The Hon. Bombary High Court has declared Astrology to be a science, citing a Supreme Court of India decision in 2004. What can one say?
"But it's a science!" has been a refrain I have had to deal with quite often when discussing astrology. Or a whole lot of other things.
The view that astrology is a science seems to spring from a very common misunderstanding of the word "science" in India. I cannot claim that this is unique to India, but since I've seen it mostly here, I cannot be sure if it exists worldwide.
What a lot of people seem to mean by "science" is "systematic body of knowledge" - derived probably from the Sanskrit "shaastra", which means precisely the latter. Astrology does definitely meet that standard, since it comes with a set of premises and a well defined set of rules, using which one can deduce the claimed truth or falsehood of propositions.
Being "scientific" requires a higher standard. Being systematic (a "shaastra") is a necessary condition for being scientific, but not a sufficient condition.
The "method of science" has a long and interesting history, and it rests on a few pillars - systematic organization, empiricism, and mathematical model building. Empiricism is the strongest condition, that facts and rules in the system of knowledge must be verifiable through experiment. Exactly how that verification must be done, and how much verification is necessary has been a matter of continuous refinement as Mankind progressed.
This is precisely the condition that a lot of Indian "shaastras" fail - they are based on "a-priori" or "revealed" premises which are empirically untested. That makes them systematic, but non-empirical, and therefore not "scientific". Note that it is not an issue of degree of empirical verification, but a basic philosophical disagreement about the need for strong empirical verification that is involved.
This holds for Astrology, Vaastu, Homeopathy (all of which have failed empirical verification in recent times). Some, like Ayurveda and Yoga have had partial success, to varying degrees, at empirical verification and can therefore be considered semi-scientific to that extent.
So, where does that leave us? Legally, the factual status of any question is what the courts state. Therefore, the Indian legal system now considers astrology a "science". That doesn't change the facts of the matter, and one hopes a challenge to this decision will be mounted through the legal system.
Interesting footnote: the contributions of Arab scientists Alhazen (Ibn Al-Haytham) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Ibn Tufail to the development of the scientific method are notable. This makes the later descent of the Arab and Islamic world into dogmatism doubly sad. The blame must lie primarily on one philosopher. But that's another story.
"But it's a science!" has been a refrain I have had to deal with quite often when discussing astrology. Or a whole lot of other things.
The view that astrology is a science seems to spring from a very common misunderstanding of the word "science" in India. I cannot claim that this is unique to India, but since I've seen it mostly here, I cannot be sure if it exists worldwide.
What a lot of people seem to mean by "science" is "systematic body of knowledge" - derived probably from the Sanskrit "shaastra", which means precisely the latter. Astrology does definitely meet that standard, since it comes with a set of premises and a well defined set of rules, using which one can deduce the claimed truth or falsehood of propositions.
Being "scientific" requires a higher standard. Being systematic (a "shaastra") is a necessary condition for being scientific, but not a sufficient condition.
The "method of science" has a long and interesting history, and it rests on a few pillars - systematic organization, empiricism, and mathematical model building. Empiricism is the strongest condition, that facts and rules in the system of knowledge must be verifiable through experiment. Exactly how that verification must be done, and how much verification is necessary has been a matter of continuous refinement as Mankind progressed.
This is precisely the condition that a lot of Indian "shaastras" fail - they are based on "a-priori" or "revealed" premises which are empirically untested. That makes them systematic, but non-empirical, and therefore not "scientific". Note that it is not an issue of degree of empirical verification, but a basic philosophical disagreement about the need for strong empirical verification that is involved.
This holds for Astrology, Vaastu, Homeopathy (all of which have failed empirical verification in recent times). Some, like Ayurveda and Yoga have had partial success, to varying degrees, at empirical verification and can therefore be considered semi-scientific to that extent.
So, where does that leave us? Legally, the factual status of any question is what the courts state. Therefore, the Indian legal system now considers astrology a "science". That doesn't change the facts of the matter, and one hopes a challenge to this decision will be mounted through the legal system.
Interesting footnote: the contributions of Arab scientists Alhazen (Ibn Al-Haytham) and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Ibn Tufail to the development of the scientific method are notable. This makes the later descent of the Arab and Islamic world into dogmatism doubly sad. The blame must lie primarily on one philosopher. But that's another story.
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