- Moon (astrology)
- Moon (astrology)
- Mundane astrology
- nakshatra
- NASA
- Nature (journal)
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Neptune (astrology)
- Nergal
- New Delhi
- null hypothesis
- occult
- orbit
- P value
- Paracelsus
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Bill Nye on Astrology
Bill Nye on Astrology from his show the Eye of Nye
http://wn.com/Bill_Nye_on_Astrology
Carl Sagan on Astrology
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:35
- Published: 17 Nov 2006
- Uploaded: 07 Feb 2012
- Author: undercoverkptic
From Cosmos, episode 3 "The Harmony of the Worlds".
http://wn.com/Carl_Sagan_on_Astrology
A&E; - Astrology - Secret in the Stars - Part 1 of 5
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:02
- Published: 12 Nov 2007
- Uploaded: 06 Feb 2012
- Author: thespiritconnect
A & E - Astrology - Secret in the Stars - Part 1 of 5 For more Astrology videos visit www.thespiritconnect.com or visit ninjakingking channel on youtube.com Since the dawn of time, humankind has looked to the heavens for potential answers to their earthly problems. Yet, the important questionremains: Do the movements of the stars and planets really hold the secrets of human destiny?
http://wn.com/A&E;__Astrology__Secret_in_the_Stars__Part_1_of_5
What is Astrology?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:23
- Published: 08 Sep 2010
- Uploaded: 04 Feb 2012
- Author: KeplerCollege
Is astrology the same as the newspaper horoscope? Or is it something more. This video show how different astrologers describe astrology and explores the different branches. Using Tiger Woods as an example, it also shows how the Sun, Moon and Ascendant can be used to help describe an individual.
http://wn.com/What_is_Astrology?
Leo in Love by Kelli Fox
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:18
- Published: 10 Feb 2008
- Uploaded: 25 Jan 2012
- Author: KTtheAstrologer
Leo, you are devoted in matters of the heart. You delight in the grandeur of love and makes a generous, loyal partner.
http://wn.com/Leo_in_Love_by_Kelli_Fox
Pisces in Love by Kelli Fox
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:21
- Published: 10 Feb 2008
- Uploaded: 05 Feb 2012
- Author: KTtheAstrologer
You are a nurturing, intuitive and emotional Sign. You have a romantic soul that delights in all the experiences that love and life has to offer.
http://wn.com/Pisces_in_Love_by_Kelli_Fox
Taurus in Love by Kelli Fox
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:19
- Published: 10 Feb 2008
- Uploaded: 06 Feb 2012
- Author: KTtheAstrologer
Taurus, you possesses an earthy, basic sensuality that is quite compelling! Connected to Venus, the Love Planet, you are built for romance.
http://wn.com/Taurus_in_Love_by_Kelli_Fox
Sagittarius in Love by Kelli Fox
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:19
- Published: 10 Feb 2008
- Uploaded: 25 Jan 2012
- Author: KTtheAstrologer
Sagittarius, you are all about mind-expanding adventures in the game of love! You are a carefree Sign sees a love affair as a learning experience.
http://wn.com/Sagittarius_in_Love_by_Kelli_Fox
Religion Comes From Ancient Astrology and Sun Worship 1 of 3
wake up! - - !!be sure to watch all THREE parts of this!!
http://wn.com/Religion_Comes_From_Ancient_Astrology_and_Sun_Worship_1_of_3
Astrology: Good and Bad
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:11
- Published: 20 Dec 2009
- Uploaded: 04 Feb 2012
- Author: itschriscrocker
I tried to fit in as much info as I could, without taking up too much video time. If anyone would like to know more about their sign, I would recommend going here: www.astrology-online.com for beginners. Also, note that if you don't relate with your sign, you have an entire chart. A lot of people are on the cusp, which means your birthday comes right before or after the start or end of a sign.. so do your research and let the soulsearching begin! -Chris
http://wn.com/Astrology_Good_and_Bad
Santos Bonacci The Ancient Theology Astrology Part 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 102:21
- Published: 23 Nov 2011
- Uploaded: 05 Feb 2012
- Author: MrAstrotheology
Prisca Theologia (The Ancient Theology) Series 1/3, Astrology Part 1/2
http://wn.com/Santos_Bonacci_The_Ancient_Theology_Astrology_Part_1
Star Signs Astrology The Facts
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:21
- Published: 19 Oct 2006
- Uploaded: 28 Jan 2012
- Author: testament1uk
After watching this short video you may decide that your star sign is highly unreliable if in fact it is your star sign!!!
http://wn.com/Star_Signs_Astrology_The_Facts
Aries | Learn English | Astrology
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 12:26
- Published: 09 Jan 2010
- Uploaded: 26 Jan 2012
- Author: Linguaspectrum
Extras: linguaspectrum.com This is one of a series of English lessons based on the theme of astrology. They are designed to teach you vocabulary, and especially personal descriptive adjectives. If you were born between March 21st and April 19th, then your star sign is Aries. The symbol of Aries is the ram. Aries element is fire. Aries modality is cardinal. Aries polarity is positive or masculine (yang). Aries ruling planet is Mars. The lucky stone for Aries is the diamond. This English lesson will help you understand the vocabulary used to describe people in general and Aries in particular. English bySkype: I also give online English classes by Skype. You can find out more by visiting linguaspectrum.com If you want to learn English quickly and easily, I invite you to take classes with me online using Skype. My website at http also offers lots of free English language learning activities including English crossword puzzles, English quizzes, English grammar and English vocabulary. A free membership will get you much more. There is even a chance to win free English classes online with me through the Dictionary Challenge at linguaspectrum.com You can improve your writing, too, with my English writing course. As a professional writer, I will guide you through the writing process, step by step, until you are able write with an effectiveness that will get you noticed. Improve your English writing and you improve you prospects of success in all areas of your life. You can improve <b>...</b>
http://wn.com/Aries_|_Learn_English_|_Astrology
BASIC VEDIC ASTROLOGY - LESSON 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:13
- Published: 26 Nov 2008
- Uploaded: 02 Feb 2012
- Author: MathinaMaideen
Basic Vedic Astrology Lesson 1 Website: MathinaMaideen.webs.com Hear me on my live radio - MSK Live! mathinamaideen.webs.com My Twitter Account: twitter.com Please subscribe for video updates.
http://wn.com/BASIC_VEDIC_ASTROLOGY__LESSON_1
Vedic Nadi Astrology Not of Human Orgin
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:20
- Published: 13 May 2007
- Uploaded: 24 Jan 2012
- Author: DattatreyaSivaBaba
www.AstroVed.com Visit http videos: www.youtube.com library: www.youtube.com Dr. Pillai's Egypt & Israel Trip. Take an unforgettable spiritual quest Nadi Astrology is a special type of Vedic astrology created by divinely inspired sages who gathered special insight to know about the future of certain souls and wrote them on palm leaves around thousands of years ago. Learn Vedic Astrology Online with self-paced course: www.astroved.com
http://wn.com/Vedic_Nadi_Astrology_Not_of_Human_Orgin
The Future of Astrology
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 57:51
- Published: 18 Dec 2007
- Uploaded: 04 Feb 2012
- Author: KellyLeePhipps
Astrologer Steven Forrest discusses the future of his profession at the NORWAC conference in May 2007
http://wn.com/The_Future_of_Astrology
2012 Astrology Predictions
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:43
- Published: 31 Dec 2011
- Uploaded: 31 Jan 2012
- Author: DarkstarAstrology
2012 Predictions by Darkstar Astrology. 2012 astrology forecast. darkstarastrology.com The 2012 forecast is very interesting because this year has been much anticipated due to Mayan and other predictions.
http://wn.com/2012_Astrology_Predictions
January 2012 - For Everyone - Astrology
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 29:26
- Published: 19 Dec 2011
- Uploaded: 31 Jan 2012
- Author: northwatuppa
HELLO: I HAVE APPLIED TO MONETIZE THIS VIDEO JUST TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WITH MONETIZATION. IF THE MONETIZATION PROCESS IS A TOTAL GROSS OUT, THEN I WILL NOT MONETIZE IN THIS MANNER. A very challenging month for the ego. The planets take dead aim at our habits, patterns and attitudes. The only way to get through this month is to change. View it as an opportunity or a burden. It's up to you. But if you decide in favor of the status quo, you'd better come up with some new ways to dodge change, because the old ways definitely will not work with these vibes. Also, this is the first month with what appears to be a whole new class of planetary energy combinations. I don't think we've seen anything quite like this before. The world is going to start looking, feeling and responding differently, and very soon.
http://wn.com/January_2012__For_Everyone__Astrology
Horary Astrology
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:50
- Published: 02 May 2008
- Uploaded: 13 Jan 2012
- Author: renaissanceastrology
Introduction to horary astrology and how to ask horary questions with Christopher Warnock of Renaissance Astrology. See www.renaissanceastrology.com for more information.
http://wn.com/Horary_Astrology
The Astrology of February 2012 - For Everyone
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 36:40
- Published: 23 Jan 2012
- Uploaded: 06 Feb 2012
- Author: northwatuppa
Neptune finally enters Pisces. It takes over the entire February composite chart and displays its immense power to transform. We also gain an insight into how Neptune works. The February chart foretells the birth of a global revolutionary spirit. On the individual level, it indicates confused, confusing but liberating experiences. Old patterns, old habits and attitudes dissolve before our eyes - in ourselves and in other people. The future becomes something people in general feel that we need to re-shape, the world something we should reform. Proceed with caution throughout, though; reliable information about anything becomes scarce. Choose words carefully. You could end up saying more than you intended. You could also end up hearing or seeing more than you expected. 99 and 44/100 percent pure original content.
http://wn.com/The_Astrology_of_February_2012__For_Everyone
James Randi and an Astrologer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:22
- Published: 12 Aug 2007
- Uploaded: 05 Feb 2012
- Author: UncleFeedle
A prominent astrologer attempts an astrological reading of actor Hugh Laurie and fails. From episode 2 of 'James Randi - Psychic Investigator' (1991) Note: the soundtrack is a little rough near the start due to problems in the original broadcast * Since this video was originally posted nearly two years ago, comments along the lines of 'OMG it's House!', 'that's the guy from HOUSE!', 'hey that's HOUSE!!!' have been mindlessly posted over 200 times by people who did not bother to read either the information here or the annotations, both of which specifically asked viewers not to do this. Despite every effort made to prevent it, they continued to flood in at some 15-20 a week, effectively clogging up the comments area and hindering any serious discussion. Consequently, comments to this video are now permanently disabled. * DO NOT SEND ME PM's ABOUT THIS. I AM SICK OF IDIOTS PM'ing ME WHO EITHER HAVEN'T BOTHERED TO READ THIS, OR THINK THEY ARE A SMART ARSE *
http://wn.com/James_Randi_and_an_Astrologer
All 12 Astrology Songs Samples
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:38
- Published: 11 Jul 2006
- Uploaded: 06 Feb 2012
- Author: astrologysongs
iTunes 2 Buy itunes.apple.com aries taurus gemini cancer leo virgo libra scorpio sagittarius capricorn aquarius pisces
http://wn.com/All_12_Astrology_Songs_Samples
WN / om prakash bhatnagar
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photo: AP / Vahid Salemi
29 Feb 2012
Share Israeli officials say they won’t warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with...
