Astrology - Are you a believer?

[Night]

There has been little serious scientific attempt to validate or invalidate astrology because it does not fit the belief systems of most of those who practice and fund science, I suspect.

No. There is little scientific interest in astrology because it is a non-science.

Here. You even answer your own question earlier in your analysis.

If a genuine correlation can be established, with a degree of statistical association between aspects significantly higher than would occur by chance, astrology has the potential to be a useful psychological tool, if not a scientifically falsifiable one.

Fair enough?

We're still far from having an adequate explanation for the mechanism behind counter-intuitive scientific principle of quantum uncertainty, for example, but since the phenomenon has been experimentally verified, we accept its existence.

I see this a lot with New Agers (not necessarily you, ragashree), in that they try to make a fuzzy connection between legitimate theory - like quantum uncertainty - and the validity of their pet theory on the basis that quantum uncertainty is not very well understood at this point, much like their theory fails to be understood.

What hard data can you offer that connects quantum uncertainty with astrology?

Developing a bridge between psychometrics and quantum mechanics sounds more like misdirection away from the faults of astrology and onto an ideal that suggests somehow that astrology and quantum principle share a commonality because they are individually difficult to understand (for profoundly different reasons, of course).

I don't see any real validity with the comparison beyond distorted rhetoric.

If we were to try to do so the best method would probably be to determine an set of psychological tests to examine a large number of people for particular traits, then correlate the results with their birth charts and the corresponding astrological predictions. This is a formidable task due to the number of variables involved, but I'm sure it could be done if someone ever had the will and funding. At the moment the debate is mostly going round in circles, anecdote squaring off against easy fallacy, and I don't see it ending any time soon.

Sounds like you have a good working methodology to prove your particular belief.

And, no - the debate isn't "going around in circles". Astrology is entertainment. The only real debate is whether or not you individually find it entertaining.

Indeed. I suspect this is all too often because it doesn't fit their belief system, which is often at heart a mechanistic one. Arguments against it in this case are almost inevitably straw men, serving more to validate the non-believer's lack of belief than to change the opinion of those who do believe.

The onus is on you. Providing negative evidence (as in "your belief system is skewed because you adhere to x philosophy") doesn't provide positive data proving your theory.

 

[phoenix13]

My question is this: Is the planet-personality connection based on interplanetary magnetic fields? ...and, if I held a magnet to a baby's head as they came out or while they were in the womb, would that make the whole thing obsolete?

 

[erm]

I generally agree with your points Ragashree, it is all about the correlation. I'd add that a valid study of the correlation Astrology claims would have to include full natal chart analysis, and a third party checking the correlation.

As far as I know, any studies so far have relied on self-reporting. MBTI and even psychologically validated theories fail self-reporting studies, as people are very biased about themselves and fall for the Forer's effect easily.

I see this a lot with New Agers (not necessarily you, ragashree), in that they try to make a fuzzy connection between legitimate theory - like quantum uncertainty - and the validity of their pet theory on the basis that quantum uncertainty is not very well understood at this point, much like their theory fails to be understood.

I think I know what point those people are normally trying to get across.

It's the point that our current world-views often fail to match reality, and that certain theories have shown this on a very deep level. The Quantum theories are most famous for this at the moment, and demonstrate the very large and fundamental lack of understanding human's have of the world we exist in. I don't think it's a very hard point to get across, it's just that Quantum mechanics is the current celebrity to demonstrate it with. (Gravity's discovery had a similar effect, for example)

It fails to be a good point in this context though. As it doesn't place anything in Astrology's favour. It just slightly undermines all theories that aren't solely based on a priori evidence. It would undermine Astrology too, if it had empirical evidence to begin with.

In Ragashree's case, I accept it as a proof that how the correlation is explained isn't an important issue, as we don't understand nearly enough to debate it. It's whether or not the correlation is there in the first place that we might be able to prove.

 

[Night]

I think I know what point those people are normally trying to get across.

It's the point that our current world-views often fail to match reality, and that certain theories have shown this on a very deep level. The Quantum theories are most famous for this at the moment, and demonstrate the very large and fundamental lack of understanding human's have of the world we exist in. I don't think it's a very hard point to get across, it's just that Quantum mechanics is the current celebrity to demonstrate it with. (Gravity had a similar effect, for example)

No, it's clear what they're doing.

