Astrology - Fact or fiction?

What are your views? Is Astrology fact or fiction? If someone could back up either claims, it would be very nice. I have very little information on astrology.

 

Astrology seems accurate enough to me, of course I cannot back it up though.... And I wouldn't base any important decisions on it... More just a curiosity or so...

 

Astrology, in a scientific sense, doesn't really make sense. Especially after I took an Astronomy course.

But there is a part within me that just can't help but be fascinated with the occult!

 

Well it's EXTREMELY accurate by me. My mom's astrologer once predicted events in my future, that came true ( I'm talkin' about things seperated in years). And could describe my physical condition, eventhough I wasn't present, she said by 2007 all my fat will drop of naturally. Which is true! I've lost tons of weight since then (2003) . She predicted when my grandmother died,3 years before, she described how she died. It was extraordinary. And the different signs rule different body parts also, these are common ailment areas, and *star* areas. For instance, it's a well known fact that scorpios (who rule the sex organs) have an extremely high sex drive.(lol)
or that aquqrians have achille's heels, which are very vulnerable. Segittarians are often
victims of bladder and nervous system trouble. Etc.etc.

It can tell you about yourself, physicly and mentally. I say it's very accurate.

Of coarse, scientists can't see any scense in it.

 

Astrology is complete fiction. It makes vague claims that are hard to disprove, because they could apply to anyone.

Any time you have a "fact or fiction" question about a certain subject, ask yourself these ten questions that Michael Shermer poses. I always try to do this, and I've found that they work quite well for detecting bullshit:

1. How reliable is the source of the claim? Scientists are usually reliable; pseudoscientists unreliable. As Daniel Kevles showed so effective in his book The Baltimore Affair, in investigating possible scientific fraud there is a boundary problem in detecting a fraudulent signal within the background noise of mistakes and sloppiness that is a normal part of the scientific process. The investigation of a particular set of research notes in a laboratory affiliated with Nobel laureate David Baltimore (and run by Imanishi Kari) by an independent committee established by Congress to investigate potential fraud, revealed a surprising number of mistakes. But science is messier than most people realize. Errors and sloppiness in raw data happen. The question is: can a distinction be made between intentional and unintentional distortion of the data and interpretations? Baltimore and Kari were exonerated when it became clear that there was no purposeful data manipulation.

2. Does this source often make similar claim? Pseudoscientists have a habit of going well beyond the facts, so when one individual makes numerous such claims it is a sign that they are more than just iconoclasts. Again, this is a matter of quantitative scaling, since some great thinkers often go beyond the data in their creative speculations. Cornell scientist Thomas Gold is notorious for his radical ideas, but he has been right often enough that other scientists listen to what he has to say, and those same scientists are also testing these ideas for their validity. Gold's book, The Deep Hot Biosphere for example, proposes the heretical idea that oil is not a fossil fuel at all, but the by-product of a massive subterranean colony of bacteria living in rocks. Hardly any earth scientists I have spoken with take thisthesis seriously, yet they do not consider Gold a crank. Why? Because he plays by the rules of the game of science. What we are looking for here is a pattern of fringe thinking that consistently ignores or distorts data.

3. Have the claims been verified by another source? Typically, nonscientists and pseudoscientists will make statements that are unverified, or verified by a source within their own belief circle. We must ask who is checking the claims, and even who is checking the checkers. The biggest problem with the cold fusion debacle, for example, was not that Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman were wrong; it was that they announced their spectacular discovery before it was verified by other laboratories (at a press conference, no less), and, worse, when cold fusion was not verified anywhere they continued to cling to their belief in the phenomenon despite the lack of evidence.

4. How does this fit with what we know about the world and how it works? An extraordinary claim must be placed into a larger context to see how and where it fits. When pseudoarchaeologists claim that the sphinx was built over 10,000 years ago by an advanced race of humans (because the sphinx shows signs of water weathering that could not have happened after the end of the last ice age), they are not presenting any context for that earlier civilization. Where are the rest of the artifacts of those people? Where are their works of art, their weapons, their clothing, their tools, and their trash? This is simply not how history or archaeology works.

5. Has anyone gone out of their way to disprove the claim or has only confirmatory evidence been sought? This is the confirmation bias, or the tendency to seek confirmatory evidence and reject or ignore disconfirmatory evidence. The confirmation bias is powerful and pervasive and is almost impossible for any of us to avoid. It is why the methods of science that emphasize checking and rechecking, verification and replication, and especially attempts to falsify a claim, are so critical. There is so much evidence against cold fusion, for example, that all but a handful of die-hard physicists, chemists, and hopelessly optimistic futurists long ago gave up conducting further research. Yet the purveyors of "infinite energy" (there is even a magazine of this title) cling to the slimmest of experimental results and blithely sweep the disconfirming evidence under the rug of conspiracy theories where, for example, oil and electrical conglomerates are said to be preventing the positive evidence from reaching the American public.

