[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].

There's an interesting interview with Sobel on National Public Radio where she discusses the book and addresses some of your issues:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/2...r2_102706.html

She seemed surprised that her "Creationist" analogies in chapter one were taken so literally. She was a bit bemused that she won an award from a religious group for that chapter.

I didn't get the impression that her discussion on astrology was deadly serious; I think she was just being a bit playful but also drawing on the ancient mythic connotations of astrology to put the story of planetary exploration into its mythical and historical contexts. I mean seriously, would someone who truly believed in the efficacy of astrology draw up a horoscope for a spacecraft?

Oh, and re: Galileo horoscope; she says in the interview that Galileo cast it himself, but she took it to an astrologer to have it interpreted.

__________________
There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

If you had a link in your original post, it may have been mistaken for spam. The mods have to take drastic measures to keep spam under control, and sometimes a post is mistakenly considered as spam...or you hit the wrong button and didn't post! I've done that a couple of times

Welcome, and don't take the post thing personally

Pete

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PJE

There's so much I don't know about astrophysics. I wish I had read that book by that wheelchair guy.

Thanks Pete.

I noticed that after I posted the second time. Sigh . I should have known anyway ... I also lurk on the JREF forums, where new members often comment on the URL restrictions there.

Anyway, I just had to get this rant off my chest.

As I said, I didn't find that too bad. Certainly it wasn't going against science in any way, so I'm willing to accept that one.

I'll listen to the interview later; thanks for the link.

It sure seemed serious to me. Nowhere was there any indication that I saw that she was parodying or otherwise not taking astrology seriously. Even in the appendix there's nothing to indicate that astronomers view astrology as complete bunk. Any casual reader (or astrology believer) would definitely come away with the impression that she is a supporter of astrology. Even if she isn't, the chapter, to my mind, doesn't even imply otherwise, let alone explicitly state so; that's the problem I have with the book.

I'll have to re-check the appendix; in my quick glance it seemed to say that this was a new horoscope. I'll check at home tonight (where the book is). It's a minor point anyway.

- Grant McDorman

BTW, The Planets by Gustav Holst has nothing to do with astronomy and everything to do with astrology.

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But the 'Jupiter' movement is always wonderful to listen to.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

Well, yes, but it can be enjoyed as a work of art in its own right; I do. It doesn't, when you listen to it, really advocate astrology - or mix astrology and science.

I'm a bit befuddled by your definition of "advocate"; if "The Planets" doesn't advocate astrology, I'm not sure what does. "Mars: The Bringer of War" is a military march designed to whip you into a bellicose frenzy. "Jupiter: The Bringer of Jolility" is a celebration. The suite positively revels in the planets' astrological aspects.

__________________
There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Well, yes, you can say it advocates astrology then. But so do works of fantasy.

The point I'm making about Dava Sobel's book is that it is supposedly a science book, but it is presenting astrology - in what looks, to me, to be a positive light - right next to, and mixed with, serious science. Holst's work is not a science work, it's a tone poem.

I hate astrology but "The Planets" is my favorite music. How can that not be a contradiction? Because the music isn't about astrology; it's about human emotions, personality types, and life experience. For example, when he wrote "Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age", he was thinking of his own confrontation with mortality, how he tried to avoid or deny it at first, then came to sense that there was no escape, felt completely terrified and agonized, was inevitably defeated and devastated, hopelessly surrendered, and finally came to peacefully accept it... but the emotional story works just as well for anyone's experience dealing with any personal crisis that takes time to recover from. As I've recovered from financial ruin, for example, I've noticed that the part of the Saturn movement that I most identify with has moved from the middle toward the end of it. (Some astrology fans would say the general "personal crisis" interpretation still fits astrologically because Saturn was the god of perseverence and discipline, but the point is that that's not the angle Holst was looking at it from, as you can tell by the subtitle.)

The categorization scheme happens to be associated with astrology, but if he'd used another human personality description system like "The 5 Elements" or a color-coded one, then he wouldn't have been advocating belief in 5 elements or a belief that human minds have colors; he would have just been using metaphors to express emotional ideas.

(BTW, he ended up getting annoyed later on that "The Planets" overshadowed all of his later compositions that weren't meant to be anything like it, and that people kept asking him for another "The Planets" even though he didn't want to write something else like it again and negatively comparing his other works to it... he thus lost interest in astrology itself by association.)

