Should Scientists Date People Who Believe in Astrology?
By Aaron Rowe
Astrology While searching for a soulmate on several online dating sites, I caught myself disregarding anyone who professed their belief in astrology.
At roughly the same time, a friend called my attention to this clip from The Big Bang Theory, which thoroughly picks astrological superstition apart.
Am I being too hard on my New Age counterparts?
In my book, astrology is a silly shortcut for understanding how the world works, but so is judging people by their spiritual beliefs.
Scientists are sometimes guilty of using ridiculous heuristics too! For example, principal investigators sometimes hire graduate students based on grades and standardized test scores rather than their ability to work well in a laboratory.
Many brilliant people, including Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis, believe rather strange things. One of the chapters in his autobiography, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, bears the title: I am a Capricorn.
Also, I suspect that if someone took a poll of obsessive compulsive scientists, and there are plenty of those, they would be amazed by how many ridiculous beliefs the otherwise rational scholars secretly harbor.
Labels: ciência, nerd
