I had a little fun at the expense of astrology last night when I was on Coast to Coast AM. I made a joke that if astronomers decide Pluto isn’t a planet, or that it is a planet but that there are also millions of other icy planets in the solar system beyond Neptune, astrologers will have to scramble to show how they knew this the whole time. Whatever they did, I would just sit back and laugh.
Well, that didn’t sit too well with an astrologer. She gets pretty huffy that astrologers don’t care what astronomers call a planet or not, and makes a big deal about other objects (and even non-objects) astrologers track.
She says an amazing number of funny and ironic things in the short blog entry.
… and some of us even track hypothetical planets which astrologers (not astronomers) predicted years ago would eventually be located “trans-Pluto†or beyond Pluto. In 1972 an ephemeris was published for “Transpluto”.
She negelects to mention what that object is, and if it’s even real. She links to a site that talks about Transpluto a great deal, but that site also neglects to actually identify what Transpluto is.
But it’s the irony I love best, as I always do:
Some folks don’t let their ignorance of a topic get in the way of voicing their opinions, even when the answer is obvious in their own writing.
Remember, this is coming from an astrologer.
She also says:
This has ever been true of skeptics who pontificate about astrology without seeking out what we really think first.
Ah, but in fact I have done research into astrology. I’ve done something that few if any astrologers have ever done: I’ve checked to see if it actually, y’know, works.
I’ll leave this with the most ironic thing she wrote:
Sorry to deprive you of a chuckle, Mr. Plait.
You didn’t, Madame Astrologer, I assure you.
August 15th, 2006 at 10:41 am
In fact, she is busily providing chuckles to us all!
August 15th, 2006 at 10:51 am
I have to admit, however related to fantasy her beliefs are, that she is pretty consistent with herself. She admits readily that whatever astronomy says, it won’t change a thing to how astrology works. It’s like discussing the new ruleset for dungeons and dragons. It has no link to reality whatsoever, but it doesn’t prevent people discussing them seriously.
I don’t think astrology is any topic to chuckle at, any more than any fantasy game setting.
August 15th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
It is amazing to see the newspaper space that is readily supplied to astrologers. I know that newspapers sell their space but I cannot believe anyone considers horoscope to be deciding factor in newspaper choice.
On the other hand, someone discovers a KBO larger than Pluto in our solar system, or a planet in another one, and the news gets hardly any newspaper space than your daily horoscope.
Am I missing something here?
August 15th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
“Am I missing something here?”
Yes. Not all people don’t care about the same things you do. Many find horoscopes amusing, while the size of pluto means absolutly nothing to 99% (or so) of the people on this planet.
August 15th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
My horoscope for today says “Everything you read in your horoscope for today will be wrong…”
August 15th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
“Am I missing something here?”
No. We live in a predominantly fantasy-influenced society, run by those of like mind. We are not the norm.
So, just enjoy the pretty astronomy photographs, click your heels together three times, and say, “I wanna find a sane home, I wanna find a sane home.”
August 15th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
I am amazed that people play this game. And what is worse when they can not tell the difference between reality and fantasy. Its sad really, like that slow kid that used to get picked on. But hopefully year after year there will be less of this nonsense.
I guess I am one of the 1% of the people :)~
August 15th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
I left a message asking what the ephemeris for this Transpluto is, and if it was published in 1972, why nobody’s actually observed this object yet. If it can affect astrological readings to the point that they can figure out where it is, it surely must be visible by telescopes today, given they’re fairly powerful.
One anecdotal note I’ll make is that it’s shocking how comments on her site need her approval to show up, yet comments here show up automatically. I shouldn’t have to make parallels between anti-science and science…
August 15th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Oh wait, strike that last paragraph. I guess they need moderation here after all.
I guess I shouldn’t assume anything.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Astrology… is funny. I read a horoscope saying that pluto was aligned with Mars in a certaint way, which ment I should watch out for precious items. My nail broke the same day. Couincidence? (sp?) I say yes.
Astrology can be fun to look at at read horoscopes and that “numerology” stuff, but my personality profile based on my zodiac sign is pretty accurate when it comes to personality.
It may just be that the way we view reality and the laws of physics, could be deluded. I mean, is the schizophrentic hearing things… or hearing truth?!? How are we so sure? What if we’re all wrong, and these “mentaly ill” people are accually not mentaly ill and the other people are accually mental? What if the astrologer is right? Have you thought of that?!?
I suck at spelling
August 15th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Ahahah, how incredibly funny.
There’s that radio station here that has a daily show with an astrologer. (Her predictions are worthy of any astrologer: they’d fit anyone.) On the morning show, they decided to call her up to discuss this issue! She said something along the lines of “The power of Pluto does not vanish with an astronomer’s will. Astrology is a science too, but one that does not base itself on a name’s importance. Pluto forever remains an important body that has control over our destinies.”