I think also that Holst's "The Planets" relates as much to the Greco-Roman gods for which the planets were named as it does to anything else.

Incidentally, I felt that Sobel's book "The Planets" was more about the history of science than it was about the science itself. And, like it or not, the roots of astronomy lie in astrology.

Having said that, I felt that the astrological bent of some passages in the book detracted from its overall tone. I found those bits far less interesting and far less engaging, because I feel that astrology has nothing to offer our modern, enlightened and informed world.

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The quarrelsome oarsmen were rowing,
The great violinist was bowing;
But how is the sage
To tell, from the page:
Was it pigs or seeds that were sowing?

I haven't read it yet, so don't have the full context, but from the description it sounds like a tone poem or series of musings on the broad topic. As such, literary license gives broad rights and privelegdes.

Even Hunter Thompson loved The Revelation of St. John; not for the religious mysticism, but for the raw power of the imagery and the words.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

"The Planets" is not a science book. It is, much like Sobel's other works, a combination of history and artistic license. Heck, the section on Mars was narrated in the first person by ALH84001; nonetheless I seriously doubt she advocates in that chapter that meteorites can talk. Does Sobel believe in astrology? I doubt it; she comes across as something of an agnostic on the subject in the interviews I've read. And like Nigel said, astrology is part of the history of astronomy, and is one of the principal means by which people come to know the planets in their everyday lives, so its only natural that a book intended to introduce the planets to the layman would use astrology as a means to that end.

I must say I've always been a bit puzzled by the hatred people on this forum have for astrology. It may be bunk, but then so are rabbit's feet, lucky pennies or saying "Break a leg" before a performance. It is not science, but unlike creationism or somesuch it is not opposed to science. I've done some divination in my time; it's basically just intuitive connecting of mythic archetypes. It doesn't really matter what the cards or the stars say in the end; what matters is how you draw them together in the presence of the questioner. The questioner eventually draws his or her own conclusions based on what he or she is shown.

__________________
There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Re The Planets:

Let's look at some source material.

1.

2.

3.

I should have included aspects of a mythological influence (although Holst later denied this) in my description. But there's little, if anything, astronomical.

About the only astronomical connotations for us now are due to the use of The Planets as background music for various early astronomy video productions. I remember the soundtrack of one, which IIRC was on Channel 13 in New Jersey, that used the quiet motif (G, E Flat, A, B) from "Uranus" as its theme. Such juxtapositionings may have caused astronomical associations in those watching, and which were retained much later. Then of course there are the astronomical images used as album covers for astrological music.

Here are some MIDIs which represent the music and provide astrological commentaries on its content.

Due to these astronomical influences, and the atmospheric aspect of the music, it was hard not play "Venus" through my mind when seeing the Morning Star rising while on a late night journey to upstate Vermont. And when first spying Neptune, to replay those ethereal 5/4 measures for ppp orchestra and finally, a wordless women's chorus, in my head.

But given the thematic, harmonic, and instrumental (there's always that Holst wind band in there somewhere) components, it's fun music.

It always struck me as somewhat appropriate and ironic that the war movement "Mars" would be in the same time as "Neptune the Mystic": 5/4.

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Also, Mak, let's not forget that Bill Arnett uses excerpts from Holst's The Planets on the Nine Planets website:
http://www.nineplanets.org/

And, hey, thanks for the links, too. I never knew that the piece premiered in the Royal Albert Hall. Which happens to be the only venue at which I've seen a live performance of The Planets.

Oh, and I went to the same school as Gustav Holst (but not at the same time ).

__________________
The quarrelsome oarsmen were rowing,
The great violinist was bowing;
But how is the sage
To tell, from the page:
Was it pigs or seeds that were sowing?

Sure is.

One thing Holst did was give his music an "outer space" kind of feel (mainly through orchestration), which has helped it get into the current basic repertoire.

There are others who've adopted such means, it's a short list.

Did anyone ever figure out what "Mercury" was 'telegraphing' on the glockenspiel?

I need to dig out my score.

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My wife is currently reading this book, Think I will give it a go when she finishes it.

Of course astrology is not opposed to science. You can't oppose something that you are completely ignorant of.