Simulating Reality

Up until recently I didn’t think anyone actually believes in astrology.  I thought it was something people read for fun, and didn’t really pay much attention to, kind of like fortune cookies.  Apparently I was naive.  They even have their own “scientific” journal.  I am ashamed to admit that I had no idea so many people took this nonsense so seriously (I prefer to think that rather than being naive, I am simply too much of an optimist, but maybe that’s just a nicer way of phrasing the same thing).

How it supposedly works is a bit of a mystery to me.  Some say it works by magical vibrations, despite the fact that space is a vacuum and therefore incapable of transmitting vibrations.  Others claim it works through gravity, either direct gravitational pull on us, despite the fact that the gravitational pull from the midwife or doctor delivering the baby is the same order of magnitude as that of the moon or the stars (gravitational forces drop off like ), or gravitation affects the magnetic properties of the sun, which affects us, despite the fact that the magnetic fields from the electronics in the room are orders of magnitude larger (magnetic fields drop off faster than , though the exact expression depends on the structure of the magnet).

What brought about this sudden realization, you might ask?  I was at work Saturday (I work at a bookstore) removing books for return from the “Astrology/New Age” section, when I casually commented to one of my coworkers that the books belong in the “Fantasy” section.  Imaging my chagrin when she got upset with me.  She then proceeded to try to “convert” me to astrology.  The single bit of evidence she presented: “Remember when Mars was really close to Earth last year, and there was that series of murders?  Well, Mars makes people more violent.”  That’s it, that was the entirety of her argument.  A single bit of anecdotal evidence (which I’m taking her word that it is actually true, I don’t, in fact, remember any such string of murders off hand).  No statistics.  Not even a proposed mechanism of action.  At least some people try to use statistics.  I attempted an explanation of why astrology doesn’t work, and the flaws in her short argument but was met with a wall of incomprehension.   I walked away, shaking my head.

At least one of us learned something today.

B.C. gives naturopaths right to prescribe drugs.  These people are not medical doctors, they have not completed a medical degree (they have their own degree program which glosses over a few medical terms before jumping into the quackery), and do not have the understanding of pharmacology required to prescribe drugs.  Further, they have no understanding (because in many cases the studies have never been done) of the interactions between the herbs they normally prefer to use and the drugs they may be prescribing.  Your doctor will usually tell you to avoid herbal “medications” while you are on actual medication because the interactions have not been extensively studied.

To make matters worse, midwives are now allowed to perform acupuncture for pain relief of women in labour.  Never mind that accupuncture doesn’t work.  There is no anatomical basis for the acupuncture points, or the meridian lines, chi energy, and other nonsense the points are based on.  That’s right, let’s stick ineffective needles that don’t work into women who are trying to give birth.  Good work British Columbia!