…Well, I’m in the “What’s in a name?” clan. Pluto will always be some body out there. But hum, sure! Pluto has… control over my life! Not. It seems Pluto’s influence is pretty vague. I mean, “You’re very impatient today, you should be very careful in all you do.”? Astrologers are not quite daring! Come on. Tell me something worth my time? Please? WHY do you think I’m SO impatient today?
August 15th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
And the reason for the site being down is now known……
August 15th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
My horoscope for today says “Everything you read in your horoscope for today will be wrong…â€
Did your computer explode when you typed that into it?
Always worked for Capt. Kirk.
One thing you have to say for astrology: it makes predictions. That puts it a step ahead of Intelligent Design when it comes to science. Astronogy can be (and has been) proven wrong, whereas ID is a whole lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
-Rob
August 15th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
One thing you have to say for astrology: it makes predictions. That puts it a step ahead of Intelligent Design when it comes to science. Astronogy can be (and has been) proven wrong, whereas ID is a whole lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
My thoughts as well.
August 15th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Well, sometimes it makes predictions. When it’s so vague as to apply to anyone, I’m not sure I’d call that a “prediction.” But I’ll agree that astrology can in principle make predictions, unlike ID.
August 15th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Before I go any further, I have a confession to make… I am the owner of a New Age store. However, I think you might find this story amusing. This astrologer wanted to cast charts for customers of the store. I wanted a test, so I gave the astrologer my time and place of birth over the phone. He came in few days later with a completed chart.
Lessee, first he failed to take Daylight Savings Time into account. Then he came up with a few fairly standard positive sounding generalities. Then he got something laughably wrong that he apparently considered important and tried to salvage it with “Oh, this aspect explains why that point was wrong.”
Can you say cold reading? And a badly done cold reading at that. In all fairness though, I was diagnosed with a autism-like disorder many years ago before most US psychs had heard of Asperger’s Syndrome. If we assume that I have Asperger’s, then it’s possible that my body language was off enough to throw him for a loop.
August 15th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Hmm… I forgot to mention something in my last post. There’s apparently an asteroid/comet called Chiron that many astrologers make a big fuss over. So, any guesses as to why they pay more attention to an object discovered in 1977 than they do to Ceres which slightly bigger and has been tracked longer?
August 15th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
[…] I became a Coast to Coast Streamlink member this weekend - I just love following the lunatic fringe. Dr. Phil was on to talk about the planet Pluto last night, and when he referenced “Giant Ice Balls” - I sent him an instant message, claiming that I had “giant ice balls.” To which he immediately responded, “mine are brass.” Talk about paranormal! […]
August 16th, 2006 at 3:48 am
I was going to criticize astrologers, but they already know that, don’t they?
Why waste the time and effort?
Ivan.
August 16th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Heather, this page on the Harmonic Convergence I wrote might answer your question. I do make fun of some New Age practices, so be ye fairly warned, says I.
August 16th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
How bizarre–tracking a non object! That suggests astrology is even more hocus pocus than they let on. I thought her response was fairly well articulated, though I’m surprised they care what we think at all. Just perusing astrological literature I always got the impression that Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were rather inconvienent to astrologers anyway. They seemed to give them duplicate functions of other planets. As for the I.A.U., after reading the actual brief I’m more accepting of the changes than after reading them in the paper. Ultimately we’ll end up with too many planets out there, I think multiplicity should be a consideration, after all Saturn has rings, each bit of dust isn’t considered a moon. Not reported in the papers is that there is some room for individuals to have different opinions and still be official (Ceres may be considered a dwarf planet, Pluto may be considered a Plutino)
August 17th, 2006 at 7:34 am
Astrology grew from our desire to know what the future has in store for us, as in, ” will it rain soon enough to save my crops?”, etc.
Granted, it is nearly as often wrong as right, but it was an effort to organize our observations and as such should be considered an early attempt at science, though without the METHOD it lacked rigor
.
That having been said, I have seen a very few people ( all right, one person) who came up with some really incredible predictions that tested out correct. Though I doubt that had anything to do with astrology per se, there was something going on but I expect it had more to do with that persons highly developed prefrontal lobes than astrology. They are, after all, what allows us to model and anticipate the future.
So much for anecdotes,,,
Wishful thinking can be fun. All our science fiction is derived from that desire, to consider what might be. Only by stretching the definition of the possible can we move into realms of thought and understanding beyond what we know today.
,,,but we MUST have a WAY to separate the real from the unreal and that is the Scientific Method. Just ask any sufi mystic. They’ve been trying to teach people to think for over a thousand years,,,
GAry 7
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:55 am
“They’ve been trying to teach people to think for over a thousand years”
Good God, what a thankless task. So much hard work for such modest results…
August 24th, 2006 at 10:02 am
Just curious…how did you test to see if astology works or not?