6. Does the preponderance of evidence converge to the claimant’s conclusion, or a different one? The theory of evolution, for example, is proven through a convergence of evidence from a number of independent lines of inquiry. No one fossil, no one piece of biological or paleontological evidence has "evolution" written on it; instead there is a convergence of evidence from tens of thousands of evidentiary bits that adds up to a story of the evolution of life. Creationists conveniently ignore this convergence, focusing instead on trivial anomalies or currently unexplained phenomena in the history of life.

7. Is the claimant employing the accepted rules of reason and tools of research, or have these been abandoned in favor of others that lead to the desired conclusion? UFOlogists suffer this fallacy in their continued focus on a handful of unexplained atmospheric anomalies and visual misperceptions by uninformed eyewitnesses, while conveniently ignoring the fact that the vast majority (I estimate 90 to 95 percent) of UFO sightings are fully explicable with prosaic answers.

8. Has the claimant provided a different explanation of the observed phenomena, or is it strictly a process of denying the existing explanation? This is a classic debate strategy—criticize your opponent and never affirm what you believe in order to avoid criticism. But this stratagem is unacceptable in science. Proponents of the pyramids as being built by pre-Egyptians offer no evidence of just who these people are, and instead just pick at anomalies in the work of Egyptian archaeologists. Critics of the Big Bang ignore the convergence of evidence of this cosmological model, focus on the few flaws in the accepted model, and have yet to offer a viable cosmological alternative that carriers a preponderance of evidence in favor of it

9. If the claimant has proffered a new explanation, does it account for as many phenomena as the old explanation? The HIV-AIDS skeptics argue that lifestyle (drug use or promiscuity, coupled to a correlation with a naturally-weakened immune system), not HIV, causes AIDS. To make this argument they must ignore the convergence of evidence in support of HIV as the causal vector in AIDS, and simultaneously ignore such blatant evidence as the significant correlation between the rise in AIDS in hemophiliacs just after HIV was inadvertently introduced into the blood supply. On top of this, their alternative theory does not explain nearly as much of the data as the HIV theory.

10. Do the claimants' personal beliefs and biases drive the conclusions, or vice versa? All scientists hold social, political, and ideological beliefs that could potentially slant their interpretations of the data. The question is: how do those biases and beliefs affect the research? It is true that even the most well-intentioned scientists may find themselves searching for facts to fit their preconceptions. But at some point, usually during the peer-review system, such biases and beliefs are rooted out, or the paper or book is rejected for publication. This is why one should not work in a vacuum. Intellect stumbles and falters without critical feedback. If you don't catch your biases in your research, someone else will.

 

You know Kandahar maybe you could go and read a beginners book on what makes astrology work instead of delivering a diatribe that you no doubt think makes you look, you know, cool and clever - pull it off the web did ya?

Then come back to this forum with maybe a little more humility other than the arrogant attitude which you have.

Your problem is you know absolutely NOTHING about the subject you profess is nonsense ... what sort of scientific reasoning is that?

If you are going to decry something at least know what you are talking about ...

 

Ok, show me experimental evidence that the claims of astrology are accurate. Not vague predictions that are impossible to disprove. Not predictions of major events in hindsight. And don't just give me the 1% of accurate predictions while ignoring the other 99%.

So here's your chance to prove yourself: Tell me what the news headlines (say, the New York Times) will be on Dec 19. Amaze me with your accuracy. Give me a reason to believe that astrology is anything more than complete horseshit.

 

Once again my friend you do not understand.



The Universe reflects your birth. It does not judge nor does it categorize. It is amoral.

The Universe also is in perfect balance (did you notice LOL), which is why the laws of Manu that underlie the Hindu faith and those that underlie the tenets of Christianity and Judaism apply. I am unfamiliar with other religions.



Whenever you act in the world there is an equal and opposite reaction … probably brings to mind a scientist close to you, uh, Isaac Newton, who was also an astrologer by the way.



So you are correct in that astrology as YOU understand it is nonsense, and I agree. But your assumption of what astrology is, is NOT what astrology is! Get humble and you might learn something.



Many years ago a philosophy professor of mine with whom I was arguing said, “Well it would be a very strange Universe in which astrology worked”.


I asked him to which Universe he was comparing, since in order for this one to be “strange” doesn't there have to be a “normal” one? Two Universes right?


