Starkle, starkle, little twink - challenging astrology

There is an informal, effective way to challenge astrology that is neither a disdainful dismissal nor a tedious, scientific recital. It is just recital. It is just a matter of asking some simple questions.

The full quote is, "Starkle, starkle, little twink; who the hell you are, I think? Uttering these words of drunken contemplation is a pudgy cartoon character, holding what surely must be his sixth or seventh martini. His heavy-lidded eyes gaze out soporifically, as numerous bubbles, surrounding him like a halo, complete the picture. This tiny bit of tomfoolery appeared on a cocktail napkin in the San Francisco Bay Area somewhere around 1980.

She's quoting cocktail napkins?! you may rightly ask. Well, yes, actually I am. Contemplation of the stars, drunk or sober, has been a preoccupation with humankind since our inception. It seems to be one of the first things we humans ever set our minds to. And with good reason.

The night sky is a glorious, intimidating, curious thing. Many humans, over many millennia, have gazed up at the stars and wondered, "What the heck are those things?" And for so many millennia, people hadn't a clue. Humans thought up some very creative explanations for the stars. They were holes in the sky where light peeked through from the brilliant heaven above that sky. They were the campfires of thousands of other hunting clans, just like ours - except they were very, very far away. They were the night-lights of the gods. Although we had no clear answer, humans were determined to come up with the right explanation for this enigma.

Those few stars that refused to stay put complicated things for our remote ancestors in this already puzzling mystery. Now why would a handful of stars, among all those thousands, behave that way? Night after night, as the canopy of stars moved majestically and predictably across the sky, there were always those few rebels who refused to go along with the rest. It was eerie.

And if you looked very closely, some of these rebels looked quite different from the rest of the vast array. For one thing, they didn't seem to twinkle like the others. And one of them, on certain nights, actually looked as if it were red. Then there were those two brilliant rebel stars that were always so low on the horizon at sunrise and sunset, that were often more bright than any other star in the sky. These were deep mysteries indeed.

We finally did figure out that the brilliant morning and evening stars were one and the same - Venus. And some of us ultimately realized that these rebels were not stars at all - they were gods, a logical deduction if ever there was one. Well, that turned out not to be the right answer. But once we concluded that these "wandering" stars were in fact planets, we set about the exciting business of interpreting their bizarre motions in the heavens, and how these meanderings might affect us. Thus, astrology was born. And we have been happily engaged in it ever since.

For almost as long as astrology has existed, there have been cogent arguments put forward exposing its fatal flaws. Once the real distances to the planets had been fairly well calculated, and gravitation was more or less understood, these arguments carried even more weight. How could planets, hundreds of millions of miles away from us, have any effect on a newborn baby? Logically, they could not. But logic has never been our strongest suit. Consider:

According to statistics quoted in Life magazine (July 1997), 48 percent of Americans say that astrology is valid; in the last twenty years the number of astrologers has increased from around 1,000 to 5,000; and 20 million books on astrology are purchased annually in this country alone. Helping to feed this silliness, and very unsettling to a skeptical thinker, is the fact that the Life article author concluded with a ringing endorsement of astrology (see "Life Magazine's Star Struck View of Astrology," SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, November/December 1997).

We seem to be galloping backward. It's as if we just can't wait to return to the Middle Ages, when illnesses were often treated with exorcisms, witches really flew on broomsticks, and the stars unquestionably ruled our destinies with a firm hand. Christian fundamentalism is on the rise and comets are again being perceived as messengers from God, at least in certain sections of San Diego, California.

So what do we do, other than wring our hands and gloomily anticipate a real, widespread return to medieval thinking? On a personal level, there is much we can do, if we all jump in and give it a try. Undoubtedly you know at least one person who believes in astrology. And though you may not be able to disabuse your believing friend of that cherished belief, exchanges such as the following can be fruitful dialogues, especially if witnessed by several astrology adherents. These conversations will be far more successful if you avoid condescension and patronization. You can, instead, gently nudge your friend to examine his or her own beliefs.