Astrology: Fact or Fiction?

I'm Professor Dave, I'm a cancer. What about you? After analyzing all the astronomy concepts in this series, we found that it is quite easy to put certain common beliefs into perspective, such as our analysis of the flat Earth model we just reviewed. Are there other concepts like this that need to be investigated? I can think of one more. A significant percentage of the world's population believes in

astrology

, which is the notion that the positions of the planets and stars in the night sky influence events that take place on Earth. According to Western

astrology

, the location of the planets along the ecliptic and their spatial relationship to the twelve constellations of the zodiac is not arbitrary, as science suggests.

Their positions at your birth determine aspects of your personality, and their positions on any given day determine the things that will happen to you. Can this be true? Can the validity of this statement be proven? Absolutely can. Let's now take a look at astrology and see if we can clear this up once and for all. This analysis will be carried out in two parts. Later we will see what is in the cards and horoscopes, but first let's see if we can find a mechanism of action. Astrologers claim that the positions of celestial objects affect us. If so, how?

Thousands of years ago, when these planets were considered gods, it may have been enough to simply say magic or divine action and then go about your day. But in the modern era we have science. We have instrumentation. We have the ability to learn everything about the universe, so if something happens here, we should be able to detect it, measure it, and categorize it. So what kind of influence do these planets and stars have on the Earth and the people who live on it? Well, let's see. There are four fundamental forces: the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism and gravity.

Nuclear forces operate in the dimensions of an atomic nucleus, so that's for sure. Electromagnetism and gravity, on the other hand, have no limit in terms of distance, so let's take a closer look. Please note that we understand these two forces very well. We have equations that allow us to calculate the magnitude of the electromagnetic force or gravitational force between two objects. These equations are indisputable, predicting the behavior of objects with extreme levels of precision and with impeccable and repeatable accuracy. These equations describe the universe. Now, if we try to plug in some numbers, such as the masses of celestial objects and the distances to them, we find that all the stars we see in the night sky are so incredibly far away that they simply cannot affect us.

Even the nearby planets in our solar system have a very limited effect. Jupiter's abnormally strong magnetic field has much less influence on humans than a toaster oven in the next room. The gravity of these distant objects attracts us less than the car in the driveway. And not just for a little bit. In several orders of magnitude. So if any of these forces are proposed to be the mechanism by which astrology operates, then, case closed, it is false. Mathematics doesn't lie. But that's not the only problem. Even if the magnitude of these forces were significant enough to affect us, as is certainly the case with the gravity exerted by the Sun and Moon, and to a much lesser extent, Jupiter and Saturn, due to their size and proximity, how can the Does gravity dictate your personality at birth?

How can gravity, the force of attraction between all matter, determine something as subtle as your disposition? In the biology series we learned about genetics and gene expression, so how can astrology fit in with all that? The answer is simple. Can not. Astrology predates biology. It is long before all modern science. And that is the point. Astrology is a collection of things we thought about before we knew anything, at a time when we thought the Earth was the center of the universe. But the retrograde motion of a planet is not that of a deity circling in the sky.

It is just the visual effect of one planet passing another in their respective orbits. Zodiac signs don't really mean anything. They are just imaginary images that we invent playing connect the dots, with stars that are scattered randomly. We made water constellations to remind us of the stormy seasons at sea, and Virgo with its sheaf of grain to remind us of the harvest. These were simple mnemonic devices that had mystical connotations painted by ancient generations, searching for meaning in a universe without any. We have been replacing mysticism and pseudoscience with real science since the time of Galileo, and astronomy is one of those sciences.

Of the thousands of astronomers around the world, people who make their living studying planets and stars, precisely none believe in astrology. Just let that sink in for a moment. Ten out of ten professional space scientists agree that astrology does not exist. Once enough science is learned, pseudoscience inevitably takes hold. Now let's say you're still not convinced. Maybe you don't know these equations and don't trust scientists in the first place. That's fair, we should be able to make our own decisions, so let's look at this from a different angle. Let's say astrology is true. Let's say the planets and stars influence events on Earth, and we simply can't understand how.

It is beyond our ability to understand the mechanism of action at this time. If this were the case, astrologers should still be able to make predictions that end up correlating with reality. If the positions of celestial objects are really relevant, we should be able to do some experiments and collect some evidence demonstrating this relevance. Well, it just so happens that a wide variety of experiments have been performed. Some experiments have asked professional astrologers to match people to their respective birth charts based on their psychological profiles. They never succeed in a statistically significant way, beyond what chance would allow.

If astrology were true, couldn't people who study it apply its principles as consistently as scientists apply science? Well, maybe they are bad astrologers, you could say. They don't know what they're doing, so that doesn't prove anything. Okay, so what would happen if we gathered huge amounts of data on certain groups of people? Some studies have taken hundreds of people born within a couple of minutes of each other and are now adults, and examined a wide variety of their characteristics. Disposition, income, profession, marital status and dozens more. The planets were in the same positions during the births of all these people, so there should be some kind of similarity between them.

Something anything. And yet, no trend can be found for any of these traits and circumstances. They are no more alike than any random group of people of similar age. Still too many variables, you say? Unreliable reports of birth time, too much distance between birthplaces... it's okay, no problem. Let's be even more specific than that. Two people born a few seconds apart in exactly the same place. Twins. According to astrology, these children have exactly identical charts and should therefore be essentially identical people. Same sky, same planets, same constellations, same location, everything is the same, so they necessarily have the same chart.