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photo: Creative Commons / MathKnight
28 Feb 2012
Share Press TV The United States has provided Israel with the military technology and arms to aid Tel Aviv in a possible attack against Iran nuclear facilities, a prominent American journalist says....
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The Examiner
This week-end Mars retrograde in Virgo peaks in its opposition to the Sun in Pisces, Venus in Aries peaks in her opposition to Saturn in Libra and later in the week there is also a Virgo Full Moon opposite the Sun still in Pisces. Plus Mercury, now in Aries, joins up with Uranus...so...expect...(size: 9.2Kb)
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For one thing, they take all the fun out of life! How much faith and self-actualization can be established in a life that turns to a newspaper astrologer for the supposed highlights of their own life? How can a stranger present a worthwhile view of the life of a soul they’ve never met? It’s like...(size: 8.9Kb)
Sacramento Bee
National Enquirer astrologer Maria Shaw Lawson is as curious as everybody else about who took the tabloid's casket photos of Whitney Houston - pictures that have infuriated fans on Twitter. "What I want to find out is who went in (the New Jersey funeral home) and took the picture," said Lawson, who...(size: 8.4Kb)
Star Tribune
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Astrologer held for molesting housewife
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:''Not to be confused with Astronomy.''
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|colspan="12" border="1" align="center" style="background:#E5DFD2; padding: 5px 0px 5px 0px"|Aries • Taurus • Gemini • Cancer • Leo • Virgo • Libra Scorpio • Sagittarius • Capricorn • Aquarius • Pisces
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The contrast with modern astronomy is that the IAU ruling (2006) states a planet is a celestial body which: 1) orbits the Sun; 2) has sufficient mass to assume a round shape; and 3) has "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit. Some 'traditional astrologers' prefer to work only with the seven Classical planets, but most modern astrologers include reference to Uranus (discovered in 1781), Neptune (1846) and Pluto (1930). Pluto lost its IAU status as a planet in 2006, but this point is not without contention and astrologers - in the main - have ignored the IAU's ruling (''See also'' public reaction to the downgrading of Pluto).
It is therefore conventional for astrology texts to refer to ten planets, which does not include the Earth. These, with their astrological symbols, are as follows:
Astrology is the study of celestial bodies interpreted as affecting personality, human affairs, and natural events. The primary astrological bodies are the Sun, Moon, and planets, which are analyzed by their aspects (relative positions to one another), by their placement in 'houses' (spatial divisions of the sky), and their movement through signs of the zodiac (spatial divisions of the ecliptic).
Astrology’s origins trace to the third millennium BCE. Ancient civilizations developed it as a calendrical system to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as ‘signs’ of ‘divine communications’. Historically it was a learned tradition, sustained in courts, cultural centers and universities, and was closely related to the studies of astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine. Yet despite their closely connected histories, astrology and astronomy separated at the end of the 17th century, when astronomy redefined many of the theoretical concepts that the two disciplines had previously shared. Subsequently, astrology suffered a decline in academic and theoretical credibility. The 20th century brought renewed attention, partly through the popularizing effect of newspaper horoscopes and New Age philosophies, and through re-kindled intellectual interest in statistically testing astrology's claims.
Astrologers have long debated the degree of determinism in astrology. Some believe that celestial movements control fate, others that they determine only disposition and potential. While most astrologers contend there is no direct influence from the stars (only a synchronistic correlation between the celestial and terrestrial) astrology has been criticized for not offering a clear account of its physical mechanism and failing to develop new theories in line with modern scientific principles. It has thus been called a pseudoscientific subject by members of the modern scientific community.
Etymology and basic definitions
Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky, the acquisition of significance being drawn from a combination of observation, correlation, philosophy, logic and lore.The word astrology comes from the Latin ''astrologia'', deriving from the Greek noun , which combines ''astro'', 'star / celestial body' with ''logia'', 'study of / theory / discourse (about)'.
Hence ''astrology'', in its original meaning, describes the theory of celestial significance; as distinct from ''astronomy'', the technical counterpart which aims to establish the mathematical principles (laws) of celestial events (from the Greek:ἄστρο and ''νόμος'' ''nomos'', 'custom / law / ordinance'). Although the two studies are historically twinned, and anciently the terms ''astrologos'' ‘astrologer’ and ''astronomos'' ‘astronomer’ were used interchangeably, texts dating from the classical period show a conceptual differentiation between them, demonstrated by Ptolemy’s authoritative 2nd-century text on astronomy (Almagest) remaining entirely free of the themes presented in his astrological treatise (Tetrabiblos). (The two disciplines formally separated at the end of the 17th century when astronomy redefined many of the theoretical concepts it had previously shared with astrology.)
Historically, the word ''star'' has had a loose definition, by which it can refer to planets or any luminous celestial object. The notion of it signifying all heavenly bodies is evident in early Babylonian astrology where cuneiform depictions for the determinative ''MUL'' (star) present a symbol of stars alongside planetary and other stellar references to indicate deified objects which reside in the heavens. The word ''planet'' (based on the Greek verb ''planaō'' 'to wander/stray'), was introduced by the Greeks as a reference to how seven notable 'stars' were seen to 'wander' through others which remained static in their relationship to each other. The Greeks employed the terms ''asteres aplaneis'' ‘fixed stars’, and ''asteres planetai'', ‘wandering stars’. The word planet assumed astronomical formality over time, although Pliny (77 AD) illustrated its irony once the planetary cycles were known to be regular and predictable: "...the seven stars, which owing to their motion we call planets, though no stars wander less than they do".
The seven Classical planets therefore comprise the Sun and Moon along with the solar-system planets that are visible to the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. This remained the standard definition of the word 'planet' until the discovery of Uranus in 1781 created a need for revision. Although the modern IAU definition of planet does not include the Sun and the Moon, astrology retains historical convention in its description of those astronomical bodies, and also generally maintains reference to Pluto as being an astrological planet.
Core principles
A central principle of astrology is integration within the cosmos. The individual, Earth, and its environment are viewed as a single organism, all parts of which are correlated with each other. Cycles of change that are observed in the heavens are therefore reflective (not causative) of similar cycles of change observed on earth and within the individual. This relationship is expressed in the Hermetic maxim "as above, so below; as below, so above", which postulates symmetry between the individual as a microcosm and the celestial environment as a macrocosm. Accordingly, the natal horoscope depicts a stylized map of the universe at the time of birth, specifically focussed on the individual at its centre, with the Sun, Moon, and celestial bodies considered to be that individual’s personal planets or stars, which are uniquely relevant to that individual alone.At the heart of astrology is the metaphysical principle that mathematical relationships express qualities or ‘tones' of energy which manifest in numbers, visual angles, shapes and sounds – all connected within a pattern of proportion. Pythagoras first identified that the pitch of a musical note is in proportion to the length of the string that produces it, and that intervals between harmonious sound frequencies form simple numerical ratios. In a theory known as the Harmony of the Spheres, Pythagoras proposed that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit their own unique hum based on their orbital revolution, and that the quality of life on Earth reflects the tenor of celestial sounds which are physically imperceptible to the human ear. Subsequently, Plato described astronomy and music as "twinned" studies of sensual recognition: astronomy for the eyes, music for the ears, and both requiring knowledge of numerical proportions.
thumb|150px|left|[[William Blake|William Blake's characterisation of Isaac Newton working with the principle of Divine Proportion]]Later philosophers retained the close association between astronomy, optics, music and astrology, including Ptolemy, who wrote influential texts on all these topics. Alkindi, in the 9th century, developed Ptolemy's ideas in ''De Aspectibus'' which explores many points of relevance to astrology and the use of planetary aspects. In the 17th century, Kepler, also influenced by arguments in Ptolemy’s ''Optics'' and ''Harmonica'', compiled his Harmonices Mundi ('Harmony of the World'), which presented his own analysis of optical perceptions, geometrical shapes, musical consonances and planetary harmonies. Kepler regarded this text as the most important work of his career, and the fifth part, concerning the role of planetary harmony in Creation, the crown of it. His premise was that, as an integral part of Universal Law, mathematical harmony is the key that binds all parts together: one theoretical proposition from his work introduced the minor planetary aspects into astrology; another introduced Kepler’s third law of planetary motion into astronomy.
Another core principle is examplified by an astrological maxim used by the leader of early modern science, Francis Bacon: "The last rule (which has always been held by the wiser astrologers) is that there is no fatal necessity in the stars; but that they rather incline than compel". Bacon advocated an emphasis on what he called "sane astrology" based on the study of tractable influences that "lie concealed in the depths of Physic". His arguments reflect how astrology has always involved consideration of the psyche, a more recent expression of which can be found in the writings of Carl Jung and the development of modern psychological astrology.
History
Astrology in the ancient world
Astrology began as a study as soon as conscious attempts were made to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles. Early evidence of this appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show lunar cycles were being noted as early as 25,000 years ago; the first step towards recording the Moon’s influence upon tides and rivers, and towards organizing a communal calendar. Agricultural needs were also met by increasing knowledge of constellations, whose appearances change with the seasons, allowing the rising of particular star-groups to herald annual floods or seasonal activities. By the third millennium BCE, widespread civilizations had developed sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and are believed to have consciously oriented their temples to create alignment with the heliacal risings of the stars.There is scattered evidence to suggest that the oldest known astrological references are copies of texts made during this period. Two, from the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa (compiled in Babylon round 1700 BCE) are reported to have been made during the reign of king Sargon of Akkad (2334-2279 BCE). Another, showing an early use of electional astrology, is ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash (ca. 2144-2124 BCE). This describes how the gods revealed to him in a dream the constellations that would be most favourable for the planned construction of a temple. However, controversy attends the question of whether they were genuinely recorded at the time or merely ascribed to ancient rulers by posterity. The oldest undisputed evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated system of knowledge is therefore attributed to the records that emerge from the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950-1651 BC). This gives astrology a recognised 4,000 year history as a body of organised logic which can be seen to have been employed in the affairs of a civilised state.
