Blogs / Bad Astronomy

What do you get when you mix homeopathy with astrology?

This.

I should say that I have to give a kudo to the author for trying to set up a scientific experiment to see what would happen, but the experiment itself is so hopelessly flawed!

In fact it’s so wrong it’s hard to know where to start. The lack of double blinding. The single blinding still being able to influence the testers. The fact that all the testers were believers, and able to influence each other. The starting supposition that a) homeopathy works, and 2) astrology works (when neither does). A lack of clear results predicted so that conclusions (either negative or positive) could be drawn. The very subjective observations. And so on.

It’s clear from the article that the homeopath/astrologer means well, and is actually curious about all this. I wonder if there is any reliable way to take that curiosity, that well-meaning intention, and redirect it toward science? If there is — besides slowly and methodically banging the drum of reason — I’d love to know. A lot of people who believe in things like homeopathy and astrology and all that really are naturally curious, intelligent people, but somewhere down the line they strayed off the narrow path that winds its way through reality, and it would be nice to find a good way to nudge them back in the right direction.

Tip o’ the precessed vial of distilled water to Krelnik.

An article by D’Arcy Doran from the AP is reporting that back in WWII, the UK hired an astrologer to help them fight the Nazis.

Oddly enough, Louis de Wohl turned out to be a total fraud, and the British government soon found themselves in trouble.

A series of events led his work to be introduced to Sir Charles Hambro, the head of Britain’s Special Operations Executive, who hired de Wohl, and gave him a great apartment in an exclusive area of London. De Wohl eventual won the rank of army Captain. However, he soon became a bit of a problem, making grandiose claims about himself and publically embarrassing high-ranking officers.

His exploits are outlined in the article, but here’s my favorite part:

According to the released MI5 correspondence, senior officers offered a number of proposals on how to “dispose” of de Wohl, including interning him in a camp or moving him to a remote corner of the country. Two other options are blanked out.

I would love to see what was blanked out.

Eventually, the Brits caught on:

I have never liked Louis de Wohl _ he strikes me as a charlatan and an imposter,” reads the first line in the astrologer’s file. The letter is typical and appeared to be signed by Dick White, who went on to become the head of Britain’s domestic spy agency, MI5, in the 1950s.

[...]

“I have no doubt if I checked up his successes, I would see that he had more than an equal number of failures, but I have not the inclination nor the time to do so,” Hambro wrote.

Well, duh. But happily, nothing like that could ever happen in the US…