astrolomy
a recent study says half of young people think astrology is scientific. which would be really bad news on its face. digging a little deeper it's not that bad. the words astronomy and astrology are very close. i have several astronomer friends. and i have to be very careful that i don't accidentally refer to them as astrologers. cause that's like a pretty serious insult. i suspect if one redid the survey but instead asked are horoscopes scientific, one would get a very different result. in fact, someone did such a $5 survey. they repeated the original study down to the language. in addition they asked respondents to define astrology. astronomy is the study of stars and planets. astrology is how they affect people. thinking back, i'm pretty sure that i was in college when i realized that astrology means horoscopes. which are clearly feel good claptrap. so anywho, the guy found that he and i are not alone. a lot of young people confuse astronomy with astrology. those respondents to his survey who know astrology means horoscopes don't think it's scientific. duh. whereas those who think astrology is a synonym for astronomy think it's scientific. so really the survey results mean that most young people don't know the difference between astrology (nonsense) and astronomy (science).