Byzantine and early medieval Islamic astrology
thumb |200px| alt=Image of a Latin astrological text |Latin translation of Abū Maʿshar's ''De Magnis Coniunctionibus'' (‘Of the great [[Conjunction (astronomy and astrology)|conjunctions’), Venice, 1515.]]Astrology was taken up enthusiastically by Islamic scholars following the collapse of Alexandria to the Arabs in the 7th century, and the founding of the Abbasid empire in the 8th. The second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754-775) founded the city of Baghdad to act as a centre of learning, and included in its design a library-translation centre known as ''Bayt al-Hikma'' ‘Storehouse of Wisdom’, which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. The early translators included Mashallah, who helped to elect the time for the foundation of Baghdad, and Sahl ibn Bishr (a.k.a ''Zael''), whose texts were directly influential upon later European astrologers such as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century. Knowledge of Arabic texts started to become imported into Europe during the Latin translations of the 12th century, the effect of which was to help initiate the European Renaissance.Other important Arabic astrologers include Albumasur, whose work ''Introductorium in Astronomiam'' became a popular treatise in medieval Europe, and Al Khwarizmi, the Persian mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, who is considered the father of algebra and the algorithm. The Arabs greatly increased the knowledge of astronomical cycles, and many of the star names that remain in common use today, such as Aldebaran, Altair, Betelgeuse, Rigel and Vega retain the legacy of their language.
Astrology in the modern era
Early in the 20th century, Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, developed sophisticated theories concerning astrology. These included concepts such as archetypes, the collective unconscious and with the collaboration of pioneer theoretical physicist (and Nobel laureate), Wolfgang Pauli, synchronicity. Astrologers like Dane Rudhyar pursued a similar path to Jung and others such as Liz Greene and Stephen Arroyo were influenced by the Jungian model leading to the development of psychological astrology.During the middle of the 20th century, Alfred Witte and, following him, Reinhold Ebertin pioneered the use of midpoints (see Midpoint Astrology) in horoscopic analysis. A new kind of Locational Astrology began in 1957–58, when Donald Bradley, published a hand-plotted geographic astrology map. In the 1970s, American astrologer Jim Lewis developed and popularized this technique under the name of Astro*Carto*Graphy. The world map displays lines where the Sun, Moon, planets and other celestial points appear to be on any of the Four Angles (Rising, Setting, MC and IC) at a given moment in time. By comparing these lines with the horoscope, an astrologer attempts to identify the potential in any location.
Effects on world culture
Belief in astrology holds firm today in many parts of the world: in one poll, 31% of Americans expressed belief in astrology and according to another study 39% considered it scientific. According to Gallup opinion polls, around 25% of adults in the UK and USA accept that astrology or the position of the stars and planets affect people’s lives, whilst other sources report the figure to be much higher.
Astrology has had an influence on both language and literature. For example, influenza, from medieval Latin ''influentia'' 'influence', was so named because doctors once believed epidemics to be caused by unfavourable celestial influences. The word disaster comes from the Greek δυσαστρία, ''disastria'', derived from the negative prefix δυσ-, ''dis''- and αστήρ, ''aster'' 'star', meaning not-starred or badly-starred. The adjectives lunatic (Luna/Moon), mercurial (Mercury), venereal (Venus), martial (Mars), jovial (Jupiter/Jove), and saturnine (Saturn) are all used to describe personal qualities thought to be influenced by the astrological characteristics of predominating personal planets.
In literature many writers, such as Chaucer and Shakespeare, used astrological symbolism to add subtlety and nuance to the description of their characters' motivations. More recently, Michael Ward has proposed that C.S. Lewis imbued his ''Chronicles of Narnia'' with the characteristics and symbols of the seven planets that govern the heavens in medieval astrology. In 1978, notes from Margaret Mitchell’s library revealed that she had based each character from her classic prize-winning novel, Gone with Wind (1936), including the central star-crossed lovers, Scarlett (Aries) and Rhett (Leo), around an archetype of the zodiac. In 2010, a detailed personal horoscope analyzed and illustrated by J.K. Rowling at the time she was writing her first Harry Potter novel, came up for sale. The auctioneer commented that Rowling “displays a detailed knowledge of Western astrology which was later to play an important part in her books". Often, an understanding of astrological symbolism is needed to fully appreciate such literature.
In music the best known example of astrology's influence is in the orchestral suite ''The Planets'' by British composer Gustav Holst, the framework of which is based on the astrological tones and signatures of the planets.
Research
Although astrology has not been considered a science for some time, it has been the subject of research studies by astrologers since before the 20th century.
Methods
The investigation of astrology has used the empirical methods of both qualitative research and quantitative research. The most common forms of qualitative research are case study and pattern matching (cycle research), but data coding, and grounded theory have also been used. These are all methods that astrology shares with the social sciences and observers have called for a more disciplined approach in their use. One area of cycle research examines correspondences between the long term revolutions of planetary alignments and recurrent historic cultural themes as researched, for example, by Richard Tarnas. Another area that combines cycle research with data coding is referred to as ''cosmic cybernetics'', a term coined by Theodor Landscheidt. This method compares the harmonic frequencies and structures of planetary positions to statistical evaluations of data, including economic indexes. This approach, which hearkens back to 17th century astronomer Johannes Kepler, has been increasingly developed through trend fitting and computer modeling.The use of statistical inference as an empirical method of quantitative research in astrology was recognized by early modern scientists and one of the first attempts at this method of experimentation was John Goad's 30-year astrological study of weather ''Astro-Meteorologia'' published in 1686. By the latter half of the 20th century, statistical methods and access to accurate birth data had improved and sophisticated research efforts on larger scales became possible. Some of these experiments attempted to definitively test whether astrological propositions and practices could be either supported or falsified. Two examples stand out as the most closely scrutinized and best documented of this type of research. The first is the large scale statistical experiments that challenged astrological propositions by French psychologist and statistician Michel Gauquelin. The second is the double-blind chart interpretation experiment that challenged astrological practice by American science educator Shawn Carlson. Controversy, skepticism, and accusations have dogged both of these famous studies through many twists and turns.
Gauquelin's research
In 1955, Michel Gauquelin published the claim that although he had failed to find evidence to support such indicators as the zodiacal signs and planetary aspects in astrology, he had found positive correlations between the diurnal positions of some of the planets and success in professions (such as doctors, scientists, athletes, actors, writers, painters, etc.) which astrology traditionally associates with those planets. The immense weight of the Gauquelin claim, which in the words of American astronomer George Abell, "would lie well beyond anything that science could at present understand," was grounds for skeptics to maintain, as long as possible, "less incredible explanations" of those results. The most well-known of Gauquelin's findings, which has been repeatedly tested in various studies and fought over, is based on the positions of Mars in the natal charts of successful athletes and became known as the "Mars effect".In a long series of tests and counter-tests spanning decades of discourse, Gauquelin and independent studies by other scientists verified that the Mars effect is not due to astronomical or demographic artifacts, that the methodologies were free from error, that studies of independently collected data demonstrated the effect, that birth-time shuffle tests supported the presence of the effect, that the Mars effect is not found in ordinary people, and that the effect cannot be explained by data selection bias.
The issue of selection bias, as to who was a "successful" athlete, had been a major bone of contention. As a method of “raising the hurdle” to objectively eliminate selection bias in the Mars tests, German professor Suitbert Ertel developed a stringent data ranking protocol based on citation frequencies. When the entire Gauquelin database for athletes, from the famous to the inferior (N = 4,391) was tested, this data-ranking hurdle elevated the slope of the astrological effect. Other planetary effects discovered by Gauquelin also crossed this hurdle. However, no challenge of these planetary effects has ever successfully passed this data-ranking criterion but instead it has been ignored in subsequent skeptical research without any reason given. Ertel and others have since found the eminence effect present in every data set collected by the skeptical groups.
Carlson's experiment
A different approach to testing astrology quantitatively uses blind experiment. The most renowned of these is Shawn Carlson's double-blind chart matching tests in which he challenged 28 astrologers to match over 100 natal charts to psychological profiles generated by the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) test. When Carlson's study was published in Nature in 1985, his conclusion was that natal astrology as practiced by reputable astrologers was no better than chance.Initially, the Carlson experiment was criticized as having a biased design that made the astrologers' tasks more difficult than they needed to be, but deeper flaws in method and analysis emerged. Carlson had disregarded his own stated criteria of evaluation, grouped data into irrelevant categories, rejected unexpected results without reporting them, and drew an illogical conclusion based on the null hypothesis. When the stated measurement criterion was applied, and the published data was evaluated according to the normal conventions of the social sciences, the two tests performed by the participating astrologers provided significant evidence (astrologers' ranking test: p = .054 with ES = .15, and astrologers' rating test: p = .037 with ES = .10), despite the unfair design, of their ability to successfully match CPIs to natal charts. Observers have called for more detailed and stringent double-blind experiments.
Obstacles to research
Astrologers have argued that there are significant obstacles in carrying out scientific research into astrology today, including lack of funding, insufficient background in statistics, limited experience within the scientific community on the part of proponents, and insufficient expertise and exposure to astrology by opposing researchers. Some astrologers have argued that few practitioners today have the time or even care to pursue scientific testing of astrology because they feel that working with clients on a daily basis provides personal validation for their clients.Another argument made by astrologers is that most studies of astrology do not reflect the nature of astrological practice. Some astrology proponents argue that the prevailing attitudes or motives of many opponents of astrology introduce conscious or unconscious bias in the formulation of hypotheses to be tested, the conduct of the tests, or the reporting of results.
Astrologers may also find it difficult to publish their research in mainstream scientific journals for several reasons, and a case has been made to underline this difficulty from a much wider perspective.
