Scientific proof for astrology

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Your pet rock 'Peter' has had more of an influence on my life than any culture's arbitrary asterism.

It's definitely his awesomeness.

Reply 41

Chlorophile

Original post by Flying Cookie

(you replied, ok let's continue :lol:

) What you say about evolution is nonsense. All reputable scientists of the time laughed at it - sound familiar? It also had no evidence to back it up, at least not definitive evidence. It took a lot of time for it to be taken seriously, and both Darwin and Lamarck were fully conscious of the reputation hit they were likely to take when publishing their, at the time, crackpot ideas. These are all facts.

Fair enough. I do think that the current process actually encourages very low productivity in very narrow fields of research. Despite these quality control measures, bad papers still creep through, and what is deemed publishable is still very low down on the "what else is new?" list. Basically I think the conservatism has reached the point of diminishing returns.

I haven't read the homeopathy papers, by the way I would also read the primary references because often reviews pass through another layer of (mis)interpretation. I'm not disagreeing with homeopathy being placebo (even though placebo is still better than no placebo I.e. If people benefit from kidding themselves, let them :lol:

) but I did read the very old and poor astrology papers and they are definitely not proper evidence.

Regarding the point about why bother with an unlikely idea - either because you want to test your observation, or because it's an idea that would have a big impact.

Evolution did have evidence to back it up, what it lacked was a mechanism. That, along with religion, was the main reason why it was so vehemently opposed. And whilst it was refuted by most of the scientific community, it still had support from key influential scientists. Astrology has no evidence to back it up - indeed there is negative evidence - and there is absolutely nobody reputable in the scientific community who would touch it with a bargepole. You cannot compare them.

Let's have a look at some studies on astrology. A paper published by S Carlson in Nature 1985 with an excellent experimental set-up intending to eliminate all bias, in which a group of 26 astrologers matched 100 natal charts to psychological profiles found that the predictions were no better than chance. A study by Dean & Kelly involving 45 astrologers with more than 10 years of experience each and 160 test subjects performed worse than a control group of non-astrologers who randomly matched natal charts to traits. He had another study with over 1000 test subjects which took a group of people born at around the same time, the prediction by astrology being that they would have similar traits since they have the same natal charts. Their traits were in fact completely randomly distributed, no better than if they had been born at any time in the year. The same researchers did another study later with over 300 astrologers and once again, there was no statistically meaningful result. Out of all the studies I can find, I can only find one which indicates any kind of connection, where a weak link between athleticism and the location of Mars seems to have cropped up in one experiment, but this claim has not been replicated by any subsequent studies and has been attributed to experimental bias.

It seems to me that these papers are actually pretty decent. I honestly don't know how you could test astrology in any more effective a way.

Reply 42

Flying Cookie

Original post by Chlorophile

In the absence of molecular biology data made available relatively recently, evolution evidence was very speculative in nature, and even scarcer if at all existent regarding its mechanism. You said before that if no mechanism is possible, something shouldn't be investigated. Obviously not the case, since the mechanism must be arrived to by investigation itself.

The molecular biology data, and indeed the foundation of much of modern science was enabled by the polymerase chain reaction created by Kary Mullis - reputable enough? He believes in astrology. Also you cannot reasonably state that no scientist or person in this world could believe in astrology. The community at large that does is pretty big.

There are two obvious faults with the studies you quote. Firstly, they are not simple and elegant. They make use of inherently infinitely complex items such as the natal chart and personality profiles. They should instead try to reduce these items to something simpler that carries fewer extraneous variables. Secondly, astrology does not claim to be the sole influence in people's personalities. There are other obvious environmental influences that also contribute rather heavily, that psychology has already identified.

I did think of an alternative experimental design that is simpler. I will carry it out at the first opportunity :biggrin:

Reply 43

SaucissonSecCy

Fascinating topic. I do believe the ancient Greeks were an ingenious civilization, and it's no surprise that they honed something more profound and interesting than Christianity with astrology. My own two pennies is that rationalist intellectuals dismissal of it are a little unequivocal and smug. Sure it's been exploited for business and interpretations are spurious. I agree that there should be cynicism about that. The house, and sing system is dubious and highly subjective. But I don't think the most basic principle should be dismissed. ie- Astrological bodies move at different pace of orbit, from generational, trans generational, 1 year, 2 year etc. And when the moon is in tandem with the tides and a woman's menstruation(and as a result moods), why should other astrological bodies effect us in mysterious ways? There's been no explanation, for example, for why winter born people are constantly found to be more likely to be schizophrenics.

