Message #33924

[Bianca]

Recent sociological studies [34]  show that "belief" in astrology -- the matter of belief always being a presupposition in this area, whereas for science it is a matter of knowledge -- is inversely proportional to the level of scientific comprehension on the part of the people interviewed. The results, then, are nothing more than the following rather trivial observation: the more the mind is educated and conditioned by scientific mentality, the less receptive it is to what it finds unfamiliar. What can one hope to find by taking the pulse of popular opinion if not the results of the action of the dominant mentality on people's minds? Unless, of course, the true work of the sociologist consists precisely of verifying whether the means of ideological indoctrination are in good working order ...

      Sociological discourse can gild the most biased and underhanded kinds of anti-astrology. Its function is to reproduce the opinion and prejudices of the scientific community, despite the fact that it is itself the poor relation of the group that community claims as its own. [35]  The sociologist, a by-product of the scientific juggernaut, justifies himself by reflecting in his discourse the transparency of scientistic ideology, without being obliged to interrogate the presuppositions of his own investigative process.

To my knowledge, there is no sociological study on the caste of sociologists. The anti-astrology of sociologists consists first in postulating that astrology should be an object of study for sociology, but never that science,[36]  astronomy, or sociology itself be such an object.