Mechanisms
In 1975, amid increasing popular interest in astrology, a widely publicized article, "Objections to Astrology," published in ''The Humanist'' in the form of a manifesto signed by 186 scientists, sparked a scientific controversy. In particular, "Objections to Astrology" focused on the question of astrological mechanisms with the following words:}}
Astronomer Carl Sagan, host of the award-winning TV series Cosmos, said that he found himself unable sign the "Objections" statement, not because he thought that astrology was valid, but because he found the statement's tone authoritarian, and because objections on the grounds of an unavailable mechanism can be mistaken. "No mechanism was known," Sagan wrote, "for continental drift (now subsumed in plate tectonics) when it was proposed by Alfred Wegener... The notion was roundly dismissed by all the great geophysicists, who were certain that continents were fixed." Sagan stated that he would instead have been willing to sign a statement describing and refuting the principal tenets of astrological belief, which he believed would have been more persuasive and would have produced less controversy.
Few astrologers believe that astrology can be explained by any direct causal mechanisms between planets and people. Researchers have posited acausal, purely correlational, relationships between astrological observations and events. For example, the theory of synchronicity proposed by Carl Jung, which draws from the Hermetic principle ("as above, so below"), postulates meaningful significance in unrelated events that occur simultaneously. Some astrologers have posited a basis in divination. Others have argued that empirical correlations stand on their own, and do not need the support of any theory or mechanism. A few researchers, such as astronomer Percy Seymour, have sought to describe a mechanism that could potentially explain astrology.
Criticisms
Scientific criticism
Since the late 17th century when astronomy and astrology became separate disciplines, astrology has been increasingly criticized by scientists. For example, Christiaan Huygens wrote in his ''Cosmotheoros'': "And as for the Judicial Astrology, that pretends to foretel what is to come, it is such a ridiculous, and oftentimes mischievous Folly, that I do not think it fit to be so much as named."Contemporary scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, regard astrology as unscientific, and those such as Andrew Fraknoi of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific have labeled it a pseudoscience. In a lecture in 2001, Stephen Hawking stated "The reason most scientists don't believe in astrology is because it is not consistent with our theories that have been tested by experiment."
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson asserted that "astrology was discredited 600 years ago with the birth of modern science. 'To teach it as though you are contributing to the fundamental knowledge of an informed electorate is astonishing in this, the 21st century'. Education should be about knowing how to think, 'And part of knowing how to think is knowing how the laws of nature shape the world around us. Without that knowledge, without that capacity to think, you can easily become a victim of people who seek to take advantage of you. The founder of the school, to which Tyson's criticism was directed responded "It's quite obvious that he hasn't studied the subject."
The criticisms that have been raised against astrology by modern scientists are that it is conjectural and supplies no hypotheses, proves difficult to falsify, and resolves to describe natural events in terms of scientifically untestable supernatural causes. It has also been suggested that much of the continued faith in astrology could be psychologically explained as a matter of cognitive bias, although methodologies exist to remove cognitive biases in research studies.
Skeptics have claimed that the practice of western astrologers allows them to avoid making verifiable predictions, and gives them the ability to attach significance to arbitrary and unrelated events, in a way that suits their purpose, although science also provides methodologies to separate verifiable significance from arbitrary predictions in research experiments, as demonstrated by Gauquelin's research and Carlson's experiment.
Theological criticism
Some of the practices of astrology were refuted on theological grounds by medieval Muslim astronomers such as Al-Farabi (Alpharabius), Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) and Avicenna. Their criticisms argued that the methods of astrologers conflicted with orthodox religious views of Islamic scholars through the suggestion that the Will of God can be known and predicted in advance. Such refutations mainly concerned "judicial branches" (such as Horary astrology), rather than the more "natural branches" such as Medical and Meteorological astrology, these being seen as part of the natural sciences of the time.For example, Avicenna’s 'Refutation against astrology' ''Resāla fī ebṭāl aḥkām al-nojūm'', argues against the practice of astrology while supporting the principle of planets acting as the agents of divine causation which express God's absolute power over creation. Avicenna considered that the movement of the planets influenced life on earth in a deterministic way, but argued against the capability of determining the exact influence of the stars. In essence, Avicenna did not refute the essential dogma of astrology, but denied our ability to understand it to the extent that precise and fatalistic predictions could be made from it.
Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292–1350), in his ''Miftah Dar al-SaCadah'', also used physical arguments in astronomy to question the practice of judicial astrology. He recognized that the stars are much larger than the planets, and argued:
Other cultural systems of astrology
Although most cultural systems of astrology share common roots in ancient philosophies that influenced each other, many have unique methodologies which differ from those developed in the west. The two most significant of these are Hindu astrology (a.k.a 'Indian astrology', often referred to as Vedic astrology in modern times) and Chinese astrology. Both of these systems have yielded great influence upon the world's cultural history and remain popular even amongst western practitioners of astrology today. In addition the principles of Sri Lankan and Tibetan astrology (largely based upon Vedic Astrology with some modification according to Buddhist teachings) are also gaining popularity amongst modern western practitioners. ''See also list of astrological traditions, types, and systems.''
Hindu
Hindu astrology uses a different zodiac than Western astrology and is a branch of Vedic science. In India, there is a long-established widespread belief in astrology, and it is commonly used for daily life, foremost with regard to marriages, and secondarily with regard to career and electional and karmic astrology. In the 1960s, H.R. Seshadri Iyer, introduced a system including the concepts of yogi and avayogi. It generated interest with research oriented astrologers in the West. From the early 1990s, Western Vedic astrologer and author V.K. Choudhry created and developed the Systems' Approach for Interpreting Horoscopes, a simplified system of Jyotish (predictive astrology) The system, also known as "SA", helps those who are trying to learn Jyotisha. The late K.S. Krishnamurti developed the Krishnamurti Paddhati system based on the analysis of the stars (nakshatras), by sub-dividing the stars in the ratio of the dasha of the concerned planets. The system is also known as "KP" and "sub theory". In 2001, Indian scientists and politicians debated and critiqued a proposal to use state money to fund research into astrology. In February, 2001, the science of vedic astrology, Jyotir Vigyan, was introduced into the curriculum of Indian universities.
Astrological education
Education in astrology is offered in most countries of the world. Below is a sampler.
United States
In the United States, astrological education is offered at institutions such as Kepler College, a liberal arts college with an emphasis on astrology in Lynnwood, Washington, near Seattle, which opened in 2001 and awarded its first 8 Bachelor of Arts degrees in Astrological Studies in 2004. Students attending Kepler College after March 9, 2010, however, unless they are completing a course of study, are not awarded degrees but certificates of completion of a course of study. The degrees granted by Kepler are not recognized by national or regional accrediting agencies. Other astrological organizations offer study programs and correspondence courses which, after examination, certifies astrologers.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, astrological education is offered at a number of institutions, some offering a diploma upon completion of the course and an examination. In addition, the University of Wales of Lampeter offers an MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology.
India
In February, 2001, the "science" of vedic astrology, Jyotir Vigyan, was introduced into the curriculum of Indian universities. Undergraduate (called "graduate" in India) post-graduate and research courses of study were established. "Beneficiaries of these courses would be students, teachers, professionals from modern streams like doctors, architects, marketing, financial, economic and political analysts, etc." In April, 2001 the Andhra Pradesh High Court declined to consider a petition to overturn the curriculum guideline on the ground that astrology was a pseudoscience, a decision affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2004 which declined as a matter of law to interfere with educational policy. The court noted that astrology studies were optional and that courses in astrology were offered by institutions of higher education in other countries.
Notes, references and sources
Supplimentary notes
''See also'' Babylonian astrology.
References
Sources
External links
Category:Hermeticism Category:Mysticism Category:Popular psychology Category:Superstitions Category:Symbolism Category:Pseudoscience
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| Coordinates | 16°32′″N97°36′″N |
|---|---|
| name | Carl Sagan |
| birth date | November 09, 1934 |
| birth place | Brooklyn, New York City, U.S. |
| residence | United States |
| nationality | American |
| death date | December 20, 1996 |
| death place | Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| death cause | Pneumonia |
| education | Rahway High School |
| alma mater | University of Chicago,Cornell University |
| field | Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Astrobiology, Space science, Planetary science |
| work institutions | Cornell UniversityHarvard UniversitySmithsonian Astrophysical ObservatoryUniversity of California, Berkeley |
| alma mater | University of Chicago(B.A.), (B.Sc.), (M.Sc.), (Ph.D.) |
| known for | Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage''''Cosmos''Voyager Golden RecordPioneer plaque''Contact''''Pale Blue Dot'' |
| prizes | Oersted Medal (1990)NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (twice)Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (1978)National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal (1994) }} |
Carl Edward Sagan () (November 9, 1934 December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in the space and natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated skeptical inquiry and the scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
Sagan became world-famous for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series ''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage'', which he narrated and co-wrote. A book to accompany the program was also published. Sagan also wrote the novel ''Contact'', the basis for the 1997 film of the same name.
Early life
Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to a Ukrainian Jewish family. His father, Sam Sagan, was an immigrant garment worker from Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine; his mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, a housewife. Carl was named in honor of Rachel's biological mother, Chaiya Clara, in Sagan's words, "the mother she never knew." Sagan graduated from Rahway High School in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1951.He had one sister, Carol, and the family lived in a modest apartment near the Atlantic Ocean, in Bensonhurst, a Brooklyn neighborhood. According to Sagan, they were Reform Jews, the most liberal of the three main Jewish groups. Both Sagan and his sister agree that their father was not especially religious, but that their mother "definitely believed in God, and was active in the temple ... and served only Kosher meat." During the height of the Depression, his father had to accept a job as a theater usher.
According to biographer Keay Davidson, Sagan's "inner war" was a result of his close relations with both his parents, who were in many ways "opposites." Sagan traced his later analytical urges to his mother, a woman who had known "extreme poverty as a child," and had grown up almost homeless in New York City during World War I and the 1920s. She had her own intellectual ambitions as a young woman, but they were blocked by social restrictions, because of her poverty, her being a woman and wife, and her Jewish religion. Davidson notes that she therefore "worshiped her only son, Carl. He would fulfill her unfulfilled dreams."
However, his "sense of wonder" came from his father, who was a "quiet and soft-hearted escapee from the Czar." In his free time, he gave apples to the poor, or helped soothe labor-management tensions within New York's "tumultuous" garment industry. Although he was "awed" by Carl's "brilliance, his boyish chatter about stars and dinosaurs," he took his son's inquisitiveness in stride, as part of his growing up. In his later years as a writer and scientist, Sagan would often draw on his childhood memories to illustrate scientific points, as he did in his book, ''Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors''. Sagan describes his parents' influence on his later thinking:
:''My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method.''
