Why is astrology considered "rubbish"?

Phil

Phil

Well-known member
I have a very technical background in engineering and physics, and have studied astrology for over 20 years and done over 100 natal horoscopes. I simply accept astrology because it works.

In the press, often astrology is termed rubbish by "scientists". I find this condescending scorn of uninformed "scientists" revolting. None have ever taken the time to seriously study astrology and then try it out themselves.

Of course if you try to come up with a "scientific" explanation as to why it works, you can't. But there are many things that science is unable to explain. Thoughts, our minds, etc.

Often cited is the Gaugelin Mars effect, trying to show statistical correlation of Mars in the 12th and great athletes, which seems kind of silly to me. This is a cherry pick doomed to failure and not at all a representative test.

Why not have astrologers show how closely the natal horoscopes match the character of a number of test persons? Has this ever been done seriously? Why defend astrology on scientific terms? It will be doomed to fail in this arena. Why not defend it showing that it works?
 
JUPITERASC

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Phil said:
I have a very technical background in engineering and physics, and have studied astrology for over 20 years and done over 100 natal horoscopes. I simply accept astrology because it works.

In the press, often astrology is termed rubbish by "scientists". I find this condescending scorn of uninformed "scientists" revolting. None have ever taken the time to seriously study astrology and then try it out themselves.

Of course if you try to come up with a "scientific" explanation as to why it works, you can't. But there are many things that science is unable to explain. Thoughts, our minds, etc.

Often cited is the Gaugelin Mars effect, trying to show statistical correlation of Mars in the 12th and great athletes, which seems kind of silly to me. This is a cherry pick doomed to failure and not at all a representative test.

Why not have astrologers show how closely the natal horoscopes match the character of a number of test persons? Has this ever been done seriously? Why defend astrology on scientific terms? It will be doomed to fail in this arena. Why not defend it showing that it works?
Click to expand...
Few in the West take astrology seriously,
partly because anyone may be a self-styled astrologer
no need to pass any exams,
no need to have any qualifications

doctors, lawyers, teachers, business graduates and so on
all must have completed rigorous learning and testing of their skills
before earning the right to practice their profession

BUT

astrologers can practice whether they have studied the subject or not

astrology in the public mind is associated with 'newspaper entertainment predictions'
fairground charlatans
for these reasons astrologers are not respected :smile:

INDIA however respects astrologers http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/8303462/Astrology-is-a-science-court-rules.html
a court ruling there in 2011
confirms astrology as a science

so it's partially a cultural difference
as well as
the lack of a need for astrological professional certification
 
conspiracy theorist

conspiracy theorist

Well-known member
When people hear the word astrology they automatically think about sun signs and newspaper horoscopes,you know, just a mindless pastime. It's not seen as a legitimate area of study and why would it? There is nothing in the mainstream that would suggest that astrology has any significance or value beyond 'you are x sign so you are thus and so'.The people who usually give astrology the time of day are not seen as serious minded either; if they're not 'magical thinkers' they're teenagers or 'illogical'.

If you want astrology to be taken more seriously then perhaps you would have to change people's view on it.
 
Z

Zarathu

Account Closed
Astrology is only rubbish in the Scientific Reductionist Point of View

The problem is part and parcel with the current scientific reductionist view of the world. This is the concept that if you break things down into the smallest possible part then you can understand it better. Well.... science has taken that as far as it can go with the Higgs Bosun. And has science given us more meaning? NOTTA!

Astrology is a subset of Chaos/Complexity theory. This means that meaning comes from not breaking things down into smaller and smaller parts, for example a recent request for a midpoint analysis as a solution to not enough meaning.

Astrology is only meaningful in the big picture. However since the Renaissance, reductionist science has taken over more and more and more of human thinking to the point that reduction models are believed even when the data clearly indicates that they are wrong and haven taken in the big picture adequately.

Until the Complexity View of the world return to the FORE, no one will believe astrology, and even astrologers won't get beyond the beginner stage of analysis.
 
Marinka

Marinka

Well-known member
My opinion is that no serious research has been done with astrology. Many of the books written are theories on how a particular grouping might manifest - they rely on 1 or 2 cases to illustrate. There is no research to back it up and by research, I mean at least 100+ documented cases.

In the professional world of scientists - it's common to write theory pieces but, these would be backed up eventually by a research study and re-evaluated by peers when it is published in one of the leading trade journals. There is nothing that exists in a similar form with astrology - no trade journals of high standing.
 
JUPITERASC

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Re: Astrology is only rubbish in the Scientific Reductionist Point of View

Zarathu said:
The problem is part and parcel with the current scientific reductionist view of the world.
Click to expand...