Look, it's easy to "borrow" credibility for the purpose of advancing an unsubstantiated theory, like astrology. The association remains unfair to the casual observer who might really believe that there is some actual validity linking the theories together, beyond stilted rhetorical strategy.

 

[erm]

No, it's clear what they're doing.

Look, it's easy to "borrow" credibility for the purpose of advancing an unsubstantiated theory, like astrology. The association remains unfair to the casual observer who might really believe that there is some actual validity linking the theories together, beyond stilted rhetorical strategy.

Why then, would they be linking Quantum theories to Astrology?

I remain reasonably certain they aren't claiming one is responsible for the other. It would be a simple enough claim to make, and yet Ragashree or others don't seem to make it.

Granted, it's deceptive to the casual observer. That's not in doubt.

 

[Mole]

No, it's clear what they're doing.

Look, it's easy to "borrow" credibility for the purpose of advancing an unsubstantiated theory, like astrology. The association remains unfair to the casual observer who might really believe that there is some actual validity linking the theories together, beyond stilted rhetorical strategy.

Sure, astrology is a confidence trick. And the confidence tricksters borrow a bogus authority to suspend disbelief in the victim.

And when disbelief is suspended the confidence trickster can make suggestions which will be received without criticism.

And just watch - what the confidence tricksters most hate is criticism.

And they hate criticism most of all because criticism wakes us up from the trance of suspended disbelief.

 

[Night]

Why then, would they be linking Quantum theories to Astrology?

I remain reasonably certain they aren't claiming one is responsible for the other. It would be a simple enough claim to make, and yet Ragashree or others don't seem to make it.

Granted, it's deceptive to the casual observer. That's not in doubt.

As I stated, it's likely due to the fact that they're trying to "borrow" credibility from the reliable, scientifically-defensible theory and project it onto, in this case, astrology - a known pseudoscience.

In doing so, they obfuscate validity and try to blur the distinction between scientific uncertainty and unverifiable superstition. At best, this is disingenuous.

I don't think I've offered the argument that they're suggesting one is "responsible" for the other - only that they've posited a theoretical link, to which I've offered a challenge for them to explain their reasoning.

 

[Tigerlily]

i voted no. i think it's silly.

 

[Forever_Jung]

i voted no. i think it's silly.

This. I am surprised that this discussion has evolved past 'no, it's silly' and 'yes, but I know it's silly'. It infuriates me when people say Astrology is as useful as other personality systems.

People keep explaining what astrology is, but the only rationale I am hearing of why it works is something to the effect of: "Dude, there's more to this world than what we can see, therefore anything we believe in could be technically true. And if it could be true, doesn't that mean it IS true?"

I could make up several vague personality portraits, and say all brown haired people are type A, all red haired people are type B, etc. Then I could claim some greater force then we know of is at work here that we can't understand that is making this happen. Then I could say you can't disprove it because no one can understand it yet. Then every once in a while some brown haired person would read his type A description and happen to identify with it and conclude that the system is valid.

A good system doesn't tell you what you are regardless of what you are. If astrology was a clothing store it would tell you what clothes size you wear based on when you were born, and Myers-Briggs would have 16 sizes and ask you to try them on and see which fits. I don't care what the astrology salespeople tell me, if I am 300lbs I am not going to wear the size 1 speedos just because I was born in November. Every once in a while they would guess someone's size right, and it would seem amazing; But that doesn't make their system valid.

 

[Snuggletron]

no, because it's for silly gooses.

 

[figsfiggyfigs]

No, I'm not a believer at all. However, I think its a fascinating theory.

 

[Zarathustra]

outstanding post

Agreed.

You don't seem to have explained how different planetary positions actually affect our personalities. All you've established is that the planets are in different places when different people are born.

Through what physical mechanism do planetary positions have any influence whatsoever on personality?

No one said it was a physical mechanism.

Apparently you didn't read either of these:

Regardless, that's all very nice but what I want to know is how astrology explains the correlation between character traits and the movement of the planets. Is astrology a science?