August 25th, 2006 at 3:05 am
I heard Philip on COAST to COAST last night make a statement condeming Astrology. I find that Philip’s knowledge of Astrology appears to be extremely limited. I checked Philip’s site out for his so called “vast experiments” which debunk Astrology and negate its validity. As usual with Astrology Debunkers, Philip provides very little evidence disproving astrology and his theory about some planetary mechanism influencing us reveals how little Philip understands about astrology. Does a clock dictate your behavior Philip? Perhaps if you began to view the planets like a giant clock, you’d begin to know “what time it is.” I suggest you read the book “Comos and Psyche” by Dr. Richard Tarnas.
Quotes, Testimonies
The following is the most often quoted line in defense of modern astrology since Sir Isaac Newton is considered the father of physics. When Newton spent his last decade studying astrology, he was criticized by Edmund Halley an equally famous scientist. Prompt came the reply from Isaac Newton.
I have studied the matter (Astrology), you Sir, have not
- Sir Issac Newton to Edmund Halley
Astrology is a science in itself and contains an illuminating body of knowledge. It taught me many things, and I am greatly indebted to it. Geophysical evidence reveals the power of the stars and the planets in relation to the terrestrial. In turn, astrology reinforces this power to some extent. This is why astrology is like a life-giving elixir to mankind.
- ALBERT EINSTEIN
A physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician … There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy.
- Hippocrates, Fifth Century B.C.
Astrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.
- C.G. Jung
A most unfailing experience … of the excitement of sublunary (that is, human) natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.
- Johann Kepler, Larousse Encyclopedia Astrology
It is clearly evident that most events of a widespread nature draw their causes from the enveloping heavens.
- Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos
The celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sublunar world.
- Thomas Aquinas
A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an “intellectual”, find out how he feels about astrology.
- Robert Heinlein
The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great nerve-center from which we quiver forever. Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus? But it is a vital power, rippling exquisitely through us all the time.
- D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse
The controls of life are structured as forms and nuclear arrangements, in a relation with the motions of the universe.
- Louis Pasteur
Courteous Reader, Astrology is one of the most ancient Sciences, held in high esteem of old, by the Wise and the Great. Formerly, no Prince would make War or Peace, nor any General fight in Battle, in short, no important affair was undertaken without first consulting an Astrologer.
- Benjamin Franklin
It’s common knowledge that a large percentage of Wall Street brokers use astrology.
- Donald Regan
That we can now think of no mechanism for astrology is relevant but unconvincing. No mechanism was known, for example, for continental drift when it was proposed by Wegener. Nevertheless, we see that Wegener was right, and those who objected on the grounds of unavailable mechanism were wrong.
- Carl Sagan
The question of all questions for humanity, the problem which lies behind all others and is more interesting than any of them, is that of the determination of man’s place in nature and his relation to the cosmos.
- T.H. Huxley
Men should take their knowledge from the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.
- Emerson
Millionaires don’t use astrology, billionaires use astrology.
- J.P. Morgan
There shall be signs in the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.
- Jesus Christ, Luke 21:25
August 25th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Your blog shows a normal lack of understanding of Astrology. Transpluto planets or (dwarf planets) it makes no difference have been predicted by astrology, at least in a great part because the planets represent the influence of archetypal forces. Whether or not this is a correlation only or a mechanism isn’t the primary concern of astrology, although it is extensively discussed in some works such as Richard Tarnas “Cosmos and Psyche”. Based on archetypal dynamics the prediction of the these objects has long been made. Here is one source you can check out that was published well before “Xena” was ever discovered:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/096280312X/sr=8-2/qid=1156539005/ref=sr_1_2/102-7688400-9571366?ie=UTF8
August 26th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
hi,
im looking for the time when pluto was first inserted to astrology (ie how much time did it take “them”). where can i look for it?
thanks
amir
August 27th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
For the “Eintein’s Quote” 2 replies above-
”
Former astrologer Geoffrey Dean, writing to Ivan Kelly, renowned expert and critic of astrology, said:
“Re that Einstein quote. This is a good example of astrologers quoting each other nth hand, but with nobody ever checking the original quote. In a letter in ‘Correlation’ June 1991… I chased it back to a book (in French) by the late Swiss-Canadian astrologer Werner Hirsig, ‘Manuel d’astrologie,’ where the quote appears in French in the preface, but with no source given. From there it was quoted by Solange de Mailly Nesle (1981), from which it was quoted by Tad Mann (1987) and Percy Seymour (1988), and from there ever onwards seemingly without end…. Various people including Solange, Percy and myself have checked Einstein’s writings and biographies but have been unable to verify it, so Solange and Percy have deleted it from later editions of their books. His biographies contain nothing to suggest that Einstein had any interest in astrology, and its style differs from that of authentic Einstein sayings.”
”
http://www.randi.org/jr/02-09-2001.html
August 28th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Actually, Astrology DOES work. It also involves quite a BIT of work. Newspaper horoscopes have nothing to do with actual astrology for the most part. Even when they ARE based on sound astrological principles, they are based on transits of the moon compared to entire sun signs.