1939 World's Fair
Sagan recalls that one of his best experiences was when he was four or five years old, his parents took him to the 1939 New York World's Fair. The exhibits became a turning point in his life. He later recalled the moving map of the "America of Tomorrow" exhibit: "It showed beautiful highways and cloverleaves and little General Motors cars all carrying people to skyscrapers, buildings with lovely spires, flying buttresses — and it looked great!" At other exhibits, he remembered how a flashlight that shined on a photoelectric cell created a cracking sound, and how the sound from a tuning fork became a wave on an oscilloscope. He also witnessed the future media technology that would replace radio: television. Sagan wrote::''Plainly, the world held wonders of a kind I had never guessed. How could a tone become a picture and light become a noise?''
He also saw one of the Fair's most publicized events, the burial of a time capsule at Flushing Meadows, which contained mementos of the 1930s to be recovered by Earth's descendants in a future millennium. "The time capsule thrilled Carl," writes Davidson. As an adult, Sagan and his colleagues created similar time capsules, but ones that would be sent out into the galaxy. These were the Pioneer plaque and the ''Voyager Golden Record'' records, all of which were spinoffs of Sagan's memories of the World Fair.
World War II
During World War II, Sagan's family worried about the fate of their European relatives. Sagan, however, was generally unaware of the details of the ongoing war. He writes, "Sure, we had relatives who were caught up in the Holocaust. Hitler was not a popular fellow in our household ... But on the other hand, I was fairly insulated from the horrors of the war." His sister, Carol, said that their mother "above all wanted to protect Carl ... She had an extraordinarily difficult time dealing with World War II and the Holocaust." Sagan's book, ''The Demon-Haunted World'' (1996), included his memories of this conflicted period in his life, where his family dealt with the realities of the war in Europe, but tried to prevent it from undermining his optimistic spirit.
Inquisitiveness about nature
Soon after entering elementary school, he began to express a strong inquisitiveness about nature. Sagan recalled taking his first trips to the public library alone, at the age of five, when his mother got him a library card. He wanted to learn what stars were, since none of his friends or their parents could give him a clear answer: :''I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars ... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light ... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.''About the time he was six or seven, he and a close friend took trips to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. While there, they went to the Hayden Planetarium and walked around the museum's exhibits of space objects, such as meteorites, and displays of dinosaurs and animals in natural settings. Sagan writes about those visits: :''I was transfixed by the dioramas — lifelike representations of animals and their habitats all over the world. Penguins on the dimly lit Antarctic ice; ... a family of gorillas, the male beating his chest, ... an American grizzly bear standing on his hind legs, ten or twelve feet tall, and staring me right in the eye.''
His parents helped nurture his growing interest in science by buying him chemistry sets and reading materials. His interest in space, however, was his primary focus, especially after reading science fiction stories by writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, which stirred his imagination about life on other planets, such as Mars. According to biographer Ray Spangenburg, these early years as Sagan tried to understand the mysteries of the planets, became a "driving force in his life, a continual spark to his intellect, and a quest that would never be forgotten."
Education and scientific career
He attended the University of Chicago, where he participated in the Ryerson Astronomical Society, received a bachelor of arts with general and special honors in 1954, a bachelor of science in 1955, and a master of science in physics in 1956 before earning a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960. During his time as an undergraduate, Sagan worked in the laboratory of the geneticist H. J. Muller. From 1960 to 1962 Sagan was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1962 to 1968, he worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Sagan lectured and did research at Harvard University until 1968, when he moved to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He became a full Professor at Cornell in 1971, and he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies there. From 1972 to 1981, Sagan was the Associate Director of the Center for Radio Physics and Space Research at Cornell.
Sagan was associated with the American space program from its inception. From the 1950s onward, he worked as an advisor to NASA, where one of his duties included briefing the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon. Sagan contributed to many of the robotic spacecraft missions that explored the solar system, arranging experiments on many of the expeditions. He conceived the idea of adding an unalterable and universal message on spacecraft destined to leave the solar system that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find it. Sagan assembled the first physical message that was sent into space: a gold-anodized plaque, attached to the space probe Pioneer 10, launched in 1972. Pioneer 11, also carrying another copy of the plaque, was launched the following year. He continued to refine his designs; the most elaborate message he helped to develop and assemble was the Voyager Golden Record that was sent out with the Voyager space probes in 1977. Sagan often challenged the decisions to fund the Space Shuttle and Space Station at the expense of further robotic missions.
Sagan taught a course on critical thinking at Cornell University until he died in 1996 from pneumonia, a few months after finding that he was in remission of myelodysplastic syndrome.
Scientific achievements
Sagan's contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of the planet Venus. In the early 1960s no one knew for certain the basic conditions of that planet's surface, and Sagan listed the possibilities in a report later depicted for popularization in a Time-Life book, ''Planets''. His own view was that Venus was dry and very hot as opposed to the balmy paradise others had imagined. He had investigated radio emissions from Venus and concluded that there was a surface temperature of . As a visiting scientist to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he contributed to the first Mariner missions to Venus, working on the design and management of the project. Mariner 2 confirmed his conclusions on the surface conditions of Venus in 1962.Sagan was among the first to hypothesize that Saturn's moon Titan might possess oceans of liquid compounds on its surface and that Jupiter's moon Europa might possess subsurface oceans of water. This would make Europa potentially habitable for life. Europa's subsurface ocean of water was later indirectly confirmed by the spacecraft Galileo. Sagan also helped solve the mystery of the reddish haze seen on Titan, revealing that it is composed of complex organic molecules constantly raining down onto the moon's surface.
He further contributed insights regarding the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter as well as seasonal changes on Mars. Sagan established that the atmosphere of Venus is extremely hot and dense with pressures increasing steadily all the way down to the surface. He also perceived global warming as a growing, man-made danger and likened it to the natural development of Venus into a hot, life-hostile planet through a kind of runaway greenhouse effect. Sagan and his Cornell colleague Edwin Ernest Salpeter speculated about life in Jupiter's clouds, given the planet's dense atmospheric composition rich in organic molecules. He studied the observed color variations on Mars' surface and concluded that they were not seasonal or vegetational changes as most believed but shifts in surface dust caused by windstorms.
Sagan is best known, however, for his research on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation.
He is also the 1994 recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences for "distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare." He was denied membership in the Academy, reportedly because his media activities made him unpopular with many other scientists.
Sagan's ability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos — simultaneously emphasizing the value and worthiness of the human race, and the relative insignificance of the Earth in comparison to the universe. He delivered the 1977 series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in London. He hosted and, with Ann Druyan, co-wrote and co-produced the highly popular thirteen-part PBS television series ''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage'' modeled on Jacob Bronowski's ''The Ascent of Man''.
Sagan was a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life. He urged the scientific community to listen with radio telescopes for signals from intelligent extraterrestrial life-forms. So persuasive was he that by 1982 he was able to get a petition advocating SETI published in the journal ''Science'' and signed by 70 scientists including seven Nobel Prize winners. This was a tremendous turnaround in the respectability of this controversial field. Sagan also helped Dr. Frank Drake write the Arecibo message, a radio message beamed into space from the Arecibo radio telescope on November 16, 1974, aimed at informing extraterrestrials about Earth.
Sagan was chief technology officer of the professional planetary research journal ''Icarus'' for twelve years. He co-founded the ''Planetary Society'', the largest space-interest group in the world, with over 100,000 members in more than 149 countries, and was a member of the SETI Institute Board of Trustees. Sagan served as Chairman of the Division for Planetary Science of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and as Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
At the height of the Cold War, Sagan became involved in public awareness efforts for the effects of nuclear war when a mathematical climate model suggested that a substantial nuclear exchange could upset the delicate balance of life on Earth. He was one of five authors — the "S" of the "TTAPS" report as the research paper came to be known. He eventually co-authored the scientific paper hypothesizing a global nuclear winter following nuclear war. He also co-authored the book ''A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race'', a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of nuclear winter.
''Cosmos'' covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe. The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, winning an Emmy and a Peabody Award. It has been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 500 million people, making it the most widely watched PBS program in history. In addition, ''Time'' magazine ran a cover story about Sagan soon after the show broadcast, referring to him as "creator, chief writer and host-narrator of the new public television series Cosmos, [and] takes the controls of his fantasy spaceship."
Sagan also wrote books to popularize science, such as ''Cosmos'', which reflected and expanded upon some of the themes of ''A Personal Voyage'', and became the best-selling science book ever published in English; ''The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence'', which won a Pulitzer Prize; and ''Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science''. Sagan also wrote the best-selling science fiction novel ''Contact'' in 1985, based on a film treatment he wrote with his wife in 1979, but he did not live to see the book's 1997 motion picture adaptation, which starred Jodie Foster and won the 1998 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Adaption.
thumb|left|Pale Blue Dot: Earth is a bright pixel when photographed from "Voyager 1" six billion kilometers out (past Pluto). Sagan encouraged NASA to generate this image. He wrote a sequel to ''Cosmos,'' ''Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space'', which was selected as a notable book of 1995 by ''The New York Times''. He appeared on PBS' Charlie Rose program in January 1995. Sagan also wrote an introduction for the bestselling book by Stephen Hawking, ''A Brief History of Time''. Sagan was also known for his popularization of science, his efforts to increase scientific understanding among the general public, and his positions in favor of scientific skepticism and against pseudoscience, such as his debunking of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction. To mark the tenth anniversary of Sagan's passing, David Morrison, a former student of Sagan, recalled "Sagan's immense contributions to planetary research, the public understanding of science, and the skeptical movement" in ''Skeptical Inquirer''.
Sagan hypothesized in January 1991 that enough smoke from the 1991 Kuwaiti oil fires "might get so high as to disrupt agriculture in much of South Asia ..." He later conceded in ''The Demon-Haunted World'' that this prediction did not turn out to be correct: "it ''was'' pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4°–6°C over the Persian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared." A 2007 study noted that modern computer models have been applied to the Kuwait oil fires, finding that individual smoke plumes are not able to loft smoke into the stratosphere, but that smoke from fires covering a large area, like some forest fires or the burning of cities that would be expected to follow a nuclear strike, would loft significant amounts of smoke into the stratosphere.
In his later years Sagan advocated the creation of an organized search for near Earth objects that might impact the Earth. When others suggested creating large nuclear bombs that could be used to alter the orbit of a NEO that was predicted to hit the Earth, Sagan proposed the Deflection Dilemma: If we create the ability to deflect an asteroid away from the Earth, then we also create the ability to deflect an asteroid towards the Earth — providing an evil power with a true doomsday bomb.