He walked away and never spoke to me again.

 

So you are going to just offer vague anecdotes to try to confuse people, instead of providing evidence of your claims? Why don't you give me some experimental evidence of your claims? If what you say is true, then this should be very easy.

 

astrology says that the position of the stars on your birthday affects your destiny and what happens to u, right?
how the hell can that be accurate? whats the relationship between a star and me being a loser ? i'd like to kno

 

I think on such a topic you have to have a little faith. I wouldn't call this a religion, but it sort of has the same principles, because there's no hard evidence that, for example, God exists, except for miracles and so on and you can't pull miracles out of thin air. If that makes any sense.

 

Faith, by definition, is an irrational belief in something...despite the absence of any supporting evidence, or (in some cases) overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The scientific method is the only effective way of determining the truth of something like this. Faith is a copout and should not be considered an acceptable reason to believe in anything.

 

gravitational forces...I guess.

 

I believe you mean experiential rather than experimental don’t you?

In any event as an experiential example, whenever the United States has been attacked the planet Uranus at 9 Gemini (in the 1776 chart) is afflicted by Lunation’s and the transits of the heavy planets Saturn or Jupiter. Uranus is one of the most violent and dangerous planets in the system - its keyword is "revolution". (I will also refer to the "square" which is the most violent of the six major angular aspects.)

The Civil War started exactly when Uranus had returned to 9 Gemini. Pearl Harbor was attacked at the square of the Moon to the previous Lunation that fell on … 9 Gemini. On D-Day Uranus had returned to, guess where, 9 Gemini!

September 11 occurred after the Lunation in 9 Pisces, exactly square 9 Gemini. (It is interesting but I don't know how significant that they were called the TWIN towers, and of course the towers reflect the glyph of Gemini - II.)

Bush’s progressed Sun is now moving to conjunct his natal Mars (god of war) at 9 Virgo, in exact square to 9 Gemini. (Mars square Uranus is the most stressful and violent of all 45 possible planetary combinations.) Next year transit Uranus will be at 9 Pisces, exact square to 9 Gemini and there will be several Lunations involving 9 degrees of the mutable signs. Remember these will form tense squares and oppositions to Bush's Sun and Mars throughout the latter part of next year!

It looks like a period of extreme tension and possibly great violence, but I think there are more than just the US involved. I think there will be some kind of world wide disaster that he has to deal with, possibly a nuclear war, possibly a world epidemic of some disease.

And by the way, I do not BELIEVE in astrology ... I have done enough charts and followed the rules of interpretation to KNOW that astrology works. Why it works? That I can't tell you (I have a few theories). But it does, and the fact that people who call themselves astrologers often couldn't correctly predict sex in a brothel does not cast doubt on astrology, but rather on those so-called astrologers.

 

Astrology is ridiculous.

Some people will believe in just about anything.

 

Exactly. The same people who believe in astrology are the ones who would believe in ghosts, witchcraft, or fundamentalist Christianity if they had been raised differently.

The number of weak-minded, gullible individuals in the world is truly shocking...and they never want to debate the scientific merits of their claims.

 

well i'd say the premise is mostly fiction
but that are a lot of things that work for reasons that
have nothing to do with the reasons people think they do
and it's quite possible that there are parts of it that do just that.
for the most part it's a 'mostly harmless' parlour game
and as long as we don't rely on it or expect any more of it
then that, i really don't see any problem.

there are a couple of things, little things about it that
are real enough though, the system of classifying personality types and how different personality times might respond or react to each other, what it's like for each of them to have to live with each other and so on,
i think that part of, i've observed that part of it,
looks and feels to me mosly real,
though even their it isn't maybe tied as absolutely to
the things that it charts and all that

i guess what i'm trying to say is i don't buy the claim of
"influences" but the corrilations,
often aligoricly imbeded in its froufrou, of these some can be observed to hold at least some sort of validity.

i don't buy the claims as to WHY they do
but i can observe THAT they (SOME of they) do.

so there IS a lot b.s. burried in the 'LANGUAGE' of astrolagy, the way it says and expressess things,
just tons and tons of victorian nonsense,
but simultanieaties and emergent phenomina are real things
not to be dismissed quite so lightly

=^^=
.../\...

 

It would be the equivalent of a computer virus written for the human brain.

 

well thats exactly what i meant : how the hell is gravity related to my future?
i'd like someone who believes in astrology to explain that to me.

 

Maybe the gravity has a slight affect on chemicals and such in your brain while you're developing?
Really, who knows, but it seems semi-accurate to me...