However, if one were to sit down, erect and thoroughly delineate a particular person’s natal chart, it proves astonishingly accurate.
It is unfortunate that there are charlatans going on about Transplutos and such. While astrologers have long felt that mundane science would ultimately discover a total of 12 planets orbiting our sun, no astrology etxtbook of which I am aware makes any claims about “tracking” any celestial body which has not already been observed by science.
Quite the opposite. It took quite some time after the discovery of each of the “modern” planets–Uranus (referred to in older texts as Herschel) Neptune and Pluto–for astrologers to determine how they fit in to the overall schemata of astrological thought. The basic theory about their influence is to consider them as a “higher octave” of the classical planets.
Now, as far as Pluto’s “Scientific” de-classification as a planet—well, many astrologers will completely ignore this arbitrary declamation. Many will begin re-assessing the way pluto is viewed astrologically.
Ultimately, it will have little overall effect on the practice of astrology, due to the fact that its effect is generational rather than personal, taking as it does hundreds of years to transit the entire zodiac.
Pluto is regarded astrologically as the planet of Transformation, of Rebirth—-its reclassification will most likely be regarded by astrologers as a function of its own energy; that Pluto made some kind of transit, formed some kind of aspect, that triggered the astronomers of this generation to begin heated debate on what is or is not a planet.
August 28th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
an interesting link to append to my above comment….http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/eric.html
includes a chart and delineation for the time at which the meeting began in which it was decided to demote pluto. for those of you who HAVEN’T studied astrology (which i’m guessing is roughly 99% of you), it would serve as an excellent insight into how astrological thought works.
August 28th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Paul Coppolelli, nope. Astrology does not work. It has been tested repeatedly, and shown conclusively to be no better at prediction than random chance.
August 28th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Hey Phil .. what do u think .. will Pluto’s exclusion from the nine planets have any effect on the astrology thats been in practoce for thousands of years ????Would appreciate if u could mail me the reply…
August 30th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
“Einstein”, your impressive list of quote mining is rather unconvincing. You have just displayed the same technique used by Creationists. They take a hypothetical or rhetorical comment from a scientist, post it out of context, and represent that as an accurate display of the scientist’s views.
Besides the Einstein “quote” above, there are at least two others in that list that are fallacious.
This is a valid observation. However, Sagan was by no means a believer in astrology, and that remark is definitely removed from the context. Sagan goes on to explain that the real issue is not if we can observe a mechanism, the first detail is to observe the phenomenon. We can then study the possible mechanism after we validate that something is occurring. And the data for astrology is that there is no justification that something is occurring.
Again, this is an example of someone mocking the importance of astrology.
Let’s also look at some of the other quote sources:
Sir Isaac Newton: Okay, so he was a very bright man, and a good scientist, responsible for numerous discoveries in physics. He also liked the occult, and studied astrology, numerology, and alchemy. What that shows is that even intelligent people can be wrong.
Hippocrates, Fifth Century B.C. : I think that pretty much disclaims itself.
C. [Carl] G. Jung: Early 20th Century psychologist. A lot has been learned since then about psychology, and much from then has been refuted.
Johann Kepler, Larousse Encyclopedia Astrology: Kepler lived in the 15th Century.
Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos: Ptolemy? He’s the guy with the Geocentric model of the universe. He didn’t even get Astronomy correct. NEXT!
Louis Pasteur: That quote is so vague it could mean anything.
Donald Regan: Wall street brokers use astrologers? No wonder the stock market is so unpredictable.
T.H. Huxley: Yet another vague quote that could mean anything.
September 7th, 2006 at 2:20 am
This blog is mentioned in New Scientist today (issue dated 9 Sept, 2006), in Feedback.
http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=mg19125682.500
(Sorry, I don’t know the syntax for putting links in comments. Last time I tried it didn’t work properly.)
September 7th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
…and for those who feel the need for RA/Dec, here’s the Transpluto Ephemeris Generator…
http://ephemeral.info/trp/
…don’t sprain an eyeball in the telescope looking for TP (why is that such an apt acronym?)…
September 7th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
I remember reading a book by Raymond Smullyan once (I think it was “The Tao Is Silent” which contained as essay on astrology, where he rubbished the claims of the various physical forces to provide any kind of rationale for astrology. His comment was that if his astrologically-minded friends claimed that the planets exerted an influence by magic then at least he couldn’t disprove that (not having your statistical studies to hand, at least) but when they claimed it was gravity (usually) it annoyed him.
My (distinctly non-astrological!) prediction is that the Next Big Thing in terms of a supposed physical rationale will be quantum entanglement. But they’re probably ahead of me….. (and if not, why not?)
December 4th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Astrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.
- C.G. Jung
December 11th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
I read your anti-astrology article. Nothing much there that wasn’t thrown at Ptolemy all those years ago.
You haven’t done your homework.
Cast your chart. You can do that on-line at various places. Here is Astrolabe’s: http://alabe.com/freechart/ You MUST USE the birth time on your birth certificate. (Your real birth certificate will have a time. The abstract will not. This is the only hard part. Science demands precision.)
