http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/979152/Opinion-Perspective—year-holds-advertising-seen-Pythagoras/
Sometime back I read in a newspaper supplement either Hindustan or Times ) a defense of astrology by one of their regular astrologers.I could not locate the article on net but found out this other european media article giving the same “logic”. The employment of astrolgers by newspapers is in itself something they have to defend but that is another blog. So the astrologer gave the example of Pythagoras who apparently believed in numerology. Can Pythagoras be completely right about Pythagoras theorem and be all and all a mathematical genius and yet be wrong about numerology. I mean if a genius like Pythagoras believed in numerology then it has to be correct.
Well the answer to if Pythagoras can be completely right about one thing and completely wrong about another is – yes , yes and a thousand times yes. Aristotle believed that earth is the centre of the universe. Galileo dismissed the axioms of Kepler which were later used by Newton to arrive at his three fundamental laws. Newton believed that alchemy was a greater science than physics (talk about ironical !!!). Almost every great scientist has been so completely wrong about something that it is a little hilarious.
You have to admire the neat trick of using the name of Pythagoras to make the gullible readers believe in the gibberish that is astrology. Even if they don’t know any other scientist – they would have heard of Pythagoras thanks to the one theorem. So why not use the hard wired tendency to believe authority to dupe people. The question remains that do these astrologers believe their own lies as well.
- Amaresh
