Thank you for your answer. Especially the point regarding prototypical definitions is helpful!

No worries. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%2C_Fire%2C_and_Dangerous_Things if you want a really detailed extension to prototype theory. Lakoff has all sorts of speculative thoughts about categorization here.

+1 I learned a new phrase "a lot of woo"! Note that there is a bit of exotic woeful "woo" in the "woo" article too. It mentions that 巫 wū (pronounced like "woo") is a practitioner of magic (correct; it's also a rare surname) and that 误 wù means "mistake, misunderstanding" (correct), but it conveniently forgets to mention that 悟 wù means "to realize, comprehend". In fact, 悟 is the term used for Buddhist enlightenment, and to write "satori" in Zen Buddhism :)

@lol Certainly, the spontaneous production of complex mental content or the instantaneous apprehension thereof would suggest that the differentiation of the concepts of 'magic' and 'understanding' is subtle.

@8Mad0Manc8 A statistical analysis of the prediction accuracy is not the same as testing it directly. There are loads of scientific papers published on the effects of geography on mental and physical health. We can scientifically publish estimates on lifespan, quality of life, health, and various aspects of life being better or worse throughout different points in history. This establishes that when and where you are born can dramatically influence the life you live. Yet, these sciences are about as accurate with a particular individual's life as interpreting the stars.

@8Mad0Manc8 Well, certainly, and yet those tests wouldn't be conducted by astrological methods, but by scientific ones. I'll emend my answer to reflect my misstep in writing.

@DavidS That's an interesting point. Science and 'pseudoscience" cannot predict the outcomes of our lives. So why does the world pour a lot of money into pharmaceutical products and flood them to the market?

It's an urban legend that GR is needed for GPS to work, and how does GR help put satellites into orbit? The word "relativity" does not even appear once here.

@user1271772 I think you misapprehend. The link to the link to the answer to the question doesn't make the claim that using GR calculations to adjust the clocks is a myth. In fact, the very first link (of the answer to which you link to which you link) is physics.stackexchange.com/questions/1061/… which quite clearly explains how GR calculations are used. Specifically, the accepted answer says "If we do not apply corrections using GR to GPS then 38μs error in timekeeping is introduced per day." No?

@JD You just wrote a bunch of gibberish and ignored the actual statement, and also ignored the question. The statement is: It's an urban legend that GR is needed for GPS to work. The question is: How does GR help put satellites into orbit? Specifically, satellites have no trouble getting into orbit without the help of GR calculations. The 38μs error can be entirely removed without GR, as you will see if you read the entire comment threads on the first link that I gave you, and the references within.

Also, the answer in the link, says that GR corrections are irrelevant for GPS in the opening paragraph. Your answer would be greatly improved if you replaced all mentions of GR with quantum mechanics (for example), and replaced mentions of GPS with lasers (for example). I know that it's sexy and fashionable to claim that GR is so game-changing to our everyday lives, but this attitude is a "forced" one, by people who don't actually know how GR corrections to satellite positions would work without having to go back to their 4th year GR notes or rely on links to what others have said.

@user1271772 So I see you might be on the spectrum. I'll set aside your brusque but somewhat humorous attempts at dialog and help you understand. In English, we often have a range of expressions that start with literal statements and extend into tenuous metaphor. When I said that GR help put satellites into orbit, it wasn't my claim that the engineering, science, and operations directly utilized GR to move a payload from a launch pad to orbit. It was more in the vein of a falcon de parler in that without the extensive use of the mathematical and engineering calculi, no one could plan...

or indeed be willing to fund such a complex technological task, a statement made to contrast the situation with the so called "explanatory" and "predictive" powers of astrology. The point of my response is not to get the technicalities of physics across, but to support an epistemological thesis: astrology and physics are two distinct forms of reasoning, the latter manifestly efficacious because it is aided by the indispensability of the formal sciences; the former has no such aid relying instead on what amounts to a long tradition of superstition and woeful lack of empirical evidence. So...

you kind of come across as slow to understand when you try to pick a fight over what are irrelevant details according to the context of the conversation. The fact is, you may be right it's a myth. You might not. You don't make a very clear case because your rhetorical abilities are wanting. But more to the point, for the topic at hand, your expertise and complaint are largely irrelevant because you don't have an objection to the metaphysics, which is the topic we deal with here. :D Don't be so obtuse. To "help" put satellites in orbit is obviously a vague construction open to debate.

+1 especially for the mention of family resemblances (and prototype theory, which I wasn't aware of). I very much feel that there is a very common informal fallacy implicit in the original question – and it's common even among scholars of various fields. Just because we can't give necessary and sufficient conditions for some class/category, it doesn't mean that category doesn't "exist" or isn't well-defined, at least in the vast majority of cases.

... Equivalently, just because we can't offer a general abstract definition of some category (as in the demarcation problem), it doesn't mean we can't speak with great authority about particular cases.

@8Mad0Manc8 uhm, because we have studies and can scientifically prove that they work? The issue about scientifically testing astrology isn't that the result is "invalid" for some reason. The result is very valid and very clear: astrology doesn't work. However, the astrological framework isn't based on or compatible with the scientific approach. It's like me saying that a triangle has 8 corners because in my framework you roll a dice when you count to the next number and add that. It's just that for reasons of merit, the world at large decided that the scientific framework of analysis is [1]

[2] the default because it has proven itself over and over again as an approach to ascertaining as-universally-true-as-possible conclusions. It's value stems from a wide applicability with high consistency. Sure, you can reject - as you seem to have done with pharmaceutics - this widely-used framework and use your own, but statistically and historically that ends up in framework inconsistencies over time.

@8Mad0Manc8 btw. your logical conclusion is just flat out false (using the general consensus framework). Just because science can't perfectly predict anyone’s life exactly doesn't mean it's worthless. You are judging science by a decidedly non-scientific framework. Modern day science never made the claim to be able to do that so it didn't fail. We do however know that people with an allergic reaction to pollen reliably lower their allergy symptoms upon taking Antihistaminants.

@8Mad0Manc8 Btw.: Medication isn't prescribed by science. It's prescribed by doctors who are evaluating the presented symptoms and then ideally resort to scientific analyses what the best approach is. However, presented symptoms and their interpretation aren't perfect, some doctors don't stay up-to-date, politics of various kinds as well as personal (be it doctor, patient or parent) or corporate interests further affect the result. For example: we have a small-sample-sized but very very promising hypothesis that multiple psychoactive drugs help with depression. [1]

[2] It wasn't science or the scientific method that got studies halted and draconian bans (on both research, medical and recreational use) implemented. In fact the war on drugs was started decidedly against the scientific method. So your answer is: Because science isn't the only factor affecting prescriptions and science makes no claims to be absolute. Especially not with fields where absolute testing isn't possible (like psychological medication where the effects are only ever proven statistically, aka with no guaranteed prediction for any individual)

@Noldorin "Just because we can't give necessary and sufficient conditions for some class/category, it doesn't mean that category doesn't "exist" or isn't well-defined, at least in the vast majority of cases." In fact, it's arguable that until we begin our formal education, all of our classes inherent in our natural language ontology are formed not by the explicit articulation of necessary and sufficient conditions, but intuitively in the same way machine learning works: inductively.

There's something peculiar about claiming that definitions form classes rather than claiming classes that are defined are in some way above the class itself, a product from the intersection of introspection and language.

@Noldorin I think that assessment is acutely sound.