Read your chart using a standard book. Debbi Kempton-Smith’s, and Sakoian & Acker’s both come to mind. They are cheap & easily obtained.
Live with your chart for a year.
At the end of a year you will have an anti-astrology argument that will make astrologers tremble. Rather than laugh.
Be the one who nails this coffin shut. Surely you are not afraid that actual exposure to astrology will render you a blithering idiot?
December 11th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
David, I have indeed done my homework. As I said, ignoring the physics, the tests were done with conditions made by the astrologers themselves. There were no predictive powers to astrology above randomness at all.
I cannot check every astrologer, every astrology site, every book, every article. But I can look at the tests done, and the physics underlyting astrology. That’s why I can say unequivocably and without hesitation: astrology doesn’t work.
December 11th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
To answer some questions:
New planets have to be studied before they can be delineated. This takes time. Pluto did not become noted in astrology until the 1950’s (20 some years after discovery) and did not become popular until the 1970’s. Now I think there’s too much of it. Lazy astrologers reach for it instead of their brains.
Chiron (1977) has eclipsed Ceres (1801) in that Chiron is a singularity, whereas Ceres comes with at least three others (Pallas-Athena, Juno, Vesta), which slows use down. Currently the best-known asteroid astrologer is Demetra George. The best asteroid astrologer is Martha Lang-Wescott.
Chiron was tirelessly promoted, from the early 1980’s, by Zane Stein, working with the New York astrologer Al Morrison (now deceased). Whatever actual value it may have long ago got buried under an idiotic “wounded healer” mythology. Astrology has fads like anything else. Can I talk to you about cold fusion?
Chiron was anticipated, back in the 1930’s, by a certain Maurice Wemyss. He called it Jason, said it ruled Sagittarius & put it between Saturn & Neptune. This was from his book, The Wheel of Life vol. 3, which is of course available at your local library, in their extensive section on astrology. Wemyss drew up an ephemeris which in places matched the eventual orbit of Chiron, which is in fact located between Saturn & Uranus & is said by its fans - few of whom have ever heard of Maurice (who died or disappeared around 1960) - to rule Sagittarius. Eric Francis, whose name came up hereabouts, has lately been promoting it & a number of fellow “Centaurs”.
Trans Pluto was a fad. It faded long ago. I was surprised to see it here.
You want invisible? There are eight TransNeptunians, invented - or discovered - by a couple of Germans back in the 1920’s. I am fairly certain none of them exist in physical space. They are so far “away”, they move so “slowly” as to hardly move at all. Invariably they turn up in critical places in precisely timed charts of natural disasters. Earthquakes & such. You tell me why.
Geoffrey Dean is skeptical, but he’s still an astrologer. This is an important distinction. His famous book, Recent Advances in Natal Astrology, was published, if memory serves, 30 years ago. When you can take an ephemeris & a table of houses & cast a chart - by hand - and then draw conclusions from it, good, bad or otherwise, as Geoffrey can, you will be worthy of your opinion. Not before.
This is the price of admission to any discipline. Creationists are roundly derided for being ignorant of Evolution. Astronomers have made their ignorance a fetish. So my advice to skeptics is to pay the price. There’s an urban legend among astrologers that any astronomer who seriously studies astrology - with an eye to destroying it, of course - is always & invariably converted, even against his will & better judgement. For their efforts they are then driven out of The Scientific Establishment, a terrible fate (like excommunication, which it resembles), or so says Urban Myth. To avoid that, do they hide behind willful ignorance & endless cheap shots?
December 11th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Wemyss put Jason between Saturn & Uranus. “Saturn & Neptune” was my mistake. Apologies.
December 11th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Dear Bad Astronomer,
Until you’ve cast a chart, your chart, you haven’t done your homework. There are no excuses.
Physics is tested by physical means, but not by chemistry. Chemistry is tested by chemical means, but not by physics. Astrology is the same. It is tested by astrological means, not astronomical. Right this very minute, radio waves from Beijing are passing through my body, yours, too. Only a short-wave radio receiver can detect them. All other methods will fail. Only a horoscope can detect “astrology waves”, which, by the way, if they exist, seem to be clearly non-linear. Astrology is, in fact, weirder than than the skeptics imagine. If you only knew, you would have so much more ammunition.
December 11th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
“Until you’ve cast a chart, your chart, you haven’t done your homework. There are no excuses.’
I think that line deserves an “oh, please.”
I don”t need to read tea leaves to know they don’t work. I don’t need to drop an anvil on my foot to know it will crush my bones.
The onus is on you. All tests done correctly — all of them, every single one — show that astrology doesn’t work. Show me the ones that support astrology… or better yet, show them to Ivan Kelly who has been studying this for years. Then we can talk.