So in summary, basic principle yes, likely- signs, houses and specific planetary interpretations- dubious.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 44

skunkboy

Astrology is just an art of interpreting or reading the stars. It's not science.

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Reply 45

TorpidPhil

Original post by skunkboy

Astrology is just an art of interpreting or reading the stars. It's not science.

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What makes it an art instead of a science?

Reply 46

Simes

Original post by TorpidPhil

What makes it an art instead of a science?

Creativity, skill, inventiveness, reading the audience, knowing what is pleasing to the customer, imagination, learning how to do it and ignoring the facts.

Reply 47

TorpidPhil

Original post by Simes

Creativity, skill, inventiveness, reading the audience, knowing what is pleasing to the customer, imagination, learning how to do it and ignoring the facts.

So what then would philosophy be? As it isn't any of those things you just described, yet it is not science either.

Reply 48

jaffacake111

Ridiculous. Am reminded of Carl Sagan: "There are two ways to view the stars: as they really are; and as we might wish them to be."

Reply 49

SaucissonSecCy

OP, you should start a proper society on here for mutual analysis of people's planetary permutations. We've got rep, it's perfect.

Reply 50

TorpidPhil

Original post by Onde

Philosophy can be both. The scientific method is considered a philosophy. It doesn't do well to pidgeon-hole the whole of philosophy as one thing or another though.

I think that's fair.

Reply 51

skunkboy

Original post by TorpidPhil

What makes it an art instead of a science?

I don't know, really. I just got it from the dic below.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/starcraft

noun (uncountable)
- The art of interpreting or reading the stars, astrology

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Reply 52

TorpidPhil

Original post by skunkboy

I don't know, really. I just got it from the dic below.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/starcraft

noun (uncountable)
- The art of interpreting or reading the stars, astrology

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Using dictionaries to decipher whether something is science or not is stupid since that knowledge is going to be esoteric and dictionaries don't actually give us the semantic meaning of a word, rather they give us what most people think is the meaning of the word - hence why words like "literally" in the dictionary have contradictory meanings. Etymologically and linguistically the word is not contradictory.

Reply 53

skunkboy

Original post by TorpidPhil

No, it's not stupid. Human language is full of contradictions and meaningless words. That's why dictionaries should be used...to avoid miscommunicating, miscomprehending,or misusing.

Dictionaries are reference work. People around the world use them. I don't think those users are stupid.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dictionary

noun (plural dictionaries)
- A reference work with a list of words from one or more languages, normally ordered alphabetically and explaining each word's meaning and sometimes containing information on its etymology, usage, translations, and other data.

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Reply 54

TorpidPhil

Original post by skunkboy

I didn't say dictionaries had no use. They do - for finding out what the general populaton think is the meaning of a word, as well as a quick guide for etymology (although even there, the dictionary will give you a less veridical answer than say an etymologist would).

You wouldn't do a survey of 100,000 people asking them to explain the theories of special and general relativity to figure out its meaning though would you? No, because the general public are unlikely to properly understand such esoteric knowledge. The nature of science is a very esoteric topic. One that has only even been discussed for less than 100years. One in which there is still no clear or indisputable answer. A dictionary is inappropriate in this type of scenario, not all scenarios though.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 55

hamix.forllz

is there any proof now? No. Does this mean there never can be proof? No. Maybe the Sun, Moon, stars, Jupiter, etc. affect us in ways we cannot understand...who knows?

Reply 56

xMr_BrightSide

Is there any evidence for astrology being a reliable predictor for human behaviour? If so, good, investigate it, see if there's any truth to the matter. Unfortunately, no such evidence has been found, and even if you wanted to investigate regardless, you have no mechanism through which astrology could affect humans. Posit something, indeed anything, falsifiable about astrology and go from there.

I could analogously argue that the breeding habits of rabbits influences human behaviour. But, in the same way as astrology, there is no evidence or proposed mechanism through which this relationship could work.

Reply 57

jakeel1

And what exactly is the study of astrology? Astrology is the discipline which aimed to show the relations between humans and the cosmos based on a primitive view of how the solar system works. Does astrology concern relations of ideas concerning quantity? Does it contain reasoning concerning matters of fact and existence?

To the flames.

Reply 58

BitWindy