The astrology article

[Norman Castle]

Phil, about your astrology article.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/astrology.html

A few points to make about this. I think the arguments you make are pretty weak, and are unlikely to change the minds of anyone who actually believes.

Carl Sagan once refused to sign a statement called "objections to astrology." He sets out his reasons in The Demon Haunted World ch 17. I suppose that he would find your essay equally objectionable, because you use some of the same arguments.

In Sagan's words "The statement stressed that we can think of no mechanism by which astrology can work. This is certainly a relevant point, but by itself is unconvincing." And he then goes on to explain why it's a weak argument. You use the same argument, so Sagan's opinions apply to your essay too. I'm sure you have a copy, you should check it out. Sagan's own arguments against astrology are rather stronger than yours, IMHO.

The other thing wrong with the essay is that you make the error of invoking James Randi. This is always a bad idea. People who do so always shoot themselves in the foot.

You say the following:

My friend and master skeptic James Randi performs a wonderful demo of how easily people are fooled by astrology. He went into a classroom, posing as an astrologer, and cast horoscopes for all the students. He had them read and rate the accuracy, and they almost overwhelmingly rated the horoscopes as accurate. The kicker? He had them pass around the horoscopes, and the students saw that every horoscope was exactly the same. It was worded vaguely enough that nearly everyone in the room thought they were being well-described.

I've seen a film of the demonstration on YouTube. I'm sorry to tell you this, but it didn't happen the way you describe it. The children were asked to score their horoscopes out of five. About one third of them gave a four or five. The rest gave it three or less. The certainly did not "overwhelmingly [rate] the horoscopes as accurate." Not by a long chalk. I've seen him do this stunt twice, and the second time was even worse, with only one single person thinking that the profile was accurate.

Randi is an awful magician. He keeps on messing up the tricks. People tend to notice this. His stunts only ever make the astrologers and psychics look good, next to him. That is why you should not cite hi9m in your essay. Other magicians have done the same stunt with much better results. You could cite Derren Brown's performance instead. He did it right.

You describe Randi as your friend. I think you probably won't like hearing this, but it's true nonetheless.

[hhEb09'1]

Sagan's own arguments against astrology are rather stronger than yours, IMHO.

Go ahead and describe Sagan's arguments!

Welcome to BAUT.

You could cite Derren Brown's performance instead. He did it right.

So, it has been done "successfully" by someone else? Good enough, then.

Probably, also, Randi has done it more than twice also, it's possible the time that the BA described was different from the two you've seen.

[Norman Castle]

Go ahead and describe Sagan's arguments!

It's a long paragraph which I'm not going to type out right now.

Welcome to BAUT.
So, it has been done "successfully" by someone else? Good enough, then.

Yeah, I'm not knocking the basic argument, it's just that Randi's attempt to demonstrate it was pretty poor.

Probably, also, Randi has done it more than twice also, it's possible the time that the BA described was different from the two you've seen.

That is a possibility. However, I've seen him attempt to perform other tricks such spoon bending, and it's usually pretty bad.

[HenrikOlsen]

If you look through the old threads you'll find we actually did a test of astrology on the old board.
The result convinced the previous believer that he couldn't actually make horoscopes which described the subject.

[Norman Castle]

If you look through the old threads you'll find we actually did a test of astrology on the old board.
The result convinced the previous believer that he couldn't actually make horoscopes which described the subject.

Well done for doing that. But the arguments in the article as written are unlikely to have a similar result.

[hhEb09'1]

It's a long paragraph which I'm not going to type out right now.

I didn't mean to copy the passage from Sagan. If it's that long, we probably wouldn't have allowed it anyway. I just meant, the gist of the argument.

But the arguments in the article as written are unlikely to have a similar result.

It's also not likely that the article will be changed. Not only has the BA gone on to bigger and better things, he also has prided himself on keeping his old mistakes around, warts and all, sometimes accompanied by retractions or explanations.

That said, I'm still not certain which ones you see as shortcomings, relative to Sagan's. I'll have to dig up a copy of Sagan's book.

[gzhpcu]

If you look through the old threads you'll find we actually did a test of astrology on the old board.
The result convinced the previous believer that he couldn't actually make horoscopes which described the subject.

Right. That was me. The error was that the birth horoscope delivers a large number of statements (since there are so many parameters - planets, aspects, houses, signs, etc.), and that one only concentrates on those statements which are accurate, suppressing all those statements which are inaccurate. Somewhat like readings by mediums, etc.

[Norman Castle]

I didn't mean to copy the passage from Sagan. If it's that long, we probably wouldn't have allowed it anyway. I just meant, the gist of the argument.

He lists a number of different objections, with only a few words for each. The paragraph ise like the gist of a long essay, and I don't think I could summarize it any briefer than Sagan already did.