December 12th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Hello Bad Astronomer,
Okay. You haven’t heard - or don’t want to admit - Gauquelin’s famous Mars Effect. That’s been written up a lot, including by your friends over at the Skeptical Inquirer, where it was a fiasco back around 1980. His wife, Francoise Gauquelin herself, once gave me a stack of Fate Magazine’s sTar Babys, the monograph by Dennis Rawlins. He was a member of the SI panel until he was forced out for actually looking at the data, rather than cooking it.
You haven’t heard - or don’t want to admit - J.H. Nelson’s famous RCA studies, in the 1940’s & ’50’s, of planetary positions & short-wave radio reception. For his efforts in getting RCA good reliable radio transmissions, he was run out of his professional organizations & ended his life as a member of The American Federation of Astrologers (AFA), who would at least give him a fair hearing.
On my shelves is Mark Urban-Lurain’s Astrology as Science, a study of alcoholism & astrology. This was a Master’s Thesis submitted to Michigan State University back in 1981. You haven’t seen that as it was eventually printed by - guess who - the AFA.
There are more. The problem with studies that confirm astrology is that they are rejected by the scientific community, regardless of merit, and are then studiously ignored. Try to find any in a library anywhere. Or try to find someone who will talk about Michael Gauquelin, who eventually committed suicide.
Studies that reject astrology - including quack efforts by your friend Mr. Randi (no scientist he) - get great play. We never hear the end of them.
So. You won’t cast a chart, you won’t read a book, you have conducted no experiments of your own, you have not assisted at any experiments, you’ve not been a participant at any experiment, you have, I presume, never talked first-hand with any member from any experiment, so I think we may safely conclude that your opinions are mere hearsay.
This makes you a proud member of the Flat Earth Society.
Yesterday I found your site from a link at Cursor.org. Cursor said something about Palomar. I knew Palomar to be a wonderful, aging 200 incher, so I hit the link & found Bad Astronomy, a surprise. But I knew the sort of site it would be, so I searched it for “astrology”, knowing what I would find.
And I was not disappointed. The usual hack work. You ask, why don’t astrologers use planets from other solar systems? They don’t, for the same reason they don’t use Jovian or Saturnine moons. You would know the reason instantly if you ever looked at a chart.
While you were all bamboozled by sun-signs in the newspapers (actually lunar-based stuff, invented by R.H. Naylor in 1930), real scholars have been tearing up the countryside, undercutting you.
The late David Pingree, Professor of the History of Mathematics at Brown University, spent his career hunting down, compiling & translating ancient astrology, among other topics. From early Greek, Latin, Sanskrit & Arabic, all languages he translated. I am trying to imagine him doing this for a lark, but it’s just plain hard work to run down all the various fragments of Carmen Astrologicum that can be found around the world, and in three languages to boot (1976, reprinted 2005). I am trying to think that he wasn’t an astrologer deep in the closet, and then I think of his last project, a wonderful new compilation of Vettius Valens (2nd century AD). Valens is the greatest of all ancient astrological sources, a large treatise in itself. Pingree died a year ago, before he could set about translating it. His chair at Brown has been folded into the Classics Department, his scholastic heirs can be found at the Warburg Institute, in London.
Pingree was a protoge of Otto Neugebauer (died, 1990) who was supposedly a scholar of the history of the exact sciences, but, funny thing is, when you get into the ancient history of science, as well as ancient mathematics, you invariably end up in astrological territory. (Spherical trig, for example, exists almost entirely for the production of horoscopes. JPL gave it a new lease on life.) So if Neugebauer & Pingree couldn’t stand astrology (if they were scientifically orthodox, in other words), they would surely have found some other area of the classics to peruse, or so I imagine.
You may not have heard of Messrs. Pingree or Neugebaur, or their numerous associates (the late Jean Rhys Bram at Hunter College (translator of Firmicus), the late R. Ramsay Wright (translator of Al Biruni), the very living Charles Burnett at Warburg (I am hoping for Valens) all come to mind) but thanks to their work of reviving ancient astrologers, astrology is set to explode back into every day life.
You have written about the harm astrology inflicts on the world. It is certainly true that the misuse of any powerful thing creates harm, and astrology is certainly powerful. (Millions of people believe in it, and anything so widely believed is powerful.) You should consider the harm science does when it bandies about ignorance & misinformation about its favorite bete noirs, of which astrology is but one of many.
Virtually all the best astrologers, including myself, started as skeptics. Virtually all of them, including myself, believed the scientific position, that astrology was rubbish. Virtually all of them, including myself, had the same scholastic justification for their beliefs: Ultimately, none.
What is the difference between you and me, between astrologers & scientists? The astrologer picked up a book on astrology & read it. Under the onslaught of facts (which he tried to rebut, but could not), he then changed his opinion about astrology, but more than that,
He realized that he had been lied to. That Science, that great god of all gods, had lied. Repeatedly. Blatantly. He never again had the same unquestioned confidence in science. I have gone further down this path than most. My confidence in science was shattered years ago. I now think you all fools.
