Prespective
From: The Astronomical Society of the Pacific
390 Ashton Avenue
San Fransisco, California94112
415/337-1100
San Jose Mercury News, Sunday morning May8, 1988
Why astrology believers should feel embarrassed
By Andrew Fraknoi
Recent revelations that first lady Nancy Regan consulted astrologers in arranging the president’s schedule have generated snickers in some quarters. Unfortunately, belief in the power of astrology is much more widespread than many people realize. A 1984 Gallop Poll indicated that 55 percent of American teen-agers believe that astrology works. Astrology columns appear in over 1,200 newspapers in the United States; by contrast, fewer than 10 newspapers have columns in astronomy, the scientific study of the heavens. All around the world, people base personal, financial, and even medical decisions on the advice of the astrologers.
Furthermore, astrology is only one of a number of pseudoscientific beliefs whose uncritical acceptance by the media and the public has contributed to a disturbing lack of skepticism among youngsters ( and apparently presidents) in the United States. Life is complex these days, and it is tempting to look for simple solutions to the challenges we face. But instead of encountering healthy doubt and critical thinking in our children, we are raising a generation that is welling to believe just about any far-fetched claim printed in the newspapers or reported on television.
Youngsters (and adults) who want to practice skeptical thinking might enjoy asking few embarrassing question about astrology:
For those who follow newspapers or magazine columns on astrology, how likely is it that 1/12 of the world (more than 400 million people for each sign of the zodiac ) will have the same kind of day? This question sheds some light on why astrology columns are always so vague that they can be applied to situations in almost everyone’s life.
Why is it the moment of birth, rather than the moment of conception, which is the critical one for calculating a horoscope? To figure this one out, it’s helpful to know that when astrology was first set up thousands of years ago, the moment of birth was considered a magic time. But today, we understand that birth is the culmination of roughly nine months of complex, intricately orchestrated development inside the womb. Many aspects of a child’s personality are set long before the time of birth.
Therefore we must ask how the mother’s thin layer of skin and flesh “protects” her unborn baby from the influence of the planets and the stars? (And could one perhaps postpone the beginning of some unpleasant astrological effect by surrounding a newborn with a thin wall of steak for few days?)
I suspect that the reason the astrologers still adhere to the moment of birth has little to do with astrological “theory”. The simple fact is almost everyone knows his or her moment of birth, but it is difficult (and perhaps embarrasing ) to find out one’s moment of conception.
“Serious” astrologers claim that the influence of all the major bodies in the solar system must be taken into account to arrive at an accurate horoscope. they also insist that the reason we should believe in astrology is because it had led us to accurate predictions or personality profiles for many centuries.
But wait. The most distant known planets, Neptune and Pluto, were not discovered until 1846 and 1930, respectively. So why aren’t all the horoscopes done before 1846 incorrect, since the astrologers were not including two important planets? Moreover, why did the problems or inaccuracies in early horoscopes not lead astrologers to “sense” the presence of these planets long before astronomers discovered them?
Even after thousands of years of study and perfecting their art, different schools of astrology still violently disagree on how to cast a horoscope and especially on how to interpret it. You can have your horoscope cast and read buy different astrologers on the very same day and get completely different predictions, interpretations, or suggestions. If astrology were a science-as astrologers claim- you would expect that the same experiment or calculation would always give the same result.
But even if we put all these nagging thoughts aside for a moment, one overriding question still remains to be asked. Why would the position of celestial objects at the moment of our birth have an effect on our characters, lives, or our destinies?
What force, what influence, what sort of energy would travel from the planets and stars to all human beings and affect our development and fate?
One can see how the astrological world view might have been appealing thousands of years ago when astrology first arose. In those days humanity was terrified of the often unpredictable forces of nature and searched desperately for regularities, signs, and portents from the heavens that would help them guide their lives.
But today, when our spacecraft have traveled to the planets and have explored them in some detail, our view of the universe is very different. We know that planets are other worlds and the stars other suns-physical bodies that are incredibly remote and mercifully unconcerned with the daily lives of creatures on our small planet. No amount of scientific sounding jargon or computerized calculations by astrologers can disguise this central problem with astrology- we can find no evidence of a mechanism by which celestial objects can influence us in so specific a way.
Let’s take an analogy. Imagine that someone proposes that the positions of all the jumbo jets in the world at the moment that a baby is born will have a significant effect on the child’s personality or future life. Furthermore, for a fee, a “jetologer” with a large computer might offer to do an elaborate chart showing the positions of planes at the right time and to interpret the complex pattern of the plane positions to help you understand their influence on your life. No matter how “scientific” or complex the chart of jet positions turned out to be, any reasonably skeptical person would probably ask the “jetologer” some rather poited questions about why the positions of all those planes should have any connection with someone’s personality or with the events that shape human lives.
Greater pull
Indeed, in the real world, it is quite simple to calculate the planetary influences on the new-born baby. The only known force that is acting over interplanetary distances in any significant way is gravity. So we might compare the pull of the neighbor planet like Mars with other influences on the baby. It turns out that the pull of the obstetrician is significantly greater than that of Mars. (And the hospital building- unless the baby happens to be in its exact geometric center- has an even greater pull than the doctor. Given the situation at most urban hospitals, many children should probably have ” No Parking” as their sign.)
Some astrologers argue that there may be a still unknown force that represents the astrological influence. Suppose we give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that there is something connecting us to the heavens even if we do not what it is. If so, astrological predictions- like those of any scientific fields-should be easily tested. If astrology predicts that Virgos And Aries are incompatible signs- to take a simple example-then if we look at thousands of marriages and divorce records, we should see more Virgo-Aries couples getting divorced and fewer of them getting married than we would expect by chance.
Astrologers always claim to be just a little too busy to carry out such careful tests of their efficacy, so in the last two decades scientists and statisticians have generously done such testing for them. There have been dozens of well-designed tests all around the world, and astrology has failed every one of them.
10 percent accuracy
In addition, astronomers Roger Culver and Philip Ianna tracked the specific published predictions of well-known astrologers and astrological organizations for a period of five years. Out of more than 3,000 predictions (including many about politics, film, stars, and other famous people) in their sample, only about 10 percent came to pass. Veteran reporters on most newspapers-can do a good deal better than this just by educated guessing.
If reading the starts has led astrologers to incorrect predictions nine times out of ten, they hardly seem like reliable guides to the uncertainties of life or the affairs of our country. I propose that we let those beckoning lights in the sky awaken our interest in the real ( and fascinating ) universe beyond our planet, and not let them keep us tied to an ancient fantasy left over from a time when we huddled by the firelight, afraid of the night.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fraknoi
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