Billions and billions
From ''Cosmos'' and his frequent appearances on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', Sagan became associated with the catchphrase "billions and billions". Sagan stated that he never actually used the phrase in the ''Cosmos'' series. The closest that he ever came was in the book ''Cosmos'', where he talked of "billions ''upon'' billions": }}
However, his frequent use of the word ''billions'', and distinctive delivery emphasizing the "b" (which he did intentionally, in place of more cumbersome alternatives such as "billions with a 'b'", in order to distinguish the word from "millions" in viewers' minds), made him a favorite target of comic performers, including Johnny Carson, Gary Kroeger, Mike Myers, Bronson Pinchot, Penn Jillette, Harry Shearer, and others. Frank Zappa satirized the line in the song "Be In My Video", noting as well "atomic light". Sagan took this all in good humor, and his final book was entitled ''Billions and Billions'' which opened with a tongue-in-cheek discussion of this catchphrase, observing that Carson himself was an amateur astronomer and that Carson's comic caricature often included real science.
The popular perception of his characterization of large cosmic quantities continued to be a sense of wonderment at the vastness of space and time, as in his phrase "The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth." However, this famous saying was widely misunderstood, as he was in fact referring to the world being at a "critical branch point in history" as in the following quote from ''Cosmos: A Personal Voyage'', Episode 8: "Journeys in Space and Time":
"Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours and every one of them is a succession of incidents, events, occurrences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history: what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well."
Sagan units
As a humorous tribute to him, a ''sagan'' has been defined as a unit of measurement equal to at least four billion, since the lower bound of a number conforming to the constraint of ''billions and billions'' must be two billion plus two billion.
Social concerns
Sagan believed that the Drake equation, on substitution of reasonable estimates, suggested that a large number of extraterrestrial civilizations would form, but that the lack of evidence of such civilizations highlighted by the Fermi paradox suggests technological civilizations tend to destroy themselves rather quickly. This stimulated his interest in identifying and publicizing ways that humanity could destroy itself, with the hope of avoiding such a cataclysm and eventually becoming a spacefaring species. Sagan's deep concern regarding the potential destruction of human civilization in a nuclear holocaust was conveyed in a memorable cinematic sequence in the final episode of ''Cosmos'', called "Who Speaks for Earth?" Sagan had already resigned from the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and voluntarily surrendered his top secret clearance in protest over the Vietnam War. Following his marriage to his third wife (novelist Ann Druyan) in June 1981, Sagan became more politically active — particularly in opposing escalation of the nuclear arms race under President Ronald Reagan.In March 1983, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative — a multi-billion dollar project to develop a comprehensive defense against attack by nuclear missiles, which was quickly dubbed the "Star Wars" program. Sagan spoke out against the project, arguing that it was technically impossible to develop a system with the level of perfection required, and far more expensive to build than for an enemy to defeat through decoys and other means — and that its construction would seriously destabilize the nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union, making further progress toward nuclear disarmament impossible.
When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared a unilateral moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons, which would begin on August 6, 1985 — the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima — the Reagan administration dismissed the dramatic move as nothing more than propaganda, and refused to follow suit. In response, American anti-nuclear and peace activists staged a series of protest actions at the Nevada Test Site, beginning on Easter Sunday in 1986 and continuing through 1987. Hundreds of people were arrested, including Sagan, who was arrested on two separate occasions as he climbed over a chain-link fence at the test site.
Personal life and beliefs
Sagan was married three times — in 1957, to biologist Lynn Margulis, mother of Dorion Sagan and Jeremy Sagan; in 1968, to artist Linda Salzman, mother of Nick Sagan; and in 1981, to author Ann Druyan, mother of Alexandra Rachel (Sasha) Sagan and Samuel Democritus Sagan. His marriage to Druyan continued until his death in 1996.Isaac Asimov described Sagan as one of only two people he ever met whose intellect surpassed his own. The other, he claimed, was the computer scientist and artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky.
Sagan wrote frequently about religion and the relationship between religion and science, expressing his skepticism about the conventional conceptualization of God as a sapient being. For example:
Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others — for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein — considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws.
In another description of his view of God, Sagan emphatically writes:
The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.
Despite his criticism of religion, Sagan denied that he was an atheist, saying "An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid." In reply to a question in 1996 about his religious beliefs, Sagan answered, "I'm agnostic." Sagan maintained that the idea of a creator of the universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could challenge it would be an infinitely old universe. According to his last wife, Ann Druyan, he was not a believer: }}
In 2006, Ann Druyan edited Sagan's 1985 Glasgow ''Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology'' into a book, ''The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God'', in which he elaborates on his views of divinity in the natural world. Sagan is also widely regarded as a freethinker or skeptic; one of his most famous quotations, in ''Cosmos'', was, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (called the "Sagan Standard" by some). This was based on a nearly identical statement by fellow founder of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Marcello Truzzi, "An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof." This idea originated with Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), a French mathematician and astronomer who said, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."
Late in his life, Sagan's books elaborated on his skeptical, naturalistic view of the world. In ''The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark'', he presented tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent ones, essentially advocating wide use of critical thinking and the scientific method. The compilation ''Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium'', published in 1997 after Sagan's death, contains essays written by Sagan, such as his views on abortion, and his widow Ann Druyan's account of his death as a skeptic, agnostic, and freethinker.
Sagan warned against humans' tendency towards anthropocentrism. He was the faculty adviser for the Cornell Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. In the ''Cosmos'' chapter "Blues For a Red Planet", Sagan wrote, "If there is life on Mars, I believe we should do nothing with Mars. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if the Martians are only microbes."
Sagan was a user and advocate of marijuana. Under the pseudonym "Mr. X", he contributed an essay about smoking cannabis to the 1971 book ''Marihuana Reconsidered''. The essay explained that marijuana use had helped to inspire some of Sagan's works and enhance sensual and intellectual experiences. After Sagan's death, his friend Lester Grinspoon disclosed this information to Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson. The publishing of the biography, ''Carl Sagan: A Life'', in 1999 brought media attention to this aspect of Sagan's life. Not long after his death, widow Ann Druyan had gone on to preside over the board of directors of NORML, a foundation dedicated to reforming cannabis laws.
In 1994, engineers at Apple Computer code-named the Power Macintosh 7100 "Carl Sagan" in the hope that Apple would make "billions and billions" with the sale of the PowerMac 7100. The name was only used internally, but Sagan was concerned that it would become a product endorsement and sent Apple a cease and desist letter. Apple complied, but engineers retaliated by changing the internal codename to "BHA" for "Butt-Head Astronomer". Sagan then sued Apple for libel, a form of defamation, in federal court. The court granted Apple's motion to dismiss Sagan's claims and opined in dicta that a reader aware of the context would understand Apple was "clearly attempting to retaliate in a humorous and satirical way", and that "It strains reason to conclude that Defendant was attempting to criticize Plaintiff's reputation or competency as an astronomer. One does not seriously attack the expertise of a scientist using the undefined phrase 'butt-head'." Sagan then sued for Apple's original use of his name and likeness, but again lost. Sagan appealed the ruling. In November 1995, an out of court settlement was reached and Apple's office of trademarks and patents released a conciliatory statement that "Apple has always had great respect for Dr. Sagan. It was never Apple's intention to cause Dr. Sagan or his family any embarrassment or concern."
Sagan briefly served as an adviser on Stanley Kubrick's film ''2001: A Space Odyssey''. Sagan proposed that the film would suggest, rather than depict, extraterrestrial superintelligence.
Sagan and UFOs
Sagan had some interest in UFO reports from at least 1964 when he had several conversations on the subject with Jacques Vallee. Though quite skeptical of any extraordinary answer to the UFO question, Sagan thought scientists should study the phenomenon, at least because there was widespread public interest in UFO reports.Stuart Appelle notes that Sagan "wrote frequently on what he perceived as the logical and empirical fallacies regarding UFOs and the abduction experience. Sagan rejected an extraterrestrial explanation for the phenomenon but felt there were both empirical and pedagogical benefits for examining UFO reports and that the subject was, therefore, a legitimate topic of study."
In 1966, Sagan was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's UFO investigation project. The committee concluded Blue Book had been lacking as a scientific study, and recommended a university-based project to give the UFO phenomenon closer scientific scrutiny. The result was the Condon Committee (1966–1968), led by physicist Edward Condon, and in their final report they formally concluded that UFOs, regardless of what any of them actually were, did not behave in a manner consistent with a threat to national security.
Ron Westrum writes that "The high point of Sagan's treatment of the UFO question was the AAAS's symposium in 1969. A wide range of educated opinions on the subject were offered by participants, including not only proponents such as James McDonald and J. Allen Hynek but also skeptics like astronomers William Hartmann and Donald Menzel. The roster of speakers was balanced, and it is to Sagan's credit that this event was presented in spite of pressure from Edward Condon". With physicist Thornton Page, Sagan edited the lectures and discussions given at the symposium; these were published in 1972 as ''UFOs: A Scientific Debate''. Some of Sagan's many books examine UFOs (as did one episode of ''Cosmos'') and he claimed a religious undercurrent to the phenomenon.
Sagan again revealed his views on interstellar travel in his 1980 ''Cosmos'' series. In one of his last written works, Sagan argued that the chances of extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting Earth are vanishingly small. However, Sagan did think it plausible that Cold War concerns contributed to governments misleading their citizens about UFOs, and that "some UFO reports and analyses, and perhaps voluminous files, have been made inaccessible to the public which pays the bills ... It's time for the files to be declassified and made generally available." He cautioned against jumping to conclusions about suppressed UFO data and stressed that there was no strong evidence that aliens were visiting the Earth either in the past or present.
Death
After a long and difficult fight with myelodysplasia, which included three bone marrow transplants, Sagan died of pneumonia at the age of 62 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, on December 20, 1996. He was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Ithaca, New York.
Posthumous recognition
The 1997 movie ''Contact'', based on Sagan's novel of the same name and finished after his death, ends with the dedication "For Carl".In 1997, the Sagan Planet Walk was opened in Ithaca New York. It is a walking scale model of the solar system, extending 1.2 km from the center of The Commons in downtown Ithaca, NY, to the Sciencenter, a hands-on museum. The exhibition was created in memory of Carl Sagan, who was an Ithaca resident and Cornell Professor. Professor Sagan had been a founding member of the museum's advisory board.