So you look at society & you see superstition & “new age” & psychics & astrology & tarot cards & witchcraft & much more, flooding in like poison. I see it too, and I am just as concerned. All of these are harmful when misused, and misuse is easy. But in its mindless, irresponsible denunciations, science is creating this problem, feeding this monster. The world is not the black & white that science thinks it is. People at first accept the scientific world-view - it’s indoctrinated in every school in the world - then at some point real life breaks in & that world-view is shattered. (This sometimes happens at the death of a close family member.) At that exact moment, science has lost.
So I don’t care what your opinion about astrology may be. Just please be aware of the harm you can cause promoting a crappy one. Hate astrology all you want, but hate it for the best reasons. Leave your posts on astrology on line & accept that you are ignorant, or study & write diatribes with real punch.
The best anti-astrology that I have read were from 17th - 18th century London. Jonathan Swift himself, the great Dean, authored many, under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff. They are hilarious. They would look good on your site, or on mine, for that matter. Swift ended up insane, unlike John Partridge, his astrological sparring partner & frequent target.
January 5th, 2007 at 10:13 am
I look at astrology as more in the realm of psychology, religion, and spirituality. For many people, understanding their natal chart is therapeutic in that it can reveal unconsious motives of why they have behaved a certain way all their lives. It can also help people better understand their strengths and weaknesses. Many people believe unproven ideas such as Freudian psychology or religious claims such as Jesus rose from the dead or God parted the Red Sea without any need to scientifically “prove” them. The only “proof” they need is that these concepts give them comfort and put them in touch with a higher sense of purpose in life. Experiments have shown that sick patients in hospitals who, unknown to them, had people praying for their well being, recovered more quickly than those who didn’t have people praying for them. We can’t say this was all in the patient’s minds as none of them had any knowledge of the praying or lack of it. Also, when people do have a sense of a “higher power,” of the spiritual or transcendent, granting them faith in something bigger than themselves, their immune systems tend to function better and they less frequently get depressed than those who don’t hold such beliefs. I believe astrology can and does benefit people, but in the same sense that psychotherapy or church attendance does. Obviously, it’s not for everyone, but it has a long history in this area and viewing it from this perspective makes it less something to “prove” and more something available as a matter of belief.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:08 am
OK, so I agree that Astrology should not be designated as a science. An art, more probably, and as an art there will be dabblers, accomplished and even master level practicioners. Calling the horoscopes in your dailies Astrology is equivalent to calling the comic stips Literature. Astrology is not about being influenced by the physical planets but more a deciphered energy pattern in the as above so below fractal relationship. I first looked into Astrology with no expectation of finding value. I believe that I did indeed find value, not in a “this is the way things are & this … will happen” but more in energy trends and phychological biases.
It would be a boring world if we all agreed on reality.
Peace
June 24th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
NO, mr Bad Astronomer, there ARE no tests proving it doesn’t work. There ARE tests proving that the testers have no idea how astrology IS supposed to work.
Tests like these being cited as “proof” of the supposed invalidity of astrology is like saying CPR is a bad idea because folk who aren’t trained in its application end up injuring or killing the people they try to save.
The tests themselves are invalid—they do not measure what they claim to measure, pure and simple.
The fact of the matter is, astrology is not a tool of prediction, but of insight. It’s not a case of “a therefore b”; it’s a case of “these archetypes and relationships are more strongly emphasized than these others”. It’s a matter of associations, influences, symbolism. Astrology does not predict, it illustrates, illuminates.
No, you don’t have to drop an anvil on your foot to know it will break your bones. But comparing that to astrology-or tea leaf reading for that matter-is like comparing apples and communication satellites. Apples and oranges just ain’t in it. Heck, comparing astrology to tea leaves is just as invalid. Tea leaves are a method of scrying, more like unto fire or crystal gazing than astrology.
No, you don’t have to drop an anvil on your foot to know it will break your bones. But knowing this fact does not tell you everything there is to know about gravitation and osteopathy.
June 24th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I never said dropping an anvil on my foot would tell me all I need to know about gravity and osteopathy. I said I don’t need to do it to know that I would get hurt if it happened. The principal is the same: astrology, if it worked, violates so many known and well-understood principles that there is hardly any need to test it.
But test we can, and it’s come up short, including tests made up by astrologers themselves. If you can think of a better test, then by all means, let’s hear it.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:04 am
“I donâ€t need to read tea leaves to know they don’t work. I don’t need to drop an anvil on my foot to know it will crush my bones.”
Well actually you do. Otherwise you need to build a well-constructed lineage from other events that have been done with experiment and produce, what is only a theory, about what will happen. Unless you don’t want to live in the scientific world as it’s currently defined. So one could conclude that you aren’t capable of using logic or scientific theory, making you a poor source for conclusions. Many mistakes in science have been made by projecting “common sense” of the times instead of using the scientific method.
