Curt Steinmetz

I would agree but for one fact: many of the examples of ‘political correctness run mad’ have turned out to be poor journalism and outright fabrications by, I’m sorry, card carrying right-wing bigots.

‘Ba Ba rainbow sheep’ falls into this pit as does ‘Winterval’

the recent Thatcher/Ross debacles have shown that in the eyes of some newspapers it is more acceptable to make a racist comment about a ‘darkie’ than it is to make a lewd one about a porn star.

Markets help to solve a significant information problem. No one person knows how to run an economy. One person barely knows enough to run their own lives. Planned economies don’t work because of this problem (they’re also horribly corrupt and evil and rely on coercion to stay in power). Read some Hayek and maybe you’ll get over your argument from personal incredulity.

The online “Museum of Hoaxes” has already flagged this story as a probable hoax. They also provide a link to an online newspaper based in Salzburg – which has no mention of this “story”:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/

saying something has the look and feel of a hoax is not the same as doing some research and posting here the results that prove it’s a hoax. Otherwise its a guess either way, critical thinking or not. Really smart people use astrology in business to make financial decisions all the time. Really smart brokers do it in wall street daily. It’s not as common now but it still happens. If they believe that horoscopes can help them make money, would some not also believe that hiring people under a certain star sign that they believe would be favourable to the financial position of the company too ? When you reason it like that (or critically think about it in that way) is it such a far stretch of the imagination to believe some people in charge of certain companies would think this way? Being rich also does not mean you are smart either. There are many facets you could throw at this. Is that enough critical thinking? I could research it but I really couldn’t be bothered as I don’t care either way. If you find some data that proves it a hoax by all means post it, but I think most people here have sound critical thinking abilities.

Bottom line I don’t know if it’s a hoax or not, and neither do you due to stating, “This story has the obvious look and feel of a hoax.” So we are both really guessing and most people making comments about it are too.

I have seen people do stupid stuff in my local town like this before, so I am aware at how stupid people can be. I believe my critical thinking abilities are sound.

I see your point.

Also the terms ‘rightwing’ and ‘leftwing’ …. give me a break. I know they are political terms but for crying out loud… there are more than 2 sides to most issues. Most issues are complex and diverse. Right wing, left wing .. simple minded political correct terms abused mostly by aggressive people that really don’t have a clue what they are talking about.

Grr.

You’re right of course about PC and especially the argument of discrimination being overly abused by all sorts of people to stifle criticism.
Quick example: I live in Austria and we have the so called ‘Verbotsgesetz’ that prohibits Nazi activity and holocaust denial among other things. Rightly so, but it can easily be misused. Dare to argue for example that integration of some groups of foreigners didn’t work as the left wingers had said and that instead these tend to stay among themselves, not caring about their new home country….oh boy, you’re obviously a xenophobic rightwinger! Oh, you say that the jewish culture is not to your liking or think Israel is pushing it too far? You’re a Nazi!
The pool folks in the UK are now having this with Islam.

Uhm…I digress. This topic was about astrology

Yeah I am aware. I also am not a fan of political correctness. I would not be using figures like 99.9% or 0.1% either. The way I see it its a little more broad. It’s just a stupid catch phrase these days. I am aware of it’s more legal sense and the importance it plays in ‘real’ discrimination cases. I just get tired of everyone else raping the word and trying to make it fit into every argument they make. For so many people, if you just disagree with a point of view you get labeled with ‘discrimination’ , like tis a bad thing. Yes it can be deemed as discrimination, but not always, and discrimination is a good thing in alot of cases. I rekon though that thoughtless people just like to use the word to help force an argument, even if there is room for disagreement, or even , *gasp* discrimination.

I don’t let yobbos and drunkards into my house, because I discriminate against who comes into my house. But politically correct fools would cry about that use that sort of discrimination as a bad thing. Political correctness is a disease.

My comment about the Japanese was tongue in cheek to I love Japan. I am studying the language and have friends that live there. It was a joke. I know about there woo-woo hehe.

I expect a really savvy job seeker, analyzing and finding such hiring practices in a company, might lie about their astrological sign, just to get hired. What the heck, people lie about degrees/education all the time,,,wonder if that would be grounds for termination?

I guess I was born under the sign of the Skeptic,,,you know, the well balanced Libra,,,slipping on a banana peel.(Well balanced my patootie)

Then of course, we should also disallow hiring based on an arbitrary score on an IQ test,,,because that’s discriminating against stupid people,,,

One of the problems for Chinese scientists is an abject respect for authority,ie, one does not criticize/challenge an elder/respected scientist. That would not be respectful. I wonder how they manage to keep up with us (skeptics) at all.