As for the second part of your comment, I'm so glad you asked:
Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View - by Richard Tarnas

Download the real player audio file (second link) under "Interviews"

Listen to that.

And read this:

Tarnas' Introduction to Archetypal Astrology

I was curious as to how he'd explain the causal mechanism. His explanation avoids the assertion that cosmic alignment causes a direct impact on human nature, but that it's more accurate to say that cosmic alignment represents the current archetypal forces present in the universe [or local region, I suppose] at the time.

I think you've made an error in reasoning here when you say that the odds of this happening were 1 in 144.

Consider the design of astrology. There are distinct personality traits defined as characteristic of each astrological sign. These can be observed and categorized easily by anyone familiar with astrology. In this regard it's exactly like typology.

The problem comes with the assumption that each of the 12 categories always aligns with a particular set of birth dates/times. But 1 in 12 people, by random chance, will happen to be born at a date/time which aligns with the arbitrarily defined behavioral characteristics of his astrological sign. You are one of these people.

The fact that two different astrology enthusiasts both recognized personality traits in you that are defined as "Libra" doesn't mean anything special. There's still just a 1 in 12 chance that you're one of the people for whom those two pieces of data happen to align--and if you are one of those people, any number of successive astrology enthusiasts can and will predict your birth date correctly. If you interacted with 1,000 astrology enthusiasts, they'd probably all recognize Libra behavioral traits in you--there's no random chance involved in that. The only random chance is the fact that you happen to be one of the 1 in 12 "Libra personalities" who just so happened to be born on a "Libra date." (The other 11 of every 12 people those clothing store employees pull this shit on will not identify with their astrological predictions--go figure.)

Astrology is popular because of those 1 in 12 people. For them, it seems miraculous how consistently and accurately people who study astrology can guess their birth dates based on their behavior, but there's nothing miraculous about it. 1,000 astrology enthusiasts in a row might peg you for a Libra after interacting with you, but the odds of that are definitely not 12^1000 to 1. 1 in 12 people will get consistently correct readings over and over again; the other 11 will rarely/never identify with the reading (and this is not even taking into account confirmation bias.)

If all MBTI types occurred equally often, and we divided the calendar year into 16 pieces and assigned each type to one section of the year, 1 in 16 people would have a birthday aligning with his MBTI type. Let's say INTJs are associated with birth dates from October 1 to October 23.

If you happen to be an INTJ born between those dates, which 1 in 16 INTJs will be, then anyone who knows about MBTI types will be able to "discern" your birth date based on your behavior--this could happen again and again and again, but it wouldn't be any less probable than 1 in 16, because 1 in 16 INTJs will happen to have that birth date. You don't square the odds every time it happens, because anyone who knows MBTI types can tell that you exhibit INTJ (or Libra, as the case may be) traits.

Go find one of those clothing store employees and find out how often her guesses are actually accurate. I'll bet you a million dollars it's right around 1 in 12--but for those 1 in 12, she seems like a regular John Edward!

Not coincidentally, right about 1 in 12 people answered "yes" to this poll, and it's because they're the ones whose birth dates happened to align with the personality traits associated with their astrological sign--so 1 in 12 people will consistently find accurate descriptions of themselves. Their support for astrology invariably rests on personal anecdotal evidence, like your story up there. If you really want to establish any validity for astrological prediction of birth date/time vs. behavior, do a full study on a large number of people.

Guess what you'll find--it works for about 1 in 12.

I actually like this argument, cuz it presents the strongest possible counterargument to my anecdotal story.

But doesn't it assume that there's actually such a thing within these 1/12 individuals called a "Libra personality" (Or Ares, or whatever...).

Where does that come from if astrology isn't real?

 

[Zarathustra]

And here I am trapped like a rat in a search-light.

But it's true, I am mildly neurotic and I do act out here.

But remember we can't act out unless it is unconscious. So very slowly I am teasing out my unconscious here - I am slowly making my unconscious, conscious.

And I recognise this is disturbing for those whose unconscious remains unconscious. For their unconscious drives them without their knowing. And their unconscious is unconscious for very good reason - and here I am disturbing them.

