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perhaps not everything is lost for astrology

Aquila said:
Personally, I am glad that skeptics keep astrology on its toes, so to speak, and not let the subject become another faith based belief like religion. If the astrological theory about the Precession of the Equinoxes is correct, and we really are heading into the Age Of Aquarius in a few hundred years, then astrological symbolism (drawn from occult disciplines like kaballah) suggests that the subject will be proven scientifically. Aquarius is co-ruled by Uranus and Saturn, Uranus symbolizing, among other things, astrology, and Saturn symbolizing science and the physical world.

All the best,
Aquila
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Didn't we already do that? It was back in the sixties. There was a song about it and everything.
 
ChristineR said:
These tests are similar to ones designed by Randi, but their only purpose to test whether or not astrology is useful at all. ... no one to my knowledge has ever gotten beyond the first step, .... If you are interested in astrology and think you can figure out why it doesn't work most of the time, by all means do so. ....
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I think the Randi type tests don't work because they are asking the astrologer to look at too many variables. With 10 planets and 12 signs there are 120 combinations, and that's not even looking at what degree a planet is in the sign. There are 30 degrees in each sign so that makes 3600 combinations. And there are 12 houses, so that makes ...well, a lot of different types of birthchart, and that is just for a birth chart without a birth time. Then we have to look at the angles that the planets make to themselves, and the patterns they make (bucket, train, splash to name a few). There are as many different birth charts as people on the planet; each one has our own individuality stamped on it. An astrologer's skill would lie in the ability to sythesize all this information, comparing it to cases he had studied before and then make an "educated guess".

Some astrologers do have "hits", but most don't. I remember the one and only time that I predicted* something was was when I said that Brad and Jenn would get back together! But my failure does't make me think that astrology has no value. It just showed me that this is not the way to conduct research.

*In a previous post I said that astrology cannot predict the future, at least human behavior in the future, (because everyone has free will), but this doesn't stop astrologers from sometimes trying, if it is harmless and about celebrities.

The correct way to do research is to test each variable at a time.For example, look at 100 birthcharts with Mars in the 1st house and try to correlate that with a definite personality (1st house) trait. The first part is easy - computer software will sort through thousands of charts in seconds to dig out the ones with Mars in first house, but the second bit is tricky, because it's psychological, and as we discussed before, much of psychology is subjective. In this case - the first house, Mars is supposed to indicate Martian, ie. strong, poweful traits in the physical body, but suppose Mars had an opposition to Saturn, or a square to Neptune? That would temper that supposition. This is why computer horoscope reports are sometimes not very accurate, because only a real person can synthesize all the aspects, or try to.

So, as you can see, research is very difficult, and not very glamorous. There are people doing this research and you can see some of it online or in papers.

By the way, your experiment, ChristineR, with the birth charts all from the same month is actually quite a good idea, as it would demonstrate the differences correlated with different Moon positions and different ascendants and houses, and the different angles made between the planets themselves, and to the ascendant. But, as explained above, it would still be a very difficult test. Another thing to point out is that people born in different hemispheres, for example England and Australia, in the same month, will have the same zodiac Sun sign but completely different environmental conditions; for example, December is summer down under.

Since I am back in this thread, at least for a while, I want to take the opportunity to respond to Garette's last post asking why I didn't respond to the list of statements that I had made in this thread, which were:

It isn't scientific
It has not been shown to be better than would be predicted by chance
It doesn't predict anything
It does predict things
It postdicts things
It's for entertainment only
It gives advice
It has, at best, superficial correlation--recognized only in hindsight--as its evidence for validity

Well, admittedly this seems confusing. But these quotes are all taken out of context. If you go back and read the whole posts where these quotes come from (and quite frankly I've forgotten which ones they were), they will hopefully make sense in the context of the whole post. I also did not respond to your post about medicine, Garette, as it was getting a bit off topic, and there are lots of other threads on this forum which are covering drugs and medicine.
 
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As usual, the woo-woo chicken out of getting tested. I knew this would finish like this.

Next to come and say he has definite proof that X works (X being one paranormal/woo stuff) I make this prediction : no matter his astrological sign, ascendancy, birthday and what not, he/she will chicken out or waddle around until everybody lose interest or simply stop coming to the forum.

Too bad I don't qualify for the million buck challenge, because I think I would get a 90% hit rate in my prediction, +/- 10%.
 
Well, that's kind of the opposite of what you said before--that an astrologer can't be expected to tell the difference among people with the same sign. But in theory there is no reason why a test can be done where the testers (JREF) finds people that have a whole bunch of different things in common.

A scientist who was doing what you suggest would likely look at thousands of people and variables and use mathematical techniques to subtract off effects that correlate with different astrological events. Unfortunately, you can always find such correlations if you keep looking. You have to postulate the connections in advance and compare the data based only on what you expect in advance.

As a crude way of seeing this, let us say that odds of all people with (X) in their chart have property (Y) by chance alone in 1 in 1000. That's pretty definitive. But if I just keep choosing new (Y) to test, eventually I will get one that matches. And of course you can play the same game with (X).
 
Aquila said:
I think the Randi type tests don't work because they are asking the astrologer to look at too many variables. (...) An astrologer's skill would lie in the ability to sythesize all this information, comparing it to cases he had studied before and then make an "educated guess".
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That's exactly what the Randi test is best at. It doesn't ask the astrologer to explain exactly which planet/house/comet generates each statement --- it asks simply whether Person A's birth-chart reading actually describes Person A. Isn't that the point?