Physicist Richard Feynman lecture
on The Scientific Method (with jokes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdHiA-wc1Xo

Scientific Experiments - The Rules

(1) something will go wrong just before your grant is up for review

(2) if the reading on your detector is correct, then you forgot to plug it in

(3) if several things can go wrong then they will do so all at the same time

(4) left to itself, your experiment will go from bad to worse -

BUT
if you pay attention to the experiment
then it will take three times longer to complete than you thought it would

(5) when your experiment is just about to succeed, you will run out of grant money :smile:
Zarathu said:

This is the concept that if you break things down into the smallest possible part then you can understand it better.

Well....

science has taken that as far as it can go with the Higgs Bosun.

And has science given us more meaning? NOTTA!
Click to expand...

A Higgs boson walks into a church "We don't allow Higgs Bosons in here!" shouts the priest.

"But without me, how can you have mass?" enquires the particle.


by the way

"I finally found the Higgs boson - it was behind the couch the whole time"

Zarathu said:
Astrology is a subset of Chaos/Complexity theory. This means that meaning comes from not breaking things down into smaller and smaller parts, for example a recent request for a midpoint analysis as a solution to not enough meaning.

Astrology is only meaningful in the big picture. However since the Renaissance, reductionist science has taken over more and more and more of human thinking to the point that reduction models are believed even when the data clearly indicates that they are wrong and haven taken in the big picture adequately.

Until the Complexity View of the world return to the FORE, no one will believe astrology, and even astrologers won't get beyond the beginner stage of analysis.
Click to expand...
 
Z

Zarathu

Account Closed
Marinka said:
In the professional world of scientists - it's common to write theory pieces but, these would be backed up eventually by a research study and re-evaluated by peers when it is published in one of the leading trade journals. There is nothing that exists in a similar form with astrology - no trade journals of high standing.
Click to expand...

Doesn't make any difference. This is reductionist science, and reductionist science is only supported by political funds. There is a current prevailing theory which has no current basis in fact since the actual data has long since deviated from the models, but which is still believed by politicos? Why the model of course. Politicos never dealt with facts anyway.

In fact even the word "FACT" didn't exist in the dictionary until the scientific revolution after the Renaissance.
 
Moondancing

Moondancing

Premium Member
Phil said:
I have a very technical background in engineering and physics, and have studied astrology for over 20 years and done over 100 natal horoscopes. I simply accept astrology because it works.

In the press, often astrology is termed rubbish by "scientists". I find this condescending scorn of uninformed "scientists" revolting. None have ever taken the time to seriously study astrology and then try it out themselves.

Of course if you try to come up with a "scientific" explanation as to why it works, you can't. But there are many things that science is unable to explain. Thoughts, our minds, etc.

Often cited is the Gaugelin Mars effect, trying to show statistical correlation of Mars in the 12th and great athletes, which seems kind of silly to me. This is a cherry pick doomed to failure and not at all a representative test.

Why not have astrologers show how closely the natal horoscopes match the character of a number of test persons? Has this ever been done seriously? Why defend astrology on scientific terms? It will be doomed to fail in this arena. Why not defend it showing that it works?
Click to expand...

Magi Society wrote in their first book "Astrology Really Works!" how they go about proving astrology. They use the scientific methodology that geneticists use to prove their findings. With the help of computers they can take the birth charts of people who have been at the very top of their professions for the long term and found the rare planetary aspects that they share. They have found these aspects occur several times more often in the charts of super-successful people than they normally occur. If geneticists find a repeated pattern of sixty percent then it's considered valid proof of their findings. This is what these astrologers are basing their proof on.
 
G

gecko

Well-known member
I have a very technical background in engineering and physics, and have studied astrology for over 20 years and done over 100 natal horoscopes. I simply accept astrology because it works.

In the press, often astrology is termed rubbish by "scientists". I find this condescending scorn of uninformed "scientists" revolting. None have ever taken the time to seriously study astrology and then try it out themselves.

Of course if you try to come up with a "scientific" explanation as to why it works, you can't. But there are many things that science is unable to explain. Thoughts, our minds, etc.

Often cited is the Gaugelin Mars effect, trying to show statistical correlation of Mars in the 12th and great athletes, which seems kind of silly to me. This is a cherry pick doomed to failure and not at all a representative test.

Why not have astrologers show how closely the natal horoscopes match the character of a number of test persons? Has this ever been done seriously? Why defend astrology on scientific terms? It will be doomed to fail in this arena. Why not defend it showing that it works?
Click to expand...

