Well, but astrology is scientific, or at least pseudoscientific. The ancient and medieval astrologers (I don’t know about modern ones) said that astrology was a way to discover the laws of nature and find patterns in reality. If you asked Nostradomus, or Thomas de Pizan (I can’t think of any other medieval astrologers) if their work were “mystical”, they’d either laugh at you or be insulted. Astrology makes specific factual statements about the way the world works, and therefore is testable. And, unfortunately for the astrologers, when it’s tested scientifically, it fails those tests.
Ok, prove it. Give me a complete and universally agreeable definition of “emotions”, offer incontrovertible proof that they exist, and demonstrate unequivocally that they play a strong part in your decisions. And if you can’t, then can I mock you the way some of these other folks are mocking the “astrology believers”?
My point is that what you call “emotional aspects”, some others might call “divine inspiration”, and still others might call “celestial alignment”. But if you think at all about what makes you tick, you have to call it something, because you immediately find that not everything is “tangible, rational, and scientifically reproducible”.
I think I’ll move this to Great Debates.
And without the closest ball of huge flaming gas all life on Earth would cease to exist. Not that I believe in astrology as anything other than entertainment.
Umm, neither law nor science require proof. Science is all about finding the best explanation for something using several criteria. Law is all about finding someone guilty or not guilty beyond reasonable doubt, not proving someone guilty.
Both religion and astrology make claims. If astrology says that someone born at a certain time will have certain characteristics, and studies find no correlation between birthdate and these characteristics, we can say that the claim has been falsified. (And don’t tell me that some astrologers are good and others are bad without telling me how I can distinguish the good from the bad. And the good better be consistently correct too.) Without evidence that there is even an effect, we don’t have to worry about the mechanism.
As for religion, the issue is where religion makes scientific claims (such as with regard to origins.) We can demonstrate that the world is not 6,000 years old, for instance. As for disproving god, you’d better define the specific instance of god you’re talking about first. Disproving the fundamentalist god of the inerrant Bible is a lot different from disproving the god of the deists.
As for an additional answer to the OP’s question, I think one reason is that people assume that since there are astrologers there must be something to it. Many people don’t have the scientific knowledge or reasoning ability to see why the belief is bogus, or don’t have confidence in the ability they do have.
Voyager wrote:
No, that’s pseudo-science.
Astrology fits exactly with what you’re describing as “science”. Like Marxism and Adlerism, astrology explains everything under the sun. And quite neatly, too.
A deity and astrology are not the same. Religion is disprovable by scientific means because it asserts the existence of an entity that cannot be observed, measured or quantified.
Astrology makes specific claims about things which are observable, measurable and quantifiable. Those can be scientifically proven or disproven.
Sua
Well said, Sua.
This would make more sense to me if you said “Religion is NOT disprovable by…” Is that what you meant?
I know I’m gonna regret this. I just know it.
I may be the only one poster on this subject who actually knows something about it, in that I earned my living for about ten years practicing, teaching and lecturing. I don’t mention it not for embarrassment or any such, simply that one tires of serving as a foil for someone how wants to publicly preen his worldly skepticism. But lets dispose of a couple of things before I have to suffer them again.
First, the horoscope in your newspaper has very little to do with astrology. Your birth sign is your “sun sign”, that is, the sign the sun occupied at your birth. While it is the single most important significator, it is only one. Each of the planets is held to have its own contribution, which is colored by the sign it occupies, and affected by its relationship with other planets. Suffice to say, it is rather complex.
We are all quite aware of the discoveries of Copernicus, et al. The constellations were used in ancient times as the markers, but the precession of the equinoxes is not news. Please do not run breathlessly up to me to point it out.
Does it work? Depends on what you mean by work. It works far more than it should, and therein lies the fascination. It shouldn’t work at all. And yet…
Does it predict the future? Of course not. The future does not exist, therefore it has no qualities. Nonetheless, there are flows and trends in reality that are best mirrored in the utterly rational study of probability. Which most certainly does exist.
Given a certain set of astrological indications, a given event becomes more or less probable. Lets say, “hit by a truck.” An astologer who says “tomorrow at 1:10 pm, you will be hit by a truck” is wrong. The astrologer who says that you are under certain aspects that incline you to be less attentive, and that, hence, you should take special care and special awareness to avoid accident, is practicing astrology. The real one. The whole point is that you not get hit by the truck, or any of thousands of potential results of your mind set.
Intuition is, of course, crucial. A gifted intuition can use any medium: tea leaves, tarot cards, entrails, you name it. Astrology is the only one of these that has a set of principles: one cannot reasonably construe mars square uranus as a positive indicator.
How come you can’t prove it? Some things simply will not be boiled down in a test tube. Also, sometimes magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Science always works, which is its essential premise, an irreproducible result is worthless. Dragging intuition into the lab is hunting butterflies with a hammer: you may very well suceed, but the result is disappointing.
Whats wrong with astrology? Its not very useful. One’s life in our modern times is set by schedules from without, few people have the option of ordering things according to thier wishes. And while a natal chart may offer helpful clues as to ones inner conflicts and harmonies, it can also lead the narcissistic on a wild goose chase. All horoscopes are interesting. Yours is fascinating.
Anomalies? Yes, of course, twins for instance, born very close in time are very difficult to make sense of, both might be very much like thier chart would anticipate, or sometimes one very much and another not at all. Why? I have no idea. Nor have I 300 years to study the matter.