The landing site of the unmanned Mars Pathfinder spacecraft was renamed the ''Carl Sagan Memorial Station'' on July 5, 1997.
Sagan's son, Nick Sagan, wrote several episodes in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. In an episode of ''Star Trek: Enterprise'' entitled "Terra Prime", a quick shot is shown of the relic rover Sojourner, part of the Mars Pathfinder mission, placed by a historical marker at Carl Sagan Memorial Station on the Martian surface. The marker displays a quote from Sagan: "Whatever the reason you're on Mars, I'm glad you're there, and I wish I was with you." Sagan's student Steve Squyres led the team that landed the Spirit Rover and Opportunity Rover successfully on Mars in 2004.
Asteroid 2709 Sagan is also named in his honor.
On November 9, 2001, on what would have been Sagan's 67th birthday, the NASA Ames Research Center dedicated the site for the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Cosmos. "Carl was an incredible visionary, and now his legacy can be preserved and advanced by a 21st century research and education laboratory committed to enhancing our understanding of life in the universe and furthering the cause of space exploration for all time", said NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin. Ann Druyan was at the Center as it opened its doors on October 22, 2006.
Sagan has at least three awards named in his honor:
On December 20, 2006, the tenth anniversary of Sagan's death, a blogger, Joel Schlosberg, organized a Carl Sagan "blog-a-thon" to commemorate Sagan's death, and the idea was supported by Nick Sagan. Many members of the blogging community participated.
August 2007 the Independent Investigative Group IIG awarded Sagan posthumously a Lifetime Achievement Award. This honor has also been awarded to Harry Houdini and James Randi.
In 2008, Benn Jordan, also known as "The Flashbulb", released the album ''Pale Blue Dot: A Tribute to Carl Sagan''.
In 2009, clips from Carl Sagan's ''Cosmos'' were used as the basis for ''A Glorious Dawn'', the first video produced for the Symphony of Science, an educational music video production by composer John Boswell. Musician Jack White later released this song as a vinyl single under his record label Third Man Records. Additional clips were used in several followup videos which featured Sagan alongside other noted scientists and proponents of rational thinking, such as Richard Dawkins, Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, Lawrence M. Krauss, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.
In 2010, the 76th anniversary of Carl Sagan's birth, the second "Carl Sagan Day" was celebrated on November 6.
Awards and honors
Publications
References
Further reading
External links
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| Coordinates | 16°32′″N97°36′″N |
|---|---|
| name | James Randi |
| birth name | Randall James Hamilton Zwinge |
| birth date | August 07, 1928 |
| birth place | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| occupation | Magician, writer, skeptic |
| website | www.randi.org |
| nationality | Canadian-American |
| religion | None (Atheist) |
| residence | }} |
Although often referred to as a "debunker," Randi rejects that title owing to its perceived bias, instead describing himself as an "investigator." He has written about the paranormal, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' and was occasionally featured on the television program ''Penn & Teller: Bullshit!''. The JREF sponsors The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge offering a prize of US$1,000,000 to eligible applicants who can demonstrate evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or event under test conditions agreed to by both parties.
Early life
Randi was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and has a younger brother and sister. He took up magic after reading magic books while spending 13 months in a body cast following a bicycle accident. He confounded doctors who expected he would never walk again. Although a brilliant student, Randi often skipped school, and he dropped out of high school at 17 to perform as a conjurer in a carnival roadshow. In his twenties, Randi posed as a psychic to establish that they were actually doing simple tricks and briefly wrote an astrological column in the Canadian tabloid ''Midnight'' under the name "Zo-ran," by simply shuffling up items from newspaper astrology columns and pasting them randomly into a column. In his thirties, Randi worked in Philippine night clubs and all across Japan. He witnessed many tricks that were presented as being supernatural. One of his earliest reported experiences is that of seeing an evangelist using the "one-ahead" routine to convince churchgoers of his divine powers.
Career
Magician
Randi worked as a professional stage magician, or "conjurer" as he prefers to be called, and escapologist beginning in 1946, initially under his birth name, Randall Zwinge, and then as The Amazing Randi. Early in his career, Randi was part of numerous stunts involving his escape from jail cells and safes. On February 7, 1956, he appeared live on ''The Today Show'', remaining in a sealed metal coffin submerged in a hotel swimming pool for 104 minutes, breaking what was said to be Houdini's record of 93 minutes.Randi was the host of ''The Amazing Randi Show'' on New York radio station WOR in the mid 1960s. This radio show, which filled Long John Nebel's old slot with similar content after Nebel went to WNBC in 1962, had frequent pro-paranormal guests, including Randi's then-friend James Moseley. Randi, in turn, spoke at Moseley's 1967 Fourth Congress of Scientific Ufologists in New York City, stating, "Let's not fool ourselves. There are some garden variety liars involved in all this. But in among all the trash and nonsense perpetrated in the name of Ufology, I think there is a small grain of truth."
Randi also hosted numerous television specials and went on several world tours. Then Randi appeared as "The Amazing Randi" on a television show titled ''Wonderama'' from 1967 to 1972, and as host of a failed revival of the 1950s children's show ''The Magic Clown'' in 1970. In the February 2, 1974, issue of ''Abracadabra'' (a British conjuring magazine), Randi defined the magic community, saying, "I know of no calling which depends so much upon mutual trust and faith as does ours." In the December 2003 issue of ''The Linking Ring'', the monthly publication of The International Brotherhood of Magicians, ''Points to Ponder: Another Matter of Ethics,'' p. 97, it is stated, "Perhaps Randi's ethics are what make him Amazing" and "The Amazing Randi not only talks the talk, he walks the walk."
During Alice Cooper's 1973–1974 tour, Randi performed as the dentist and executioner on stage, and designed and built several of the stage props, including the guillotine. Shortly after that, in February 1975, Randi escaped from a straitjacket while suspended upside-down over Niagara Falls in the winter on the Canadian TV program ''World of Wizards''.
Randi was once accused of actually using "psychic powers" to perform acts such as spoon bending. James Alcock relates this incident, which occurred at a meeting where Randi was duplicating the performances of Uri Geller: A professor from the University at Buffalo shouted out that Randi was a fraud. Randi said, "Yes, indeed, I'm a trickster, I'm a cheat, I'm a charlatan, that's what I do for a living. Everything I've done here was by trickery." The professor shouted back: "That's not what I mean. You're a fraud because you're pretending to do these things through trickery, but you're actually using psychic powers and misleading us by not admitting it." The famous author and believer in spiritualism Arthur Conan Doyle had years earlier made a similar accusation against the magician Harry Houdini. A similar event involved Senator Claiborne Pell. Pell believed in psychic phenomena. When Randi demonstrated viewing a hidden drawing by using trickery, Pell refused to believe that it was a trick, saying, "I think Randi may be a psychic and doesn't realize it."
Author
Randi is author of ''Conjuring'' (1992), a biographical history of noted magicians. The book is subtitled: ''Being a Definitive History of the Venerable Arts of Sorcery, Prestidigitation, Wizardry, Deception, & Chicanery and of the Mountebanks & Scoundrels Who have Perpetrated these Subterfuges on a Bewildered Public, in short, MAGIC!''. The book selects the most influential magicians and explains their history in the context of strange deaths and careers on the road. This work expanded on the 1976 book ''Houdini, His Life and Art'', co-authored with Bert Randolph Sugar, which focused on Houdini and his cohorts. Randi also wrote a children's book in 1989 titled ''The Magic World of the Amazing Randi'', which introduced children to magic tricks. In addition to his magic books, he has written several educational works about the paranormal and pseudoscientific. These include biographies of Uri Geller and Nostradamus as well as reference material on other major paranormal figures. He is currently working on ''A Magician in the Laboratory'', which recounts his application of skepticism to science, though in January 2011, he expressed doubts as to whether it would be finished. He is a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers.
Skeptic
Randi entered the international spotlight in 1972 when he publicly challenged the claims of Uri Geller. Randi accused Geller of being nothing more than a charlatan and a fraud who used standard magic tricks to accomplish his allegedly paranormal feats, and he supported his claims in the book ''The Truth About Uri Geller''. Geller unsuccessfully sued Randi for $15 million in 1991. Geller's suit against the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was thrown out in 1995, and he was ordered to pay $120,000 for filing a frivolous lawsuit.
Randi was a founding fellow and prominent member of CSICOP. During the period when Geller was filing numerous civil suits against him, CSICOP's leadership, wanting to avoid becoming a target of Geller's litigation, requested that Randi refrain from commenting on Geller. Randi refused and resigned. However, he still maintains a respectful relationship with the group and frequently writes articles for its magazine.
Randi has gone on to write several books criticizing beliefs and claims regarding the paranormal. He has also demonstrated flaws in studies suggesting the existence of paranormal phenomena; in his Project Alpha hoax, Randi revealed that he had been able to orchestrate a three-year-long compromise of a privately funded psychic research experiment. The hoax became a scandal and demonstrated the shortcomings of many paranormal research projects at the university level.
Randi has appeared on numerous TV shows, sometimes to directly debunk the claimed abilities of fellow guests. In a 1981 appearance on ''That's My Line'', Randi appeared opposite psychic James Hydrick, who claimed that he could move things with his mind and demonstrated this ability on live television by apparently turning a page in a telephone book without touching it. Randi, having determined that Hydrick was surreptitiously blowing on the book, arranged packaging peanuts (polystyrene foam shapes) on the table in front of the telephone book for the demonstration, preventing Hydrick from demonstrating his abilities, which would have been exposed when the blowing moved the packaging. Many years later, Hydrick admitted his fraud.
Randi was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Genius award in 1986. The money was used for Randi's comprehensive exposé of faith healers, including Peter Popoff, W.V. Grant and Ernest Angley. When Popoff was exposed, he was forced to declare bankruptcy within the year.
In 1988, Randi tested the gullibility of the media by perpetrating a fraud of his own. By teaming up with Australia's ''60 Minutes'' program and by releasing a fake press package, he built up publicity for a spirit channeler named Carlos who was actually artist Jose Alvarez, a friend of Randi's. Randi would tell him what to say through sophisticated radio equipment. The media and the public were taken in, as no reporter bothered to check Carlos's credentials and history, which were all fabricated. The hoax was exposed on ''60 Minutes''; Carlos and Randi explained how they pulled it off.
In the book ''The Faith Healers'', Randi explains his anger and relentlessness as arising out of compassion for the helpless victims of frauds. Randi has also been critical of João de Deus (John of God), a self-proclaimed psychic surgeon who has received international attention. Randi observed, referring to psychic surgery, "To any experienced conjurer, the methods by which these seeming miracles are produced are very obvious."
