Pseudo-Science Goes After Pseudo-Science And Demonstrates More Than They Bargained For

IT IS MORE THAN A LITTLE IRONIC for an Alternet-RawStory scribbler named Alex Henderson to get an easy article out of slamming astrology and pseudo-science as being an indicator of narcissism and using a bogus and anti-scientifically conducted study at the University of Lund to do that with. 

 I'm not speaking up for astrology which I don't happen to believe in and which I think should be regulated to prevent it being used to cheat and dupe and rob people who want to consult with astrologers.  Astrologers should be required to be licensed with some actual and strict requirements, both educational and reporting due to a. people are going to consult them no matter how much anyone else doesn't like that and, b. as they are in the advice giving business, their practices should at least be open to inspection.  Something which, I will point out, in many states and countries is not a requirement of psychologists and other pseudo-scientifically based practitioners are not really required to do.  In some states anyone can put up a sign calling themselves a "counselor" and start roping 'em in and milking them for big bucks.  I would like to see the archive of articles in either place that expresses concerns about the malignant practices of any of that stuff.

The bogus nature of the study is obvious from the description of its reported motive, goal and methdology, from the article:

Heingartner says of the Lund study, "The authors suggest that current 'stressors' which might explain the increasing popularity of astrology include climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. And understanding why people believe in astrology matters. Although astrology in itself may seem harmless, it also correlates with belief in other pseudo-sciences and conspiracy theories. So, the researchers wanted to find out whether individual personality traits might play a role in understanding why people who believe in astrology hold that belief."

And here's how they got what they wanted, with my running commentary:

Referencing the Lund researchers, Heingartner explains, "264 English-speaking participants…were recruited via Facebook.

That is an entirely inadequate sample size to tell you much of anything about a larger population, nevermind the general population.  Finding them through Facebook alone should have pulled the plug on the thing, the users of Facebook are not a knowably typical sample of the general public, the sample they got could not even be typical of Facebook users, I doubt that the sub-samples of either believers or non-believers in astrology would be accurately represented by such a sample.  The simple and hard truth is, no non-random sample can really be rationally presented as typical of a far larger general population. That is inconvenient in the extreme for any rational and honest person who would like to be able to use these kinds of methods to do such studies to find things they can assert are generally true of a larger population, that the social sciences, everything from psychology and sociology down to the dregs of opinion polling do so comprises one of the biggest and potentially most dangerous of pseudo-scientific practices in modern life.  That they get to call themselves "sciences" while doing nothing like science is to today what astrology and its associated "sciences" were in the credulous Renaissance and early modern periods.  I don't think it's to be unexpected that they would be taking pot shots at their closest competitors.  It's kind of like Mac v. Windows only bitchier and more pervasive.

Most of the participants, 87%, were women, and their age range was 25-34….

So a sample size ridiculously skewed by gender and I would bet it's as skewed by other factors, income, race, ethnicity, amount of leisure time, not having anything better to do than waste time gossiping on Facebook, etc. And the age cited is rather funny, considering how the author gets his digs in at the hippies of the 60s being agog with astrology due to the Fifth-Dimension having a hit with that Age of Aquarius song from Hair.  I knew more than a few would-be hippies and I didn't know one who really believed in astrology though I did know a PhD in Neuro-Biology from Purdue who did.  She got another degree and took up psychology after that.
 

The researchers also wanted to investigate the links between astrology and narcissism, 'due to the self-focused perspective' at the core of both. Finally, the researchers wanted to measure the participants' IQ levels, as intelligence has been found to correlate negatively with belief in pseudoscience and the paranormal."

It is a sign of the absurdity of this that they were looking to find one of the most safely generalized aspect of human personality "the self-focused perspective" which is endemic to the human population.  I have never known more vehemently "self-focused" people than I have the materialists and, especially, the self-defined "skeptics."  Is there a human being alive who was more "self-focused" than the late James Randi?  Madalyn Murray O'Hair?

Heingartner says, "As the researchers write, the link between astrology and narcissism 'is possibly due to the self-centered worldview uniting them.' They also suggest that the positive framing of astrological predictions and horoscopes might reinforce grandiose feelings, 'and thus might appeal even more to narcissists.'"

Oh, give me a break. I have a feeling that if you were trying to find examples of the "self-centered world view"  ONE OF THE SAFEST BETS ON WHERE TO FIND CONCENTRATIONS OF SUCH PEOPLE  WOULD THE THE PEOPLE WHO USE FACEBOOK WHERE THE FACE PRESENTED TO THE WORLD IS USUALLY THAT OF THE USER!  I doubt that any non-believers in astrology they found would have really been less self-centered than those who did believe in it, considering how they got the participants in their study.   I would like them to check out the membership of any "skeptics" outfit to rate them on an accurate scale of self-absorption because I have a feeling there's plenty of that stuff among them, too.  

 
Intelligence was measured as well by the Lund researchers. Heingartner notes, "Intelligence had a small but significant negative effect: the higher the IQ, the lower the likelihood of believing in astrology. The researchers also found that female participants and older participants showed slightly higher rates of believing in astrology." 

Anyone who uses IQ as a measurement should immediately be considered to have abandoned science.   IQ is a dangerous superstition introduced by the social-sciences, one which has damaged more lives and blighted more people than all of the astrologers in modern history.

The researchers designed specific questions to measure how narcissistic a person is. And they asked participants to respond to statements like "I get bored hanging around with ordinary people" and "people see me as a natural leader."

Always assume when they come up with an ad hoc, novel, one-off methodology of "measuring" something like this that their method will a. be bogus, b. be designed to find what they want it to find, c. be tweaked to produce the results they want it to.  

In that age group I would look to the English language media, entertainment, pop-music, movies, TV and ads as a better source for any self-aborption.  Perhaps it might be best explained by that decrease in belief in the Abrahamic religions which are all about being focused on justice for others, perhaps it's explained by the navel-gazing of the "mindfulness" fad that took such hold in that generation.  To attribute it to astrology seems absurd when you consider the power of the media as a more likely source for it.

This is such a ridiculous study presented as science that it's useless to show you much except how much bull shit has been introduced as science in the general culture by the phony sciences starting with psychology.  I couldn't resist pointing these things out because this is the kind of stuff that informs the religion I've been slamming so much, the religion of scientistic atheist materialism.  The scientism of it is especially hilarious because you would think anyone professing such devotion to science would be the first to call this bullshit out instead of, as I suspect, defending it with all their might.