What astrology can teach us about data science: a panel discussion

Mesopotamian astrology is one of the oldest forms of data science performed by humans.  People tracked the movement of the planets in the sky and correlated those time-based coordinates with events on earth in order to help inform decisions on when to plant crops, go to war, start major projects, etc. While these practices have been maintained in cultures across Asia, in the West, astrology was relegated to a pseudoscience and mostly forgotten for most of the 18th and 19th centuries. Since the early 2000s, spurred on by numerous translations of ancient Greek, Akkadian, and Arabic astrological texts dating back to the 4th century BCE, there has been a revival of interest in the practice of astrology. Recently, Katy Bohinc, a data scientist, poet, and astrologer, recruited a team of astrologers, data and cognitive scientists and quantum physicists to form The Ratio, a data science startup aimed at parsing and refining astrological data and spurring scientific research into astrology.  In this panel discussion, moderated by astrologer and poet, Matt Trease, Katy will be joined by natural language process researcher and AI ethicist, De Kai, and Jenn Zahrt, PhD, astrologer and founder of the Celestial Arts Education Library (CAELi) to discuss how an ancient cosmology, like astrology, can inform our understanding of data science in the 21st century and vice versa.

Talk will take place in Mary Gates Hall 015 and on zoom (link will be provided morning of)