Astrology is based on a division of 12 and various archtypes for each of them. The planets are attached to the archtypes, but they AREN’T them. So if one comes or goes, it doesn’t effect the underlying process. (I represent red with an apple. I destroy all apples. Red doesn’t go away. Now I use fire ants instead.) Archtypes isn’t really the right word for it, but the idea is that Pluto’s reassigment doesn’t do much but require an change back to using Mars as the substitute in the same way Mars was used before Pluto was discovered.
Does astrology work? Some studies say no, some say yes. So that’s not help unless one does a full scientific methodology peer review of the various studies. Newspaper quotes are meaningless since they are so totally superficial to how it’s done, and don’t say anything about astrology.
And does astrology work by directly predicting and describing - or is a place where people’s perceptive abilities come through (both normal perceptive & unusually perceptive)?
Personally I think it’s often more useful as a way for a particularly perceptive person to pull in ideas and describe them to a client. However, I have also had a few experiences that were eere. I certainly am not going to rule in, nor rule out an entire long lasting process, just because it’s unconventional. I’d need to do the heavy research myself. I won’t rule it in - or out. Making you laughter at it, very 8-grade ribbing sounding.
One of those eere experiences… I had a reading done by a woman my sister knew vaguely for a month. I’d had a series of unusual experiences that were knocking me off my feet in quick succession and had never had something like this in my life before. I didn’t tell her anything about it, nor had my sister. Yet she described a process as transient and shocking, knock me off my feet, in quick succession events and had the start of it right. (The ending seems right to but I didn’t pay close attention at the time.) That felt good and was interesting. But not much I could make of it.
However as she was putting away her books I asked her about a particular date. She could have assumed it was good or bad, but that’s all she had to go on. Looking down at the books, she saw on that date an accident, and death for me. Then looked up at me puzzled and said, “but your not dead” and looked down and said, oh, a friendship saved you. It was all done very quickly and without looking at me beyond the glance.
I’d asked about that day because I’d been hit by a car and thrown to the ground while walking along with a friend in a mall parking lot after hours in winter in upstate NY. We both passed out. She woke up, but I didn’t and would have likely frozen to death. She shook me awake and got us to the dorm & from there we were taken to the hospital. I was so out of it from the hit to my head that I tried to jump out of the car driving us to the dorm & the concussion lasted close to a year. I woke up the next morning in the hospital and thought that she’d saved my life. Afterward, I aways held in that way in my thoughts - whether that was true or not. So, her prediction was “vague”, however, it was also eeriely specific and accurate.
(FYI, my friend and I weren’t idiots. The movie ended. The bus was on the other side of the mall. The security refused to let us walk through the mall and insisted we leave and go through the parking lot. We were the only ones we needed to do. It turned out that drunk drivers often drove throught that parking lot from the bars to the neighborhoods on the other side.)
I called the woman a year later for a reading, this time over the phone. None of it was particularly “on” or interesting. Maybe a little click, but it didn’t have the intense “clicking” sense of the prior year.
There is much we don’t know about our world. It’s best not to mock something, just because it’s different, or doesn’t seem like it would make sense. Wait until you’ve experimented with it and explored it. As someone earlier said.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:07 am
I should add that her explanation was that it was the death configuration, but not of people around you, you yourself. That’s when she puzzled and looked further at the same spot for more details like aspects and found the friendship one. Given it was just a date, she could have come up with anything.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:20 am
Oo, I just remembered something else about that day that was eerie, but no astrology involved. I insisted to a professor in his Wednesday office hours that I be given a make up test if I couldn’t make it to the test on Friday. I’d never asked a professor for anything like that before. He was annoyed and insisted I’d be there. It went back and forth. I was quite sure this was critically important to ask for. He finally agreed that if I was in the hospital (or dead) he would, and I was okay with that. On Friday he got a call from my mother that I was in the hosptial and wouldn’t make it to the test. When I got back to class, it took a note from the doctor and some hospital records for him to believe me that it wasn’t a prank to get out of the test.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Hi,
”Astrology is a science in itself and contains an illuminating body of knowledge. It taught me many things, and I am greatly indebted to it. Geophysical evidence reveals the power of the stars and the planets in relation to the terrestrial. In turn, astrology reinforces this power to some extent. This is why astrology is like a life-giving elixir to mankind.
- ALBERT EINSTEIN”
This is a hoax forged 5 years after Einstein passed away and it was published in German in the 1960 Huters astrologischer Kalender. From there tranlated into French and later into English.
Einstein said in printing in 1951 that astrology was the INNER ENNEMY!!! of Kepler.
For the whole story of my search, see my paper published in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine of Nov.-Dec. 2007 available at:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-170731922.html
The same applies to the Newton-Halley dialogue not on astrology by on religion. You can find it in a biography of Newton by David Brewster publishe in the 1830s.
And the one by Kepler: ”20 years…” was forged from an actual sentence by him which condemns at the end the whole business of astrology. It can be found in his Harmony of the World, Aiton et al.
Best regards.
Denis Hamel