[Note: I attempted to post this earlier, in the Astronomy section, I think, but my post seems to have vanished into the void.]

This is my first post; till now I've been lurking, and enjoying the erudition displayed by many of the posters when deconstructing the moon hoax believers and ATM proponents. I haven't had anything to contribute until now.

I have previously read, and enjoyed, Dava Sobel's books Galileo's Daughter and Longitude. In particular, I especially enjoyed the latter; as a result of reading it, I made a point of seeing Harrison's chronometers at Greenwitch when I was in London in 2006.

The Planets is a different story: I have had to put it down.

Here's why.

When I started reading it, one of the early sections contained overtly Christian passages. I found this a little bit discomforting, especially in view of the recent attacks on science by some Christian sects (i.e. Creationism/Intelligent Design, Young Earth). This sentence at the end of the chapter, in particular, made me a bit uncomfortable (with reference to the coincidental congruence between the visible size of the Sun and the Moon that allows the corona to be visible during eclipses):
(page 28)
However, there wasn't many of this type of statement, and when I got to the following sections they disappeared; so I let it go. It did not greatly detract from the book, on the whole.

Each section has a theme, which is expanded upon. In addition to history, Ms. Sobel touches upon astronomy and related topics when discussing each planet. The section on Mercury, for example, which is themed upon mythology, not only mentions Mariner (which visited the planet), but describes the problem uncovered with Mercury's precessing perihelion, and how Einstein's theory resolved it (pages 41-43). The subsequent sections - Venus, Earth, Mars - are reasonable and interesting.

However.

The section on Jupiter was where I stopped.

She has linked it to astrology. While this is, in itself, not a problem, the trouble is that she presents astrology as legitimate . Worse, she does not admit that the majority of scientists in general, and astronomers in particular, view astrology as at best nonsense (and at worst fraud, when people are collecting money for astrological forecasts). She starts with discussing Galileo, and goes into considerable detail about his horoscope - and how closely it matches his personality and fortunes (pages 143-145). It turns out, when I looked in the back of the book, that this comes from a horoscope for Galileo cast in 2003. You can fit anything perfectly with hindsight, no? She also admits that his sign is, um, "adjusted" - due to the calendar change in 1582:(footnote, page 143).

The closest she comes to admitting that astrology is not science this is this passage:
(page 160).
Unfortunately, she then goes on to give a horoscope for the Galileo probe, of all things - and presents it as not only valid, but that if those silly astronomers had paid attention to astrology they could have avoided problems with Galileo. The passage above continues:
Yuck. A horoscope for a machine, even - and, according to her, had they used it, it would have saved those silly engineers from problems? Disgusting.

As I read through the chapter, I kept expecting her to repudiate astrology, or at least talk of how astronomers find it to be nonsense. She never does.

I started on the next chapter, Saturn (which opens talking about Holt's composition The Planets), but soon stopped as I continued thinking about the previous chapter. Turning to the index, I looked up astrology to see if there were any other places where she might recover. There were none.

At that point, I put the book down. I do not think I will finish it. I will certainly never buy another book from her again.

After the excellence of Longitude, and Galileo's Daughter, which I found interesting (although not as good as Longitude), I expected to enjoy this work.

However, I am upset. Betrayed, even. This is not a work on science; to paraphrase Wolfgang Pauli, this is not science - it's not even non-science. [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Even_Wrong for more on Pauli's put-down].