Astrology and science
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems that hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events or descriptions of personality in the human world.
[3][4]: 1350 There is no proposed mechanism of action by which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth in the way astrologers say they do that does not contradict well-understood, basic aspects of biology and physics.
[8][9][10] The majority of professional astrologers rely on performing astrology-based personality tests and making relevant predictions about the remunerator's future.
[2]: 83 Those who continue to have faith in astrology have been characterised as doing so "in spite of the fact that there is no verified scientific basis for their beliefs, and indeed that there is strong evidence to the contrary".
[13] The foundations of the theoretical structure used in astrology originate with the Babylonians, although widespread usage did not occur until the start of the Hellenistic period after Alexander the Great swept through Greece.
[14]: 62 Ptolemy's work on astronomy was driven to some extent by the desire, like all astrologers of the time, to easily calculate the planetary movements.
[16]: 344 During the Islamic Golden Age, astronomy was funded so that the astronomical parameters, such as the eccentricity of the sun's orbit, required for the Ptolemaic model could be calculated to sufficient accuracy and precision.
Those in positions of power, like the Fatimid Caliphate vizier in 1120, funded the construction of observatories so that astrological predictions, fuelled by precise planetary information, could be made.
[17]: 10 The first work, Falak al-sa'ada by Ictizad al-Saltana, aimed at undermining this belief in astrology and "old astronomy" in Iran was published in 1861.
[24]: 228 To Thagard a further criterion of demarcation of science from pseudoscience was that the state of the art must progress and that the community of researchers should be attempting to compare the current theory to alternatives, and not be "selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations".
[26]: 34 What if throughout astrological writings we meet little appreciation of coherence, blatant insensitivity to evidence, no sense of a hierarchy of reasons, slight command over the contextual force of critieria, stubborn unwillingness to pursue an argument where it leads, stark naivete concerning the efficacy of explanation and so on?
[29]: 213–214 They attributed the effect to selective bias on Gauquelin's part, accusing him of attempting to persuade them to add or delete names from their study.
The suggestion is that a small subset of the parents may have had changed birth times to be consistent with better astrological charts for a related profession.
The number of births under astrologically undesirable conditions was also lower, indicating more evidence that parents choose dates and times to suit their beliefs.
[14]: 67 Quantitative sociologist David Voas examined the census data for more than 20 million individuals in England and Wales to see if star signs corresponded to marriage arrangements.
Charpak and Broch noted that "there is a difference of about twenty-two thousand miles between Earth's location on any specific date in two successive years" and that thus they should not be under the same influence according to astrology.
[36]: 6–7 Edward W. James, commented that attaching significance to the constellation on the celestial sphere the sun is in at sunset was done on the basis of human factors—namely, that astrologers did not want to wake up early, and the exact time of noon was hard to know.
[36] Charpak and Broch, noting this, referred to astrology based on the tropical zodiac as being "...empty boxes that have nothing to do with anything and are devoid of any consistency or correspondence with the stars.
etc), some of which even have satellites (Xena, 2003EL61)?Astrology has been criticised for failing to provide a physical mechanism that links the movements of celestial bodies to their purported effects on human behaviour.
In a lecture in 2001, Stephen Hawking stated "The reason most scientists don't believe in astrology is because it is not consistent with our theories that have been tested by experiment.
In a letter published in a follow-up edition of The Humanist, Sagan confirmed that he would have been willing to sign such a statement had it described and refuted the principal tenets of astrological belief.
[14]: 65 Scientists reject these proposed mechanisms as implausible[38] since, for example, the magnetic field, when measured from Earth, of a large but distant planet such as Jupiter is far smaller than that produced by ordinary household appliances.
[14]: 66 Carl Jung sought to invoke synchronicity, the claim that two events have some sort of acausal connection, to explain the lack of statistically significant results on astrology from a single study he conducted.
Another, separate, form of confirmation bias also plays a role, where believers often fail to distinguish between messages that demonstrate special ability and those that do not.
[44]: 180–181 The Barnum effect is the tendency for an individual to give a high accuracy rating to a description of their personality that supposedly tailored specifically for them, but is, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.
[48]: 383 In a study by Paul Rogers and Janice Soule (2009), which was consistent with previous research on the issue, it was found that those who believed in astrology are generally more susceptible to giving more credence to the Barnum profile than sceptics.
[48]: 393 By a process known as self-attribution, it has been shown in numerous studies that individuals with knowledge of astrology tend to describe their personalities in terms of traits compatible with their sun signs.
[49] In 1953, sociologist Theodor W. Adorno conducted a study of the astrology column of a Los Angeles newspaper as part of a project that examined mass culture in capitalist society.
[50]: 327 Adorno concluded that astrology was a large-scale manifestation of systematic irrationalism, where flattery and vague generalisations subtly led individuals to believe the author of the column addressed them directly.
"[53] In an editorial in the medical journal BMJ, editor Trevor Jackson cited this incident showing where false balance could occur.
