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> As the saying goes, “all models are wrong, some models are useful” While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at some
by civilitty 3y ago
> As the saying goes, “all models are wrong, some models are useful” While the astrology “model” is obviously wrong, it must have been useful to someone at sometime for it to have gained such a popularity.
Yeah that’s how string theory got do popular. It’s usefulness. (Replace string theory with any subject from the entirety of metaphysics pre-scientific revolution)
Snark aside, have you considered that astrology’s “usefulness” that allowed it to propagate was swindling people out of money? There’s a swindler in every main street and in every paper - that’s why it got popular.
- WorldMaker 3y agoUsefulness can be a very subjective thing. Plenty of string theorists find it useful. Some like to go on about how the math is all so usefully aesthetic compared to alternatives. It looks nice so it feels nice to work with, there's a usefulness there. Others talk about how String Theory has been very useful in finding new questions. Sure, it has been having a rough go at finding testable, predictable answers to all the new questions, but sometimes it is still very useful just to have interesting questions to ask the next theory, because maybe that will have useful answers. (The scientific process starts from questions, hypotheses, of course.) I won't defend astrology's usefulness, but there's certainly centuries of subjective feelings about the subject to find in many libraries, if you care to. Usefulness as a subjective quality is orthogonal to any objective criticisms about the usefulness as a model.