The foggy future

[Brooks R]

No: HPFGUIDX 535

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Vicki Merriman" <vjmerri at i...> 
wrote:

> But if it's so imprecise that its not practical, then why study it
at 
> all.  Best to leave it undisturbed.

I suggest three reasons, which are not mutually exclusive, either.

Reason I: The MoM / Board of Governors of Hogwarts requires it be on 
the curriculum.  Trelawney was the only applicant.  After all, DADA 
must fall in the same category, and they have a succession of 'only 
applicants; and Trelawny is probably no more useless a divination 
teacher than Quirrell was a DADA teacher even BEFORE he was possessed.

Reason II:  Dumbledore is content with it because the more observant 
students will figure out what a load of hooey Divination usually is; 
and the less observant ones may someday figure that out too and feel 
more ashamed of themselves for not figuring it out sooner, which will 
also be a good object lesson.

Reason III:  Lots of schools have courses in what can charitably 
described as subjects which are hooey.  Some people can construct
whole 
graduate courses out of "contemplating the whichness of what", to
quote 
Heinlein.  Sometimes courses even in things popularly considered to
be 
sciences are in fact not truly sciences -by the definition, science
is 
supposed to be about hypotheses which are tested by repeatable, 
controlled, experiments.  But some things we call science really 
consist of nothing more than observations, because it is not feasible 
to actually create and carry out a repeatable controlled experiment.  
Economics, for example.  Of course, this also applies to
astronomy.... 
and there are some things we should be grateful are not amenable to 
repeateable controlled experiments, such as cosmology!  (Destroy the 
universe and recreate it to see if it comes out the same next
time....)