An Open Letter to 567 Cape Talk & Rod Suskin

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1

This open was posted on News 24

http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/Astrology-An-Open-Letter-to-567-Cape-Talk-Rod-Suskin-20140131

I’m asking if you agree send an email to Tessa van Staden Programming Operations Manager at Cape talk and tell her so [email protected]

Thanks.

2

Done!!! :slight_smile:

3

Did it as well.

4

Ditto.

Thanks cr1t, I was going to raise this one here but you did it first.

'Luthon64

5

Done. I’m posting my letter here too, as I’m especially proud of the word “modulates”.

Dear Tessa,

I too agree with the statements in the open letter to Cape Talk Radio, recently posted over here:

A pseudo scientific claim typically tries to cloak its unfounded or even patently silly assumptions in technical jargon, or by conflation with real scientific facts. For example, an astrologer might say that the moon moves from constellation-to-constellation. No problem there: the moon revolves around the earth and from our point of view, its movement through the zodiac is easily explained astronomically. But then the astrologer goes on to state that the motion of the moon through the zodiac modulates - of all things - our future! But he proposes no sound mechanism or evidence to explain how or why this interesting claim should work or be true. See how the science promptly deteriorates into non-science?

The sad thing is that even today many people (probably a minority, but still) have difficulty differentiating real science form pseudoscience. Someone with little scientific training or casual interest will almost certainly have difficulty noticing the point where a practitioner makes the cunning leap from real science to the pseudo scientific nonsense. As such, the credulous listener could be vulnerable to poor (but dressed up) advice, and I worry that it could lead to disastrous consequences in extreme cases. At the very least, presenting pseudo scientific claims as fact does the public’s understanding of science very little good. Effectively, it de-educates.

A responsible broadcaster should be sensitive to this fact, and aim to inform, not confuse.

Best regards,
Ronnie

6

Awesome thanks everybody :wink:

I hope we get at least a response.

I wonder how much this comes down to money, because somebody must be paying for this to be on air and making money out of it.

7

I’ll also send an email, but wouldn’t it be better if someone just started an online petition? I’m sure there are plenty of online ones one may use, like http://www.petitions24.com/ to name only one, this always give more weight to your complaint, as you’re representing more people than just yourself then.