Keith Hudson wrote:
> I see from today's Times that our country is not the only one with rotting
> universities. In Paris, The Sorbonne, founded in the 13th century and once
> France's most renowned university with the highest standards of
> scholarship, has now given a doctorate to a 63 woman who wrote a thesis on
> astrology (repeat: astro*l*ogy, not astronomy).
Perhaps this incident is more a sign of political corruption than of
academic decadence: Being a famous astrologer and former "Miss France",
Elisabeth Teissier predicted in 1987 to Jack Lang that he would have a
comeback in politics. Lang was so glad that he promised her anything
she wanted if her prediction would turn out true. It did, so Teissier
asked Lang to help her getting Astrology recognized at the Sorbonne
(after it had been dropped in 1666 under Louis XIV, when the French
Academy of Sciences was founded). Back in charge as French minister
of education, Jack Lang did what he could...
To be fair, it should be noted that the protests from academics (including
sociologists) were strong and substantial, and only a handful of individuals
(a jury of 4) granted her the thesis, with the jury's spokesman emphasizing
that "astrology is not a science". French scientists (including 4 Nobel
Prize laureates) sent a protest letter to education minister.....Jack Lang.
Ed Weick wrote:
> I guess bad sociology is bad sociology, but I find the question of what role
> astrology continues to play in our lives an interesting one. My wife is
> well educated, but continues to read her horoscope (and mine) with more than
> passing interest. My ex-son-in-law earned some of his income by hanging
> around a coffee shop and reading Tarot cards for people. He had quite a few
> clients. I don't know if this is the kind of thing the lady wrote about,
> but we cannot really dismiss the role that things arcane continue to play in
> our lives.
Her thesis -- full of typographic & scientific mistakes -- has the purpose
of establishing astrology as a "scientific" discipline -- i.e. to turn the
clock back by 335 years. However, Teissier's style, assertions and
"evidence" are as absurdly wrong as her esoterical "predictions".
E.g., in December 1998, Teissier predicted (based on a Nostradamus verse)
an apocalyptic event ("possibly an UFO visit") for 11th August 1999, and
announced she would quit her job if no such event would happen. The
predicted event didn't happen, but she continued nonetheless, with even
more absurd "predictions" for Y2K. Needless to say, French scientists
have analyzed her track record of annual predictions of airplane accidents
and such, and found that Teissier was no more correct than throwing a dice
(although she usually makes very vague predictions in order to not be _too_
obviously wrong).
Chris
_______________________________________________________________________
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with
sense, reason, and intellect, had intended for us to forgo their use."
-- Galileo Galilei
