The Tax Cheapo

Planetarium directors, astronomers and scientists are united in decrying the name a star phenomenon as scientifically unsuitable. The web site Space.com reports that your money would be better spent on a picture astronomy book than on a frivolous certificate, however planetariums and other science-oriented non-profits have started up star naming services because they are so popular with the public. Why the popularity?

There are two basic reasons why people are interested in naming stars after themselves or other people:
The first and least transparent reason is that for every person who has encountered an article about astronomy in the paper, a thousand have checked on their daily horoscope. Surprising but true, most laymen mix up astrologers and astronomers and make no differentiation. Why is this? It’s because astrology talks about a human’s personal relationship with the cosmos. Why is this so remarkable? The idea that what goes on in the stars affects a human’s individual life history has been a character of human civilization from the start. The scientist Johannes Kepler, who demonstrated unequivocally that the planets revolve around the Sun instead of the Earth, gained his living doing horoscopes for the monarchs of Europe. So while astronomy was replacing astrology, it was still viewed a highly valued profession. It wasn’t until Sir Isaac Newton began to trace the means by which the planets, moons, and stars affected each other in outer space by way of his laws of gravitational attraction did people begin to think about the stars as something else besides precursors of their life’s fate.

The second reason is based on one’s belief that the stars deliver a personal connectedness with people began with the Greek belief that the entire universe revolves around the Earth. If it’s true that the stars revolves around the Earth, then what takes place in that universe, so one may conceive, surely must touch on me. That is why astrology to this day bears such a great impact on people, particularly when it ventures to prognosticate the future.