Woo shaming

[Igel]

51. Rather the contrary.

People like Newton believed in alchemy. They developed methods to test it, to try to improve it. But what alchemy was after, the claims it made, the predictions it made, all failed. That this went on for centuries before observation and prediction were considered important enough to count for much of anything is truly impressive.

Alchemy died. The methods that were finally responsible for its death lived on because what they produced was rigorous, predictive, and observationally grounded. They were not, however, derived from alchemy itself.

Similarly, astronomy grew out of the corpse of astrology, but it took a rethinking of the entire meaning of the observations to reach that observation. Astrology lives in, rather unchanged since before astronomy really established itself. Astronomy, however, has produced some rather startling insights.

It's rather like saying we get broccoli from dirt, so nutritionally there's no difference between the vitamin content of broccoli and clay.