Vinod Mony puts together the
Bits and Pieces of his American,
Indian and European experience, bringing
out his opinion and reflections on events,
people and places .
Vinod graduated from College of Engineering,
Thiruvananthapuram in 1995 in Applied
Electronics . He currently works in US
as an ERP systems analyst .He is also
a freelance columnist
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Astrology: Science or Fraud?
The very next day after Saurav Ganguly
and his boys lost to the Australian studs, in
the World cup Final, my friend Pramod Nair, fired
off an e- mail, to my ex-engineering batch's e-group,
which kept me in splits for hours. His thunderous
verbal attack was directed at some astrologers
who had predicted an Indian victory.
Here goes the first part of his
fulmination!
"Times of India, Deccan
Herald, The Hindu, India Today, Outlook, Week,
Observer, Economic Times, Telegraph, Star TV,
Zee TV … each of their resident astrologers,
gazed at the stars, jumbled with numbers, and
predicted that India will win the World cup!!!
They claimed that Sourav Ganguly's stars are in
seventh heaven. There were thousands of them digging
up connected and unconnected mathematics: extrapolating
the positions of stars during the match hour;
rewriting Sachin Tendulkar's Jathaka Kundali;
mixing Kethu and Rahu and Yamakandam with run-rate
and Lewis method. Eventually, What happened? The
only thing I am certain is that these cons made
some quick bucks at the public's expense. There
are many ways to cheat people and make money.
In my opinion Astrology belongs to the same kind.
Hope some day we will admit this truth about this
fraud!"
Let me start from where Pramod had
yielded, at least for the time being.
I myself - before the games started
- have read one dude in a newspaper column, who
predicted the triumph of the Pakistanis. Another
guy had predicted Australia's victory. Sensing
such appalling inconsistency in their predictions
I had wondered, at that time, whether at least
some of them were on the payrolls of bookies.
Unable to bribe the cricketers nowadays, had the
paymasters turned their attention to resident
astrologers of leading newspapers, who had the
next best chance to influence the millions, and
their own billions?
Hey, wait a minute. I introspected.
Why would I blame Astrology for the faults of
a few Astrologers? Or were the astrologers at
fault, at all? Did Ganguly and Co. follow the
Panchang calendar and other associated 'upayas'
correctly, as their team astrologer would advise
them, if they were to taste victory? There were
no ways to find out who was right and who was
wrong!
I had prided myself in being open
to new ideas. If that is the case, I argued with
myself, I should give Astrology, the benefit of
the doubt. What is the doubt here? Anything, which
is not disproved, is still open for debates and
discussion.
I have seen Astrology working sometimes,
and failing in many other times. For example,
around 1999, I had curiously gone through many
of the predictions for the next millennium, published
in Indian Magazines. I am usually very skeptical
about these allied branches of knowledge. So I
wanted to see what was the common trend in all
the predictions, if there were any. I identified
two common events: one good one and one bad. The
bad one first: the Gujarat earthquake would happen
around the end of 2000. The good prediction was
an imminent breakup of Pakistan immediately after
2003. The bad one happened exactly around the
time the Astrologers had predicted. Let us wait
for the 'good prediction' to happen around 2004.
Before I continue, let me bring
back Pramod for a second innings. Here he goes:
"Let us see some of the ways
Astrology comes to our household, nowadays:
1) Vettila: this dude stares at
a leaf and predicts your future according to the
lines on it
2) Palaka Nirathal: this joker rolls stones, marbles,
shells and arrives at the future
3) Bulb swamy: He stares at some glowing stuff,
like a lamp, sometimes a 25 W Philips bulb, and
tells future
4) Jumping swamy: this sadhu jumps and crawls,
sits up straight and tells the future (Explanation,
when some vital organ above his kidney is shaken,
he can see the future, far and wide...!)
5) Kili: Let the birds do the prediction …since
the bird has the better intelligence
6) Urili: Put some leaves, flowers and garbage
in a big vessel and tell future according to the
way they float
7) Watch: There is this sadhu who takes out Casio
Model T855 Made in Taiwan watch from air - price
tag included - surprises you, and then tells the
future
8) Velichapadu: There is this velichapadu who
shivers and tells the future!
All the evils of society, killing,
looting, and so on, survived the ages. Astrology,
is a way of cheating people, and hence, belongs
to the same category. I don't know if we really
want to preserve this, in the name of heritage.
Veerappan, traffic Jam, Gulf War, pollution, cell
phones, Sachin Tendulkar, Nike shoes, Microsoft,
Bandh, Hartal all affect human lives; how can
we single out planetary positions and explain
anything and everything based on this "
Pramod retired and went back to
the Pavilion.
When there is a serious debate on
Astrology, such perversions and deviations are
not considered seriously. But here is the point
to note: "when 90 percent of the astrologers
are practicing any of these forms how could you
possibly say that these are deviations. (Well
there is a point!) Also in a changing world of
globalization and commercialization how could
laws that were codified thousands of years be
applicable today? (Seems logical…. umm.)"
One of the reasons why we shun all
traditional knowledge, today, is due to the introduction
of Modern Science. Modern science is based on
a scientific methodology: definition, data collection,
hypothesis, observation, experimentation, and
finally conclusion. When consistency is obtained
the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a
coherent set of propositions, which explain a
class of phenomena. A theory becomes a framework
within which observations are explained and conclusions
are made.
The scientific method makes sure
that if something has to be accepted as scientific,
it has to be proved. It does not entertain the
religious method of knowledge, which is based
on the belief that knowledge is a revelation from
God.
But based on this we cannot shun
away astrology as being bogus, just because it
does not have enough proof. Astrology may have
a lot of limitations, but it is too early to dismiss
it as unscientific. On the dark side, it is also
true that today many people see Astrology as a
part of their religion. But their fault does not
give enough reason to crucify Astrology.