You might find the following text interesting. It's Bertrand Russell's On Astrologers

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/HearstColumns/onAstrologer.htm
 
Phil

Phil

Well-known member
Moondancing said:
Magi Society wrote in their first book "Astrology Really Works!" how they go about proving astrology. They use the scientific methodology that geneticists use to prove their findings. With the help of computers they can take the birth charts of people who have been at the very top of their professions for the long term and found the rare planetary aspects that they share. They have found these aspects occur several times more often in the charts of super-successful people than they normally occur. If geneticists find a repeated pattern of sixty percent then it's considered valid proof of their findings. This is what these astrologers are basing their proof on.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Thanks I will order the book, I saw it had a good rating on Amazon (not from scientists, who will certainly not read it I assume... :) )
 
Marinka

Marinka

Well-known member
Moondancing said:
Magi Society wrote in their first book "Astrology Really Works!" how they go about proving astrology. They use the scientific methodology that geneticists use to prove their findings. With the help of computers they can take the birth charts of people who have been at the very top of their professions for the long term and found the rare planetary aspects that they share. They have found these aspects occur several times more often in the charts of super-successful people than they normally occur. If geneticists find a repeated pattern of sixty percent then it's considered valid proof of their findings. This is what these astrologers are basing their proof on.
Click to expand...

The problem is they did 1/2 of the research - they also need to prove that those same planetary aspects do not occur in the population that would be considered at the bottom of their professions.

The data that their conclusions are based on are also not published.
 
Marinka

Marinka

Well-known member
Re: Astrology is only rubbish in the Scientific Reductionist Point of View

Zarathu said:
T

Astrology is a subset of Chaos/Complexity theory. This means that meaning comes from not breaking things down into smaller and smaller parts, for example a recent request for a midpoint analysis as a solution to not enough meaning.

Astrology is only meaningful in the big picture. However since the Renaissance, reductionist science has taken over more and more and more of human thinking to the point that reduction models are believed even when the data clearly indicates that they are wrong and haven taken in the big picture adequately.
Click to expand...

I think you have made a valid point. Too much emphasis on the details and the overall picture gets missed.
 
A

astro_novice

Well-known member
I also have a technical background in engineering/science, and I have studied astrology for about 5 years now.

I think astrology works, AND also can be proven scientifically. The key is to formulate your hypothesis correctly for proving that astrological indicators are statistically significant. For example, on a self-evaluation of happiness from 1 to 10, one can compare people who are undergoing Saturn transit opposing Moon and without any Jupiter/Venus transit trine Moon, versus another random group of people, and also versus the same evaluation on the same group of people after such transits have finished. I would bet that scientifically it could be shown that it is very significant that one would tend to get depressed in these transits.

If astrology works, it can be proven.

The "rubbish" part comes because of the symbolic language of astrology doesn't have an exact one-to-one correspondence to our world experience. It needs more precise definition, even if it's in a statistical sense.
 
venuschild

venuschild

Banned
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These two astrological icons did much to bring about a bridge between science and religion, a must read!

I can't see how anyone Biblically literate or of the scientific community can read these two books if they have any inkling about astrology and not feel the oneness of both the relationship to the stars and the the Divine.

Heindel through his wife Augusta, the actual astrologer, missed a few things like the confusion of 'Bodes Law', which contemporary astronomers of the times Heindel wrote of believed Neptune Not to be from our solar system as the ratio in distance was so weird in relationship to the other planets.

Max%2BHeindel%2By%2BAugusta%2BF%2Bde%2BHeindel.jpg


When I lived about a mile from the AFA office in Tempe, Az., I went to Arizona Sate University, the astronomy department, and quizzed the Dean of the Astronomy department. He just couldn't connect the dots about the precession of the equinox was in line with astrology! He thought since everything had moved astrology was now invalid from the previous astrology from antiquity!

About 25 years ago I was in an astrology seminar in Arizona and found out a local astrologer was teaching an astrology course at ASU, so there is still hope!
 
Z

Zarathu

Account Closed
astro_novice said:
The "rubbish" part comes because of the symbolic language of astrology doesn't have an exact one-to-one correspondence to our world experience. It needs more precise definition, even if it's in a statistical sense.
Click to expand...

This is more commonly called reductionist science. Using reductionist science, you will never be able to prove the worth of astrology, any more than you can use reductionist science to prove the existance of God.
 
amaranthinefall

amaranthinefall

Well-known member
In my opinion, we should shift our focus from epistemological to ethical: "Is astrology Good?" rather than "Is astrology True?". As long as the study of astrology is useful and beneficial to us, who cares whether it's provable? Of course, there are pros and cons to everything, but if looking at the world, our lives, and experiences through the lens of astrology helps more than harms, why can't we leave it at that? I think astrologers as a whole are afraid of being lumped into the "faith" category, which is what it is, regardless of the reality of the planets and stars. But why is faith so bad? It's only when our faith causes us to ignore reality that bad things happen.
 
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