No wonder they seek to ward me off by obsessive logic, by telling me I'm wrong, by accusing me of being a troll, by ad hominem attacks, and finally by threats of violence.

Yes, I have certainly struck a nerve. But thank heavens I have kept mine.

 

[Zarathustra]

Indeed. Astrology is just designed in such a way that ~1 in 12 people will happen to get disturbingly correct predictions from it, so it lingers on and on...

Once again, this is assuming that the astrological system has some kinda of ontological truth to it, at least in the sense that it defines 1/12 actual personalities in the world to which human beings' actual personalities can correspond...

Also, you seem rather unaware that the sun sign is actually a very small part of one's astrological profile...

 

[Zarathustra]

^ Also, I don't necessarily believe in astrology, and I didn't vote that way in this poll.

I just don't write things off that might as well stay open-ended.

 

[sculpting]

Is this a test thread to see if an INTJ believes in astrology, if we will all suddenly decide that we also believe in astrology? 47!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Fuzz-y-enfj-thingy you are behind this arent you??) I AM NOT FALLING for it. YOU WILL NOT TRICK ME THIS TIME.

Sun sign is scorpio and is pointless.

However sun sign Scorpio and moon sign taurus gave a description that kinda sounded like familiar....

 

[Zarathustra]

And apparently more like 1 in 7 people responded in the affirmative to the poll...

Of course, according to your theory, 1/12 might see their actual personality correspond to their supposed astrological personality, and perhaps another 5/84 are convinced by those 1/12 people to also believe in it.

Or perhaps the 5/84 are suffering from confirmation bias, and are wrongly reporting positive results.

Or perhaps it is both.

Or perhaps...

Or perhaps...

 

[simulatedworld]

Indeed. I suspect this is all too often because it doesn't fit their belief system, which is often at heart a mechanistic one. Arguments against it in this case are almost inevitably straw men, serving more to validate the non-believer's lack of belief than to change the opinion of those who do believe.

Don't forget the best reason: To mock people who believe in it for the entertainment of those who know it's garbage.

I actually like this argument, cuz it presents the strongest possible counterargument to my anecdotal story.

But doesn't it assume that there's actually such a thing within these 1/12 individuals called a "Libra personality" (Or Ares, or whatever...).

Where does that come from if astrology isn't real?

It comes from the same place typological categories come from: taking the set of all human behavior and dividing arbitrarily into categories.

You assume there's such a thing as a "Libra personality" exactly the same way you assume there's such a thing as an "INTJ personality." If you remove the part about correlation between birth date and personality, typology and astrology are identical.

It's not that astrology "isn't real"--each sign actually does have well-defined, observable personality traits associated with it, just like in typology. The only thing "not real" about it is the claim that people born on a Libra date will show Libra traits.

You just take all human behavior and chop it up into arbitrarily defined categories. I would have no problem with astrology as a classification system if it did not claim a falsifiable correlation between birth date and personality. As I said, aside from this claim, the two systems are functionally identical.

As for the sun sign being only a small part of the astrological chart, that doesn't really matter. No matter how you choose to slice up the categories, you're still making an incorrect claim that the positions of celestial bodies at the time of birth correlate with personality type. Typology makes no such falsifiable claim--psychological type cannot be tested empirically, but birth date can.

 

[Zarathustra]

I believe astrology exists, but I don't believe it has any predictive power. That seems to be what the thread is about, right?

If you listen to that interview I posted with Richard Tarnas, you'll see that he actually says it doesn't have predictive power, that astrology is better looked at as a clock, keeping the "time" of the multitude of archetypal impulses manifesting themselves in an extremely complex manner across the universe.

A clock doesn't predict what's going to happen in the future -- it merely keeps the time.

Admittedly, astrology is very unscientifically rigorous, as Jock pointed out, but Tarnas says exactly that in his book.

The best part of his book is really about this exact topic. About how our obsession with scientific proof has bred in us a tendency to not believe in anything that cannot be proven by the scientific method.

This is a problematic tendency, as there are many things in life which cannot be scientifically proven, but which are nonetheless true.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

 

[Zarathustra]

Don't forget the best reason: To mock people who believe in it for the entertainment of those who know believe it's garbage.

's advocate.