Hard-headedness.
It's rather funny how it shows up sometimes.
I made a couple posts about astrology the other day, and can't say I was all that surprised when it showed up in the form of two guys set upon proving me how wrong I was and how right they were.
Actually, it was an excellent materialization to provide a great example for this story of how this dynamic plays out at two opposites of a spectrum. The first came across as just outright rude and belligerent. The second, still holding firm to his unasked-for beliefs, yet conducting himself with some standards of dignity and decency. Both serve as fine models of this dynamic at play, expressed differently...
I'd come across this dynamic via Facebook last year in numerous groups, in their response to a variety of topics - from chiropractic and "alternative" medicine to vaccines to GMOs, astrology, and more of such heated, debated subjects.
On the one hand, we've had alot people questioning conventional ways of doing things, picking apart the flaws in mainstream stories, finding evidence contrary to popular scientific belief on such subjects. And, alot of them have gone to an extreme - condemning the medical community altogether, insisting they know better because of a few hours of research they've done on the internet. Reaction.
And, others coming from dogmatic beliefs in science have retaliated with their own reactionism.
Some of them have remained professional, bringing objective facts to the debates, leaving their emotions out. Others have been rude, hostile, nasty little twats.
Similar psychological profiles in their opposites, playing out on both sides.
Anyways...
Science is great. It's provided us an avenue for exploring the mechanics of our universe, such that we've been able to make tremendously awesome leaps and bounds in technology and medicine. Our lives are so much better because of it in ways that we can't even really totally fathom.
Yet, there have been many that have turned science into a God and gone a bit extremist with their beliefs that it is the end-all-be-all deliverer of Truth, and that if something can't be proven by our current scientific models and frameworks, then it must be false.
This outlook is flawed.
Why? It's simple.
Much of what science has "proven" to be true today, was not provable decades ago. Either we did not have the tools and technologies to examine certain dimensions of phenomenon, or didn't yet form the formal theories and protocols to direct explorations into the phenomenon.
And, one fundamental approach of science is that there is still huge amounts of information yet to be discovered. That for as much as we have learnt, we've barely scratched the surface.
Yet, there are those who've invested so much of their identity in the belief systems that our modern-day science is so almighty and knowing, that if something hasn't stood up to the tests of its limited frameworks, it must be garbage.
And - I don't mean to pick sides here - they are wrong.
Granted, there are matters that science has proven invalid.
Yet, there are other dimensions and subjects which the scientific method is not fit for determining the place or value of.
Now, this is a tricky subject to approach, because the belief systems of the conventional scientific subculture of which I write - who dogmatically dismiss everything that doesn't fit their own model of the world, blind to the blindness they've self-created through their own cognitive biases - do have an intellectually-strong foundation, from which they'll work effectively to fight conflicting perspectives to validate themselves and self-preserve.
Some take on these belief systems to a greater extent than others. And maybe it's a bit of personal psychology that makes the difference, though these are the ones that get belligerent about fighting to prove themselves and their beliefs right - at the expense of their own capacity to begin understanding matters that lie outside the framework of their dogmatically-idolized single-way of looking at and interpreting the world (the scientific lens).
Astrology is a fine example of a subject that commonly triggers a dynamic.
Repeatedly, astrology has been dismissed as "quackery," "psuedoscience," and the like because it's never been "proven" within the scientific methodology.
And it might never be. Because it is a completely different domain not lending itself to scientific probing and adherence to the current model of 20th century science.
Science wants to quantify. But astrology is not entirely quantifiable - though is largely based in the mathematics of planetary positions, thus one dimension of it does have to do with the laws of physics. It is much more qualitative.
art credit: Jetter Green
There is the physical, scientific, mathematical aspect to astrology.
Yet where scientists have failed in attempting to box it into their limited - by definition of science not yet knowing everything - frameworks of understanding nature is in failing to bridge the mathematical side, based in laws of physics, with the qualitative side based in consciousness and the subjective human experience itself.
This does not mean the link between those two dimension does not exist. Only that it has not yet been discovered and articulated within the language system of science's current models & paradigms.
Part of the dogmatic science extremist subculture is some odd superiority complex, fuelled by the notion mankind has reached its pinnacle of understanding. It does fail to acknowledge how little it actually knows and how much there is still to discover. And like with any ego-based superiority-complex, it'll often attempt to knock down what threatens its sense of security and challenges its insecurities, based in a deep knowing it could be wrong.
Astrology never will fit into the frameworks of science as it exists today.
Just as the domain of philosophy never will. And most scientists would agree the suggestion it even could is ludicrous, because it is an entirely different domain.
Yet, the debate of astrology somehow triggers a whole set of different reactions in science-believers, because it does hold some threat to their belief system. Perhaps the belief that there is some concrete distinction between the quantifiable domains of science and the qualitative domains of subjects that have considered "esoteric" or "occult." Perhaps some deeply-rooted fear passed down through generations that an exploration into these territories and intermingling of these domains might result in the fate of being burned at the stake - as irrational that might seem, given society no longer burns people alive, yet perhaps not so irrational if one understands the powerful impact of genetically-inhereted psychology and the social dynamics that predictably lead to an individual's ostracization should they too loudly challenge the cultural status quo.
Whatever the case, in their attempts to prove themselves right and anyone who poses the perspective that there might be anything in the realm of astrology worth exploring wrong, such fervently-science-obsessed ideologicial extremists have been doing little to actually serve the evolution of science itself and the broadening of its frameworks to investigate dimensions of nature which appear perplexing through the lens of its current models.
During the fight to discredit what they cannot understand, they have been effectively killing the innate spirit of curiosity and open-mindedness which has been the driving force of scientific progress that has elevated the field to the revered domain through which they associate themselves as warriors of Truth, superior due to their belief system which is supposed to serve the advancement of understanding nature's phenomena, yet contradictorily obstructs the perception of information which contradicts their dearly-held ideas inherently limited by the boundaries between the (presently) conscious and unconscious.
Now THAT is a mouthful. It might be worth rereading that paragraph a few times at a slow pace.
The surface of this topic has barely begun to be scratched...
As such, this story is evolving into a multi-part exploration, which shall carry on with Part TWO here...