[01101001]

With little detail:
a) rejection of precession of the equinoxes
b) neglect of atmospheric refraction
c) mainly limited to naked eye objects not newly discovered
d) requirements for detailed information on the time as compared to the latitude and longitude of birth
e) the identical twin test
f) different horoscopes cast from the same birth information by different astrologers
g) non-correlation between horoscopes and respected psychological tests

[hhEb09'1]

With little detail:

Are these the ones from Sagan's book?

a) rejection of precession of the equinoxes

That one has always been a little weird. I haven't figured it out yet...the reason for the precession (calendar-wise) is we have legislated a calendar twenty minutes shorter than the time it takes the earth to go around the sun.

[Celestial Mechanic]

With little detail:
a) rejection of precession of the equinoxes {Snip!}

Some astrological traditions (European mainly) do accept precession but most other traditions (Indian and Chinese) reject it.

My main argument against astrology has been the lack of a paper trail. For example, someone writes "Mercury in trine with Jupiter in a water sign means blah-blah-blah", but nowhere is there any reference to who wrote that first and how they found about Mercury in trine with Jupiter in a water sign, et cetera.

[gzhpcu]

My main argument against astrology has been the lack of a paper trail. For example, someone writes "Mercury in trine with Jupiter in a water sign means blah-blah-blah", but nowhere is there any reference to who wrote that first and how they found about Mercury in trine with Jupiter in a water sign, et cetera.

Basically, it is an interpretation of symbols. For example, the planet Mercury is equated to intellectual thinking, the planet Jupiter is equated to expansion, optimism and learning, water signs are equated to emotionality. The trine aspect is harmonious, so that mercury trine Jupiter in a water sign, means "thinks emotionally, with optimism and an urge towards learning".

[HenrikOlsen]

But how was it determined that Mercury is equated with thinking?

The same way that Aristotle determined that spiders have 6 legs?

[01101001]

Are these the ones from Sagan's book?

Yes.

You might find Demon Haunted World whole on the web -- probably not with the consent of the publisher. My browser didn't care much for 2 of the PDFs I found yesterday, so I won't be revisiting.

You can Google
"modest manifesto" "objections to astrology"

You might be able to get look inside the source with an Amazon login.

I didn't mean to be arguing the points or adding more detail. I provided them as a quick summary refresher for part of the argument that they're some kind of slam-dunk.

[gzhpcu]

But how was it determined that Mercury is equated with thinking?

The same way that Aristotle determined that spiders have 6 legs?

Adtually, probably Greek mythology: Mercury - the winged messenger. Information bearer - ergo thinking. Mars is the god of war, ergo in astrology how a person asserts himself. Venus the goddess of love, ergo how a person expresses affection, etc.

[Norman Castle]

But why did they associate which planet with which god? And that's a thing I've always wondered about. When the Romans saw the dot of light moving relative to the other dots, did they think those dots actually were the gods, or what?

[HenrikOlsen]

So basically someone made it up, someone else wrote it down and a couple of millennia later it's the distilled wisdom of the ancients.

[gzhpcu]

But why did they associate which planet with which god? And that's a thing I've always wondered about. When the Romans saw the dot of light moving relative to the other dots, did they think those dots actually were the gods, or what?

At the time of Homer, however, most of the constellations were not associated with any particular myth, hero, or god. They were instead known simply as the objects or animals which they represented--the Lyre, for instance, or the Ram. By the 5th century B.C., however, most of the constellations had come to be associated with myths, and the Catasterismi of Eratosthenes completed the mythologization of the stars. "At this stage, the fusion between astronomy and mythology is so complete that no further distinction is made between them"--the stars were no longer merely identified with certain gods or heroes, but actually were perceived as divine (Seznec, 37-40).

source: http://comfychair.org/~cmbell/myth/myth.html

[Gillianren]

But why did they associate which planet with which god? And that's a thing I've always wondered about. When the Romans saw the dot of light moving relative to the other dots, did they think those dots actually were the gods, or what?

Isaac Asimov talks about it some in Words From the Myths, though I don't know his sources. Mars, for example, is red, as befits a God of War. Venus is considered quite beautiful, as befits a Goddess of Love. Mercury moves across the sky fastest. And so forth.

[gzhpcu]

Here is an excellent article "Concept of Modern Astrology - a Critique", which wraps things up quite nicely. It really goes indepth, for those interested, and shows how unsystematic astrology is, and how evidence against astrology is brushed away by astrologers, by simply stating that astrology is extremely complex and certain factors were not taken into consideration.

http://www.astrosurf.com/nitschelm/Modern_criticism.pdf

[Swift]

The post by TaoZero5 and the responses to it have been moved to this thread