Why does it work, even as well as it does? Don’t know. Have a crackpot theory which may be an astonishing metaphysical/physical truth. Also could just be another crackpot theory. Clealy, it must have something to do with mass and gravitational interactions. And, yes, I know the math about how the doctor has more gravitational effect on the newborn than does Jupiter. But the doctor hasn’t been there for billions of years, either.
That will do. If you have a respectful question that I might answer, I will be pleased to do so. I am not about to try to defend my opinions and my experiences, believe what you will.
Why do people believe in the horoscopes in thier paper? How the hell should I know?
Thank you, elucidator, that was very interesting and informative.
I must have missed the day in physics class when they told us how gravity adds up over time.
elucidator, I think a lot of the objections people have are to the perceived use of astrology based on what was historically acceptable. Modern astrologers will demur at predicting the future in terms any stronger than you have indicated. But, for example, when the astrologer of King Henri II of France told the monarch to “beware of death during single combat in an enclosed space through an injury to the head in the summer of his forty-second year”, the king put on his helmet, opined that an honorable death in open combat was a good one, and went to meet his fate on the tournament grounds in the manner predicted. [1]
I think most modern astrologers will also demur at insisting that your chart is anything more than “potentialities”. In the Middle Ages you were offered nothing positive if natal mars squared your saturn; now, they’d tell you it’s a Learning Opportunity. And they will insist that the malefics and benefics are both misnamed since every planet has its positive and its negative manifestations. Which also answers the twin problem, as the working out of the chart is seen to depend less on what you’re given than on which handle you grab from what end. But most people seem to think astrology insists your character and fate are “determined by what’s up in the sky” and that doesn’t sit well in the modern mind.
As to your theory on mass and gravitation, you might find more fruitful inquiry in quantum physics, as opposed to classical physics, since it allows for non-locality. I don’t know enough about it to have a reasonable opinion; have you looked at that at all?
Googling around a bit on this, I found this link, which has some food for thought.
[1]quotation from The Astrology of Fate by Liz Greene, p. 143
Sparrowhawk
I am not familiar with the story of Henri II. Astrology as practiced today is an ancient tradition, its basic principles, at least in the Occidental world, are relatively stable. I suppose it is possible that its theory and practice was superior in previous years. Myself, I am not a fatalist and don’t encourage that view of astrology. Nonetheless, I would be fascinated to actually see a chart of Henry II, if only to see if I could deduce what led my predecessor to make such a call. Of course, avoiding combat is excellent advice, regardless of the source.
As to quantum physics, I can’t pretend to understand. I have read Mr. Hawkings book several times and I think I have a firm grasp of the Table of Contents and a good portion of the Preface. I suspect darkly that superstring theory is the result of an unhealthy faith in mathematics, but must cheerfully confess that I haven’t a clue.
I think that gravitation must underlie astrology simply because I think it plausible that the physical interactions of the planets form the most fundamental “environment”. I have no real grasp of quantum mechanics, other than thinking its a pretty crummy thing to do to a cat.
I have a relatively practical view of astrology, and not much interest in things Cosmic, having been bored to tears on many occasions. I think Madame Blavatsky was a kindly, if rather dotty, lady, Aliester Crowley was a drug-addled perv, so on and so forth.
But that’s because I’m a Taurus.
I’ve got a question for you, Lucy. Here is an aspect of astrology which I never see addressed. The star charts are bogus in that they do not actually reflect the true position of the stars at any given moment. They reflect only the observed light of the stars, as seen from earth at that moment. We are seeing some stars as they are now, some as they were a week ago some as ten years ago, etc. How do astrologers reconcile this inconsistency?
I’ve got half a mind to steal this and use it for a sig. 
I think that when astrology works, we’ve used our ability to see pictures in ink blots to find a recognizable pattern in a complex set of interconnected statements. I used to do some role playing, once upon a time, and developed an astrologically based way to roll up a personality for a character.
(It’s still at http://home.midnightweb.net/~shardy/astrology/index.html if anyone is interested. Scroll down, there’s a big gap on the page.)
I took the method to a small convention, where I rolled up character personalities at $1 a pop. Even at a role-playing convention - where everyone knew what rolling up characters was - I got about one out of three people exclaiming about ‘how true’ my reading was as I rolled up a completely random horoscope for them.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s proof that 1) we’re all fascinated with ourselves and 2) we can find a way to apply just about any statement to ourselves.
As Richard Dawkins observed, would astrology be as acceptable as it is if it divided people up into 12 general racial types instead of sun signs?
His example was something akin to this:
“Germans: Your stubborness will serve you well today, but many people consider you too longwinded, so try to learn to respect other people’s limitations.”
“Chinese: Your inscrutability is rapidly becoming a problem for co-workers.”
and so on…
But that’s ridiculous, Apos. I’m surprised to see the “if my grandma had balls” argument from you.
Er, not quite. All this shows is that your source - Liz Greene’s The Astrology of Fate - is inventing or credulously repeating information, presumably with the intention of bolstering an argument in favour of astrology. What she is, of course, refering to is Nostradamus’s famous ‘prophecy’ about the death of Henri II. What Nostradamus actually wrote was:
This roughly translates as:
In other words, the actual prediction was much, much vaguer than the version supposedly quoted by Greene. So vague in fact that it doesn’t even qualify as a lucky guess. As with all Nostradamus’s prophecies, this verse was only applied to the event retrospectively. No one had connected this verse to Henri II before he was killed. His reported reply is a complete invention. If Greene cannot even be relied on to get her facts right about this, the most famous prophecy ever made by an astrologer, I would be very careful about accepting anything else she claims.
Astrology has been proven to be true (or at least have a beneficial effect) - by the one and only Dave Gorman.
All the Dopers in the UK will know who I’m talking about…