Even science does not shun those
theories, which appear to be true, but cannot
be experimentally proved. It keeps these theories
as theories, until they are disproved. For example
when Einstein came up with his relativity theory,
other physicists could not understand all of his
concepts. Einstein was not keen on experiments.
Since the rest of the scientific community could
neither disprove his theory nor experimentally
challenge him they almost said - Gurudev, You
are next to God. They also invented a term for
such brilliant people: theoretical physicist.
Other scientists later proved Einstein's
theories experimentally. But there are many other
scientists who have put forward theories, which
cannot be experimented in the near future. There
are also cases where world-renowned scientists
refused to give proofs. Ramanujan, the mathematician
once wrote down a theorem without a proof and
said that he got it from God, directly. The great
Chemist Kekule put forward the structure of Benzene
molecules, and attributed it to a dream in which
he saw fiery snakes biting their tails. Hence
he concluded, Benzene molecules are not linear,
but hexagonal.
Intuitions and guesswork are associated
with all the applied sciences, as much as Astrology
and the allied branches are accused of. Most of
the time doctors have no clue of what disease
a person is suffering from. Based on their past
experience and intuition they diagnose their patients.
In this context, does Modern medicine become irrelevant?
Why then do we employ double standards
and claim that Astrology is bullshit because it
is based on intuition? Astrologers- the genuine
ones - have a sound understanding of the planetary
positions and they base this, along with their
intuition, to make their charts
"If Astrology were a science,
it should have worked every time." Well,
every medicinal pill you take does not help you,
always. Some times it works; some other times,
it doesn't.
In this context we also need to
note that predictions are only a small part of
the bigger domain called Astrology. It deals with
all aspects of human life. Astrology, I believe,
is like a traffic light system. It provides a
basic guideline to one's life, in relation to
others. Consider this. Even if you disobey traffic
light signals, there are chances that you could
travel in a sophisticated road system without
causing any accident. On the other hand, even
if you obey traffic signals, chances are there
that someone else could disobey the signals and
crash into you. In this context does a traffic
light system become irrelevant?
An astrologer formulates a good
path for one to travel, in life. He does the analysis
of the individual based on his astral cycles,
which are derived from astronomical observation
of heavenly bodies, over thousands of years. He
does psychoanalysis of the individual, based on
his character revealed by his time of birth.
Some would call Astrology a science,
while others would rebuke any reference to it
as a science. Some would claim that it is Vedic.
Others would claim that Vedic Astrology is an
Oxymoron. It is a fact that Astrology, today,
is a divided house of contradictions.
The Proponents of Vedic Astrology
claim that Astrology stemmed out from the cumulative
knowledge available in the Vedic Age. Detailed
study of Vedic period had shown that ancient Indians
discovered many concepts, in Astronomy, Metallurgy,
and Mathematics, which were discovered by Europeans
recently. In Surya Siddhanta, Latadeva talked
about the earth's axis and called it sumeru. The
astronomers also divided the year into 12 months
and six seasons. Bhubhagola, an instrument composed
of rings showing the positions of important circles
of the celestial sphere, was used by them to study
the heavenly bodies. This knowledge, many historians
say, reached the West through Babylonia, Egypt,
Greece and Rome.
Some believe that Astrology was
in fact the soul of ancient Astronomy. It was
the cause and effect, they say. Astronomy was
only a medium. They ask "What was the use
of Astronomy for the ancient people, without astrology".
Or "Why did the ancients have to worry about
stars and other heavenly bodies, if they believed
that these object were not important to their
daily life". Astronomical studies, they say,
were carried out solely for the sake of furthering
Astrology.
According to them Astrology is the
soul and Astronomy was the body. How unexciting
and useless, and unromantic, is a body without
a soul? When one looks at a beautiful painting
one would want to appreciate its beauty, rather
than analyzing its chemical composition. The soul
provides this mystic, spiritual beauty, to the
body.
The negative side of Astrology is
the lack of innovation and questioning. The fault
is inherent in our attitude, not in astrology
itself; there is a rigid mind-set to see all things
ancient, as sacred and absolute. You could see
the manifestation of this behavior in the way
a pujari chants a Vedic mantra - he has no idea
of its relevance to him - in a
Hindu temple, almost like a child punished with
an 'imposition'. He repeats it from dawn to dusk,
and never bothers to find out the underlying principles.
Absence of this kind of submissive,
and servile behavior is the beauty of science.
There is also a consistent effort for correction
and evolution. Any law, which may seem fundamental
today, could be challenged tomorrow and disproved.
When Robert Goddard, in 1920, published
his idea of launching Rockets, which could theoretically
go to outer space, a leading scientist wrote the
next day in the New York Times, "Goddard
should understand that his ideas are against the
fundamental laws of Physics." The editorials
of many leading newspapers in the next few weeks
ridiculed Goddard. Today we know who is right.
Science is right, agrees Vedic Astrologers,
"but that does not make us wrong." Modern
Scientific method is a wonderful methodology,
but that does not make it the only methodology.
The ancient people may not have followed the modern
paths of science, but one cannot be sure that
they did not have any methodology at all. Any
attempt to say they were wrong, without trying
to find out how they achieved it, is being idea-centric
which is: " My idea and method is the only
correct one".
Can we discount the "probability"
that it would be possible someday, if scientific
methods are employed, to study, question, and
test the fundamentals on which Astrology is based
on? Maybe. For that reason, at least, we may need
to preserve it for posterity; but a little thought,
on how the ancients arrived at these conclusions,
might help, rather than a fanatical reverence
to age-old myths.
Send your comments to vinod@ekaumudi.com
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