You definitely weren't the only one who hated that episode. Notice the episode on white holes and time travel had the host emphasing that 'we aren't making fun of this', just because it vaguely has to do with science. Yet the idea that stars could have an individual effect on humans is considered ludicrous.

Studies have been done on full moons, and as anybody in law enforcement or in a hospital will tell you, when that happens, people get weird. We KNOW that, I just read yet another study on it. We can observe a full moon, then measure the effects. Perhaps its true that there are other factors, but these are things we just don't know. So why not study it, why ridicule it? Are you that ****ed off at having been a geeky nerd in school who was ostracized? If the moon CAN have an effect, then perhaps stars can have an effect. Science has made its largest leaps forward when people finally started asking the questions that the majority of scientists were taking for granted..or considering ludicrous. For a long time alchemists were ridiculed, imagine wanting to change one thing into another, now of course, its done as a matter of routine. Who's have thought the alchemists would be right.

That's one of the reasons why scientists have such a hard time getting people involved. Not only is there a reliance on jargon, there's also this condescending attitude that 'we are sooooo much smarter than you rubes". Even though some PHD's I know are about the dumbest people I've ever met.

Meanwhile of course, we find out that nobody KNOWS anything. The woman even admits that a mathematician can come up with anything, in the show about, I forget, the beginning of the universe maybe it was. Yet is there a show talking about how mathematics is pseudo science?

We all know that a scientific theory is 'valid' if it 'works'. In other words, so long as it reasonably explains things then it becomes 'fact'. Meanwhile of course, all the things that aren't explained are said to be 'in the works'.

When all those 'very smart people' are making hypotheses about what happened before the big bang are they called charlatans? No, they are just 'really smart people', who , by the way, are making up utter nonsense. We might also add all the topics through the shows that the narrators say are "fun to think about", even though there is no evidence one way or another. Are those considered pseudo scientific? Not at all.

I just got an ipod and have been going through all kinds of pods while I work and this is one of my favourites. However, what is next? How about taking books from the Talmud and Bible and holy books and talking about why they are utter rubbish. Actually, thats not bad, the history of astronomy is just filled with good stuff. If you look for shows, there is a big fountain. But the part about belittling was just a joke.

The only other beef I have is that the show often IS NOT "how we know what we know". I can't count the number of times that Pamela has said "well, this happens and then this and this" without any reference to how we know those things.


So yeah, keep to science. When you want viewers its always a good idea to not go out of your way to insult people. If the full moon makes people a little nuts, then there's something to astrology. As for the details, well, maybe you just haven't looked at the details. How do you know there aren't 'metaphysical laws' within the astrology movement. After all, physical laws are pretty arbitrary, and lots of physical laws have fallen by the wayside. The effects, again, are very measurable at the hospital.