September 3, 1975, the Day Top Scientists Debased Themselves

On September 3, 1975 the New York Times published the following article on page one, column 2:

186 Top Scientists Dismiss Astrologers as Charlatans
By Boyce Rensberger
Sept. 3, 1975
Astrology, the ancient belief that stars influence people’s lives and foretell events, has become so widely accepted that 186 prominent scientists have issued a statement calling astrologers charlatans and asserting that there is no rational basis for the belief.
The statement, published along with a list of signers in the latest issue of The Humanist magazine, was drafted by Dr. Bart J. Bok, former president of the American Astronomical Society and professor emeritus of astronomy at the University of Arizona. It says:
“We wish to caution the public against the. unquestioning acceptance of the predictions and advice given privately and publicly by astrologers. Those who wish to believe in astrology should realize that there is no scientific foundation for its tenets.”
The scientists’ statement goes on to say that they are “especially disturbed by the continued uncritical dissemination of astrological charts, forecasts and horoscopes by the media and by otherwise reputable newspapers, magazines and book publishers.”
Dr. Bok said in a telephone interview that there was no special reason for issuing the statement new, although he noted that in recent years there has been a steady growth of interest in astrology, occultism and other nonrational topics.
“I have always been concerned about the interest In astrology,” Dr. Bok said. “I don’t think astronomers can stop astrology but I think we have a responsibility to speak out every so often to remind the public, especially young people, that this is pure hokum. I have made it a practice every five years to speak out against astrology.”
In addition to Dr. Bok, the statement was signed by 185 other scientists, many of them astronomers or astrophysicists and members of the National Academy of Science. Eighteen signers are Nobel Prize winners.
Among the signers were Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer; Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences; Lee A. DuBridge. president emeritus of the California Institute of Technology; Frederick Seitz, president of Rockefeller University, and B. F. Skinner, the Harvard psychologist.
The statement notes that astrology was devised in ancient times according to what was then known about the solar system and visible stars. Since then, it says, knowledge of the universe has greatly expanded and many old concepts about relations among the astronomical bodies have long been discredited.
For example, it points out that groups of stars once thought to be close together because they appeared so, and which were grouped as constellations, are now known to be very far apart. Stars in widely separated constellations may be closer to each other than to other stars in their own constellation.
“Now that these distances can and have been calculated,” the statement says, “we can see how infinitesimally small are the gravitational and other effects produced by the distant planets and the far more distant stars. It is simply a mistake to imagine that forces exerted by stars and planets at the moment of birth can in any way shape our future.”
In related articles in The Humanist, a journal devoted to the application of philosophy to ethical and social problems, Dr. Bok and others discuss various aspects of astrology.
Astrology “robs man of his most human feature.” wrote Lawrence E. Jerome, an engineer who has made a study of astrology. “To how to the magical ‘dictates of the stars’ it to abandon free will and rationality.”
Dr. Paul Kurtz, a philosophy professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and editor of The Humanist, said he felt the statement was needed because “there has been a large growth in irrational thinking, even on college campuses where there is tremendous interest in courses in the occult and the like.” “Whole generations of students are coming out without any idea that you have to have evidence for your beliefs,” he added.
A professional astrologer, R. Donald Papon, director of the Academy of Mystic Arts in New York, dismissed the criticism, saying, “This debate has been going on for centuries.”
“You can always get a number of scientists to sign a proclamation like this,” Mr. Papon said. “but there are 50 million Americans very much involved in astrology, 1,250 out of 1,500 daily newspapers carry an astrology column, and six universities. including the New School, have had academic courses in astrology.”
He said he had taught a course in astrology at the New School for Social Research in New York for academic credit.
Diane Gusick, an associate of the Astrological Bureau. 11 East 61st Street, a three‐person publishing, consulting and teaching group, said in a telephone interview:
“An astrologer who has studied the subject can see planets in certain geometric arrangements and can predict or diagnose the kind of energy available to some humans that will be in effect at a specified time.
“We have studied the subject and the scientists who made the statement have not.”
Attempts to reach several other astrological organizations in the New York area were unavailing.
Among the Nobel Prize winners who signed the statement the following: (followed by a list of names).

One of the few “scientists” who refused to sign the anti-astrology proclamation was Carl Sagan. Although he felt that astrology was not scientifically provable, he objected to the arrogant authoritarianism of the scientists who did sign based on their belief that their manner of thinking was superior to that of the rest of the human population. Sagan commented:

“In the middle 1970s an astronomer I admire put together a modest manifesto called “Objections to Astrology” and asked me to endorse it. I struggled with its wording, and in the end found myself unable to sign—not because I thought astrology had any validity whatever, but because I felt (and still feel) that the tone of the statement was authoritarian. It criticized astrology for having origins shrouded in superstition. But this is true as well for religion, chemistry, medicine, and astronomy, to mention only four. The issue is not what faltering and rudimentary knowledge astrology came from, but what is its present validity. Then there was speculation on the psychological motivations of those who believe in astrology. These motivations—for example, the feeling of powerlessness in a complex, troublesome and unpredictable world—might explain why astrology is not generally given the skeptical scrutiny it deserves, but is quite peripheral to whether it works… What I would have signed is a statement describing and refuting the principal tenets of astrological belief. Such a statement would have been far more persuasive than what was actually circulated and published. But astrology, which has been with us for four thousand years or more, today seems more popular than ever. At least a quarter of all Americans, according to opinion polls, “believe” in astrology. A third think Sun-sign astrology is “scientific.” The fraction of schoolchildren believing in astrology rose from 40 percent to 49 percent between 1978 and 1984. There are perhaps ten times more astrologers than astronomers in the United States. In France there are more astrologers than Roman Catholic clergy. No stuffy dismissal by a gaggle of scientists makes contact with the social needs that astrology — no matter how invalid it is — addresses, and science does not.” — Carl Sagan  (italics mine)

In this sample of 186 scientists, blinded by their rabid hatred of astrology and the sheer arrogance of their presumed intellectual superiority, none holds a candle to the rational and thoughtful mind of Carl Sagan, who is perhaps the only true scientist among them. The manifesto reads like a medieval Papal degree condemning non-believers as heretics and ordering that they be burned at the stake.

Here is the sunrise chart for NYC on September 3, 1975, when the article about the anti-astrology manifesto appeared in the New York Times.

The day begins with a T-square. The rising Sun (illumination) in Virgo gets squared by Mars in Gemini (fighting words by scientists playing hardball) in the 10th at the top of the heavens. At the same time, the Sun receives a square from Neptune in Sagittarius (foggy-headed spiritually-minded astrologers) at the bottom of the chart. The hard-minded scientists (Mars) are in strong opposition to the nebulous soft-minded astrologers (Neptune), and this opposition is being brought strongly to light by the article in the NY Times. Interestingly, Mars rules the 3rd house of documents and the news, and Mars in Gemini is the most prominent planet in the sunrise chart. Two planets, Venus and Uranus, lie in the last degree of the signs they occupy, suggesting some type of significant ending. Jupiter in Aries in the 8th squares Saturn in Cancer in the 11th, echoing the dominant T-square formation which characterizes the chart. The Libra stellium in the 2nd is curious; perhaps the arrogant scientists are worried that the public’s belief in astrology will threaten their access to resources and livelihood.