If you are still not convinced of anything, then no additional studies can be cited to convince you, so use your personal experience. Go ahead and think about all the fraternal twins you've ever met. Are they identical? All of them? Definitely not. Some are quite similar and others couldn't be more different. Like all brothers. But astrology would demand that these similarities exist, without exception. The

fact

that fraternal twins do not have exactly identical personalities is definitive proof that astrology is false. Maybe you're still not satisfied. Let's say you don't have a twin and you've never met one.

How can you verify things for yourself? Well, you have a sun sign, you have a birth chart and horoscopes that should apply to you. So what about individual horoscopes? There have been studies where test subjects with birthdays spread throughout the year are given horoscopes and told that they are very specific to their sign. High percentages of the subjects reported that their reading was very accurate and revealing, even though they all got the exact same horoscope. How can the same horoscope apply to everyone? Can not. That challenges what astrology proposes. We should all have different horoscopes and birth charts.

So how can everyone identify with the same one? That's very easy to answer. Most horoscopes and charts are vague and list more positive traits than negative ones. Everyone wants to believe that they are compassionate, creative, intuitive, wise, or other similar traits. Even the weaknesses listed are usually pretty easy to accept, such as being overly trusting, being too humble, or having high standards for yourself, all of which have a positive spin. Most people will agree that they are these things even if they objectively are not. Plus, on any given day, check your horoscope from ten different sources.

If astrology is true, everyone should agree to some extent. But you can bet a lot of money that they won't. Some will tell you to be careful with money, others will tell you to take a risk today. Nothing said will mean much and none of them will correlate. Horoscopes are too vague to have any real meaning, as they do not predict things as concretely as science does. Science says that if you launch this object at this angle and with this initial velocity, according to this equation, it will land at this precise place at this precise time.

And here it is, always. Therefore, the equation must be correlated with reality. Horoscopes don't say anything so fallacious. If they said that today a man named Kyle Evans will ask you if you want half of his tuna sandwich and then a car horn will honk three times before you find a two-dollar bill under a mailbox, and that very specific event would really happened to for every person to whom that horoscope is applied, then astrology would be in business. But this is never the case. It's always something like: there will be an important opportunity. Or you will reconnect with someone.

Or you will have to make a decision today. These are things that apply to almost everyone, every day of their lives, and that is what makes astrology a pseudoscience. It does not regularly make rigorously falsifiable claims, and when it does, they are immediately falsified. Anyone who is honest with themselves must admit that these results prove that astrology has no validity. When something makes falsifiable claims, which are then repeatedly refuted, that model should be rejected. If someone asks you to think of a number from one to ten and then tries to guess it, claiming that they are psychic, if they then proceed to guess incorrectly many times in a row, we would conclude that they are not psychic.

This is how science works. For a theory to be valid, it must correlate existing data and make predictions. If those predictions don't pan out, the theory is discarded. So the

fact

that astrology has remained relevant is due to confirmation bias, plain and simple. If the psychic guesses his number only two out of seven times, he is not a psychic, he simply guessed it right twice by chance, just as any of us would. But if someone reads his horoscope every day, and twice this week it loosely correlates with events, he might still believe in astrology if he uses those two days to confirm his bias and ignore the rest of the data. .

An equation that only predicts events two out of seven times is completely useless in science, since it cannot have a reliable correlation with reality. Therefore, neither do horoscopes. You can prove this to yourself by comparing your experiences with others who have the same sun sign as you. Try to objectively evaluate whether a correlation exists. If you're really serious, look for someone who was born on the same day of the same year as you. Even in the same region. You two would absolutely have to be dramatically similar, as the principles of astrology would apply to both of you.

If reality is anything less than this, astrology cannot be true, because to be true, its predictions must come true at all times, not just when things happen by chance. So what's the problem, you might be wondering. Even if astrology is not true, who is harmed? Well, it's more harmful than you think, especially when people in power subscribe to it. When Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, First Lady Nancy Reagan hired an astrologer whose advice greatly influenced decisions made by the administration. TeaCan you imagine if the United States declared war on a nation because an astrologer advised it?

It doesn't even have to be so catastrophic. In general, when large segments of the public allow themselves to be entertained by pseudoscience and mysticism, it clouds their ability to apply reason and logic, which are necessary to make informed political decisions. In short, we must all agree about the nature of reality if we have any hope of unification against potential oppression. So things like astrology, while not specifically immoral, are still counterproductive in the grand scheme of human development. That's all you have to do. Astrology is undeniable, indisputable, completely and absolutely false. The positions of the stars and planets at the time of your birth have no correlation with anything about who you are and what happens to you on a day-to-day basis.

It is nothing more than a stubborn relic of antiquity, when mysticism and science were one, and it has survived for only one reason. It's fun. People likes it. They like the idea and how it makes them feel. The notion that the universe and everything in it is deeply intertwined with the trivialities of humanity is comforting, that cannot be denied, but it is also absurd. It's arrogance on a grand scale. So while it may not be a big deal to read your horoscope for fun, it would be much better for us to grow as a species and leave this relic behind forever.

There are those who would argue that something would be lost by discarding astrology, an appreciation for the magic of the night sky, but they are dead wrong. When you leave this primitive construction behind and truly learn about these objects, absorbing what astronomers have come to understand over the centuries, as we have done together throughout this astronomy series, your reverence for these objects necessarily deepens. magnified a thousand times. Planets, stars, galaxies, the infinite potential of the universe, calling to us, begging us to grow and master it. The deafening silence that is our unknown future smiles upon us in the form of a billion twinkling stars.

These worlds are within our reach, but only if we accept the challenge and focus our efforts on acquiring real knowledge. For those of you taking this path as your own, I'll see you next time, no matter what the next chapter is for you.