Asian cultures are OLD and steeped in magical thinking. Magical thinking is also a great source of art. Thus we have Asian silliness bleeding into Western culture and think we’re being “respectful” of their uniqueness when we’re really just pandering to their particular variety of WOO.

It is a PC assumption that the scientific method was a creation of sanctimonious white males. Actually, it was (most recently) a creation of a Persian (probably Sufi) philosopher in the 11th century(or there about) and as I recall, Persians are BROWN,,,

Political correctness is our buzz word for expressing what the majority claims to be the “right way”. Had we been possessed of the Asian way of overweening respect for authority, we’d still be sailing within sight of land, ’cause as the majority knows, we would otherwise fall off the edge of the flat world,,,

(I really shouldn’t start these posts until AFTER I’ve finished my first 32 ozs of coffee),,,

GAry 7

Not if you’re in charge of hiring people you don’t, at least not in the United States.

It seems that it is an idea so stupid that no-one has written a law to ban it, so the court has upheld the position of the company.

Hopefully this scandal will put wheels in motion to get it banned. Religious discrimination is not tolerated in the EU, and Astrology *is* a religion.

The japanese are smart but so are we “mere” westeners. But they also rely heavily on “ancient” wisdom. No wonder the woo-woo keeps getting worse.
If it’s good for the ancient civilisations of China and Japan, it must be good for us backward westeners.

Or so I heard…D’oh

(my head already hurts from banging it on the table)

you are reffering to the word in it’s 0.1% use of ‘empirical discrimination’

The meaning of words changes with time and culture, I once got beaten up for using the word ‘redundant’ in it’s pre-layoff, engineering function.

I am a long time reader of your blog. I enjoy every article and now I decided to leave my first comment on this blog.
First: I am from Italy but I have been studying and living in Austria for more than 6 years. I study astronomy and I am finishing my master thesis on asteroseismology. Here in Austria the situation concerning pseudo-science is REALLY bad. You have no idea! Astrology is just the peak of the iceberg.

See, here in Austria we have the so called Donau-University Krems. At this “university” you can study, e.g. Feng-Shui, chinese astrology, Quantum Theory of Feng-Shui etc. These subject are taught, please sit down for this, by an astrologer and two guys with faked PhD degrees.
We also have a semi–private, semi–academic institution called the WIFI, which is offering courses (mainly in the field of economics) for the public – either resulting in an academic degree, or, in most cases, a certificate for successfully passing the final exam (i.e. to show at job interviews). However, there are also courses in animal telepathy, ghost-healing, Touch for Health, homeopathie, AND astrology (to become a certified astrologer so to speak).

As soon as the WIFI made this course public the student representatives of astronomy (including me), the ÖGAA (austrian company for astronomy and astrophysics) and the whole Institue For Astronomy said: enough is enough. And we protested! A group of nearly 50 people raised a hue and cry in front of the WIFI, and guess what! It actually brought something, because from this day on, the WIFI Vienna doesn’t offer any astrology courses any more.

Our action helped a tiny little bit to improve the situation. (If you have access to the “Science” magazine than you can look it up here. The article is entitled “Star Wars” http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/pdf_extract/318/5854/1221b )

But now to the point why I write this long comment:
You said, and I quote:
“The funniest part of this, though, is the brouhaha that ensued after the company advertised its desire for astrologically-based employees:

It was followed by a wave of protests from equality groups and led to an investigation by the country’s anti-discrimination authorities.

Equality groups? Anti-discrimination? Because of the time of year you were born?”

HELL YEAH!! What kind of question is that? Every human being is equal. No one should be discriminated because of his sex, his race, his language, his believes, political viws, etc. And, this is at least my opinion also includes his date of birth! I strongly support an investigation of the anti-discrimantion authorities, because such a behaviour by this company, simply cannot be tolerated! It’s already bad enough that there is such a company, but doing nothing against this and therefore legitimizing this action, would be suicide for this, already shattered, country.

Do you really expect “ordinary” people to protest against something you can study at an “university”?
Please tell me what you think of this.

Bigotry and hate against people however are not things I condone. Big difference.

.. and I thought the Japanese were smart.

Superstition, so dumb a caveman would believe it.

I guess all those anti-discrimination laws are really quite redundant. After all, if a company is going to be stupid enough not to hire women or black people for anything more than menial jobs, surely this will show up in their bottom line? Same with asstrology-based hiring practices.

Forgive the sarcasm, but I’m an atheist, so I have difficulty believing in The Market and its profit^w prophet Adam Smith.