In 1982, Randi verified the abilities of Arthur Lintgen, a Philadelphia physician who is able to determine the classical music recorded on a vinyl LP solely by examining the groove on the record. However, Lintgen does not claim to have any paranormal ability, merely knowledge of the way that the groove forms patterns on particular recordings.
James Randi stated that Daniel Dunglas Home, who allegedly could play an accordion that was locked in a cage, without touching it, was caught cheating on a few occasions, but the episodes were never made public, and that the accordion in question was a one-octave mouth organ that Home concealed under his large moustache. James Randi writes that one-octave mouth organs were found in Home's belongings after his death. According to Randi 'around 1960' William Lindsay Gresham told Randi he had seen these mouth organs in the Home collection at the Society for Psychical Research. Eric Dingwall, who catalogued Home's collection on its arrival at the SPR does not record the presence of the mouth organs. According to Peter Lamont, the author of an extensive Home biography, "It is unlikely Dingwall would have missed these or did not make them public."
James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF)
In 1996, Randi established the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). Randi and his colleagues update JREF's blog, Swift. Topics have included the mathematics of the one-seventh area triangle. Randi also contributes a regular column, titled "'Twas Brillig," to The Skeptics Society's Skeptic Magazine. In his weekly commentary, Randi often gives examples of what he considers the nonsense that he deals with every day.He has regularly featured on many podcasts that can be found online, including The Skeptics Society's official podcast Skepticality and the Center for Inquiry's official podcast Point of Inquiry. From September 2006 onwards, he has occasionally contributed to The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast with a column titled "Randi Speaks." In addition, "The Amazing Show" is a podcast in which Randi shares various anecdotes in an interview format.
Views on religion
In his essay "Why I Deny Religion, How Silly and Fantastic It Is, and Why I'm a Dedicated and Vociferous Bright", Randi, who identifies himself as an atheist, has stated that many accounts in religious texts, including the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus Christ, and the parting of the Red Sea by Moses, are not believable. For example, Randi refers to the Virgin Mary as being "impregnated by a ghost of some sort, and as a result produced a son who could walk on water, raise the dead, turn water into wine, and multiply loaves of bread and fishes" and questions how Adam and Eve "could have two sons, one of whom killed the other, and yet managed to populate the earth without committing incest." He writes that, compared to the Bible, "''The Wizard of Oz'' is more believable. And more fun." In ''An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural'', he looks at a variety of spiritual practices skeptically. Of the meditation techniques of Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat) he writes: "Only the very naive were convinced that they had been let in on some sort of celestial secret."
The One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge
The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) currently offers a prize of one million U.S. dollars to eligible applicants who can demonstrate a supernatural ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. Similar to the paranormal challenges of John Nevil Maskelyne and Houdini, in 1964, Randi put up $1,000 of his own money payable to anyone who could provide objective proof of the paranormal. Since then, the prize money has grown to the current $1,000,000, and has formal published rules. No one has progressed past the preliminary test, which is set up with parameters agreed to by both Randi and the applicant. He refuses to accept any challengers who might suffer serious injury or death as a result of the testing.On ''Larry King Live'', March 6, 2001, Larry King asked Sylvia Browne if she would take the challenge and she agreed. Then Randi appeared with Browne on ''Larry King Live'' on September 3, 2001, and she again accepted the challenge. However, she has refused to be tested and Randi keeps a clock on his website recording the number of weeks that have passed since Browne accepted the challenge without following through. During ''Larry King Live'' on June 5, 2001, Randi challenged Rosemary Altea to undergo testing for the million dollars. However, Altea would not even address the question. Instead Altea, in part, replied "I agree with what he says, that there are many, many people who claim to be spiritual mediums, they claim to talk to the dead. There are many people, we all know this. There are cheats and charlatans everywhere." Then on January 26, 2007, Altea and Randi again appeared on ''Larry King Live''. Once again, she refused to answer whether or not she would take the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.
Starting on April 1, 2007, only those with an already existing media profile and the backing of a reputable academic were allowed to apply for the challenge. The resources freed up by not having to test obscure and possibly mentally ill claimants will then be used to more aggressively challenge notorious high-profile alleged psychics and mediums such as Sylvia Browne, Allison DuBois and John Edward with a campaign in the media.
JREF maintains a public log of past participants in the Million Dollar Challenge.
Legal disputes
Randi has been involved in a variety of legal disputes but claims that he has "never paid even one dollar or even one cent to anyone who ever sued me." However, he says, he has paid out large sums to personally defend himself in these suits.
Eldon Byrd
A Baltimore District Court found Randi guilty of defaming Byrd for calling him a "convicted child molester" because although Byrd had been found guilty of child pornography offences and admitted to molestation, the admission was part of a plea bargain so he was not actually convicted. No damages were awarded to Byrd.
Uri Geller
According to Randi, Geller tried to sue Randi a number of times, but never won, save for a ruling in a Japanese court that ordered Randi to pay Geller one third of one percent of what Geller had demanded, but this ruling was canceled, and the matter dropped when Geller decided to concentrate on another legal matter. Randi later stated that the phrase "shot himself in the head" was a metaphor that had been lost in translation. He had made a similar statement in English three years earlier in a Toronto newspaper: "The scientist shot himself after I showed him how the key bending trick was done." In 1991, Randi commented that Uri Geller's public performances were of the same quality as those found on the backs of cereal boxes. Geller sued both Randi and CSICOP. CSICOP argued that the organization was not responsible for Randi's statements. The court agreed that including CSICOP was frivolous and dropped them from the action, leaving Randi to face the action alone. Geller was ordered to pay substantial damages to CSICOP. Randi and Geller subsequently settled their dispute out of court, the details of which have been kept confidential. The settlement also included an agreement that Geller would not pursue Randi for the award in the Japanese case or other outstanding cases.
Other
Allison DuBois, on whose life the television series ''Medium'' was based, threatened Randi with legal action for using a photo of her from her website in his December 17, 2004, commentary without her permission. Randi removed the photo, and now uses a caricature of DuBois when mentioning her on his site, beginning with his December 23, 2005, commentary.Late in 1996, Randi launched a libel suit against a Toronto-area psychic named Earl Gordon Curley. Curley had made multiple objectionable comments about Randi on Usenet. Despite prodding Randi via Usenet to sue (Curley's comments had implied that if Randi did not sue, then his allegations must be true), Curley seemed entirely surprised when Randi actually retained Toronto's largest law firm and initiated legal proceedings. The suit was eventually dropped in 1998 when Earl Curley died at the age of 51.
Sniffex, producer of a dowsing bomb detection device, unsuccessfully sued Randi and the JREF in 2007. Sniffex sued Randi for his comments regarding a government test in which the Sniffex device failed. The company was later investigated and charged with fraud.
Personal life
In 1987, Randi became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Randi has said that one reason he became an American citizen was an incident while on tour with Alice Cooper where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police searched the band's lockers during a performance. Nothing was found, yet the RCMP destroyed the room.In February 2006, Randi underwent coronary artery bypass surgery. In early February 2006, he was declared to be in stable condition and "receiving excellent care" with his recovery proceeding well. The weekly commentary updates to his website were made by guests while he was hospitalized. Randi recovered after his surgery and was able to help organize and attend the 2007 Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada (an annual convention of scientists, magicians, skeptics, atheists and freethinkers).
Randi was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in June 2009. He had a ping pong ball-sized tumor removed from his intestines during laparoscopic surgery. He announced this a week later at the July 2009 The Amazing Meeting as well as the fact that he was scheduled to begin chemotherapy in the following weeks. He also said at the conference: "One day, I'm gonna die. That's all there is to it. Hey, it's too bad, but I've got to make room. I'm using a lot of oxygen and such—I think it's good use of oxygen myself, but of course, I'm a little prejudiced on the matter." Randi also said that after he is gone he does not want his fans to bother with a museum of magic named after him or burying him in a fancy tomb. Instead, he said, "I want to be cremated, and I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller's eyes." Randi underwent his final chemotherapy session on December 31, 2009, as he explained in a January 12, 2010 video in which he related that his chemotherapy experience was not as unpleasant as he had imagined. In a video posted April 12, 2010, Randi stated that he has been given a clean bill of health.
In a March 21, 2010 blog entry, Randi came out as gay, a move he explained was inspired by seeing the 2008 biographical drama film ''Milk'', in which Sean Penn portrayed Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California.
Awards and honors
In 1981, asteroid 3163 Randi was named after Randi, whose friend Carl Sagan influenced him to become an amateur astronomer. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship 1986 American Physical Society Joseph A. Burton Forum Award 1989
World records
The following are Guinness records:Randi was in a sealed casket for an hour and 44 minutes, which broke Harry Houdini's record of one hour and 31 minutes set on August 5, 1926. Randi was encased in a block of ice for 55 minutes.
Bibliography
''An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural'', 1995, St. Martin's Press ISBN 0-312-15119-5 (Online Version)
TV and film
Actor
Himself
Other media
James Randi can be heard speaking an introduction on Tommy Finkes song "Poet der Affen/Poet of the Apes", released on the album of the same name in 2010. The message was recorded by James Randi and sent to Tommy Finke via email.
See also
Notes
External links
Official
Supportive
Media
Transcripts (Sylvia Browne and Randi) (Sylvia Browne's manager and Randi) (Altea and James Randi) (Rosemary Altea and Randi) (Sylvia Browne and Randi)
Criticism
Category:1928 births Category:Living people Category:American atheists Category:American magicians Category:American people of Canadian descent Category:American people of German descent Category:American skeptics Category:Atheism activists Category:Canadian atheists Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:Canadian magicians Category:Canadian people of German descent Category:Canadian skeptics Category:People with cancer Category:Gay writers Category:LGBT writers from Canada Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Toronto Category:Professional magicians Category:American humanists
ar:جيمس راندي bg:Джеймс Ранди ca:James Randi de:James Randi es:James Randi fr:James Randi gl:James Randi ko:제임스 랜디 id:James Randi is:James Randi it:James Randi he:ג'יימס רנדי lt:James Randi hu:James Randi nl:James Randi ja:ジェームズ・ランディ no:James Randi pl:James Randi pt:James Randi ru:Рэнди, Джеймс fi:James Randi sv:James Randi ta:யேம்சு ராண்டி tr:James Randi zh:詹姆斯·兰迪This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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