Word: kirshners
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...Known to undergraduates as the David Letterman-esque professor of Science A-35, "Matter in the Universe," Kirshner lightens the atmosphere in his cluttered office with a steady stream of jokes. After a one-liner about slacker students and a quip about make-up exams, he quickly turns to the matter at hand--attempting to distinguish astronomy from astrology...
...Astronomy," Kirshner says, "is the application of physical understanding to the physical world beyond the earth. We know that. And astrology... Basically astrology is a system of religion. It's something that's based on faith not on evidence...
...When told of an instance last year when Dean Harry R. Lewis '68 mistook astrology for astronomy, Kirshner seems incredulous at first. In an e-mail, Lewis explained to undergraduates that joint concentrations should combine fields that are at least somewhat related to one another, and as an example of a difficult combination, he cited astrology and music...
...first defending Lewis, saying he must have been too busy to proofread, Kirshner then laughs and says, "Well, I agree... I think astrology and music is a bad combination." He continues, "I think cosmology and cosmetology get confused even more. Here's a quick tip: If you want to have unwanted hair removed, go to a cosme-tol-ogist, not a cosmologist. If you wanted unwanted dark matter removed, that's a different story...
...Delving into a historical argument, Kirshner admits that, unlike the studies of the universe and cosmetics, astronomy and astrology were actually closely linked at one point. "In the 1600's," Kirshner says, "they were related. [Johannes] Kepler was, in fact, an astrologer...