So, as you can see, research is very difficult, and not very glamorous. There are people doing this research and you can see some of it online or in papers.
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The link you provided earlier suggested that all single-variable research had failed ... are you planning to take these failures into account in your own astrology thinking? You haven't exactly shied from single-variable statements, nor did Proluna8 ("Uranus in Pisces means trouble with the sea" and such)
 
Hokulele said:
If astrology does not predict the future, what does it do?
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Hopefully, this article:

http://astro-gastro.angelfire.com/docs/scienceartbelieflang.html

will answer your question, and tie up some other lose ends raised by other posters. To many, astrology, at least the spiritual and psychological side of it, serve as a philosophy, psychology, art and language, and I personally am not concerned if it cannot be proven scientifically. This does not mean that I cannot think critically.

I support skepticism because it will help weed out the beliefs in society that actually do harm, like the controlling side of exoteric religion, but in my opinion, a true understanding of what astrology is, and is not, will be good for society.

You guys have had a good innings trying to beat the hell out of astrology, so if you don't mind I would like to vent a little about atheism. I know that you are all not neccessarily atheists, but this applies to anyone who is unwilling to look beyond the world of pure science. I've been reading through some of the posts on this forum, and sometims I think that people who chose atheism just need a holiday. Atheism is a clean, clear breath of fresh air from the tangled mess of religion, psychics and woo, but in the end it seems like escapism. Atheism to me just seems like laziness; it escapes the responsibility of tryng to reconcile science with the mystical, the subjective, the emotional, the artistic.

Astrology, at least the spiritual side of it, sometimes associated with kaballah, is a discipline which (to me) tries to do this.

Below is a link to an article about the excavated synaogogue at Hammat Tiberias. In it you can see a picture of the zodiac drawn on tiles. Spiritual astrology is also a big part of esoteric/mystical Christianity, if we can dig down to it behind all the fundamentalist dogma. Spiritual astrology has been a part of peoples' belief system for thousands of years, and I believe that it will continue to be, when we realize exactly what it is and is not.

http://www.netours.com/jrs/2003/Hammat-Tib.htm

Cheers,
A
 
Aquila said:
You guys have had a good innings trying to beat the hell out of astrology, so if you don't mind I would like to vent a little about atheism. I know that you are all not neccessarily atheists, but this applies to anyone who is unwilling to look beyond the world of pure science. I've been reading through some of the posts on this forum, and sometims I think that people who chose atheism just need a holiday. Atheism is a clean, clear breath of fresh air from the tangled mess of religion, psychics and woo, but in the end it seems like escapism. Atheism to me just seems like laziness; it escapes the responsibility of tryng to reconcile science with the mystical, the subjective, the emotional, the artistic.
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I think you make a few false assumptions here: that skeptics can't be spiritual, that artists must be mystical, and so on. Essentially, what you're saying is that skeptics and scientists are too much yin and not enough yang.

Thankfully, as a skeptic I can reject the concept of dual minds. I love art, I study history, and I have been a musician and an artist. BUT, if a painter claimed that the position of the planets affected the color of her paints, I'd have to call that woo, not art.
 
Aquila said:
No, at least not at this point in time.
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Your response here Aquila shows the issue.

You are not willing to look at the big picture, and try to see the situation from a non biased perspective.

With everything there is the possibility that it is correct, and there is the possibility that it is incorrect. Only once we accept that there is a possibility of us being wrong, we can then look at evidence, and come to a conclusion that is meaningful. Because without accepting the possibility of being wrong, the conclusions made will always be from a flawed biased perspective.

The problem is Aquila, that you WANT astrology to be valid, because you have things invested in it, and you need the validation. You have things like; Time, emotion, effort invested in astrology, and therefore you desperately want it to be valid or else you will have to admit to yourself that you have made mistakes, and this will take a toll on you emotionally.
The reason this is a problem is because it is causing you to be biased, and blinded from the fact that astrology has no evidence, and does not make sense logically.
Only once you accept that there is a possibility that astrology is rubbish, and look at the evidence from a completely non biased perspective, will you then be able to reach the correct conclusion.
The hardest part in this process is swallowing your pride, and addressing the fear that you may have been wrong all of this time.

Remember, just because you want something to be true, does not make it so.
The truth will always exist, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
 
Aquila said:
Atheism to me just seems like laziness; it escapes the responsibility of tryng to reconcile science with the mystical, the subjective, the emotional, the artistic.

Astrology, at least the spiritual side of it, sometimes associated with kaballah, is a discipline which (to me) tries to do this.
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I'm not sure what you think Atheism is, but why would you expect a disbelief in God to be involved in reconciling science with art? That's not to say that atheists don't get involved in that type of work, it's just not a defining characteristic of atheism.

In terms of science addressing the mystical, the subjective, the emotional and artistic, what makes you think this kind of thing doesn't go on? Moreover, if you approach it from the scientific side, you're more likely to start from a position of observation, then theory. To me, trying this from an astrology point of view, you start with the astrological truth, then try to find out how to shoehorn it into what's observed. Which is why nothing useful comes out of it.
 
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Aquila,

I too think you should be commended for being so polite in this thread. And you have shown remarkable courage for continuing to discuss this issue when it is very obvious that you do have so much of a personal investment in astrology.

You stated that you simply don't care if astrology is based in science or fact, that you believe it and value it for other reasons maybe having more to do with "the mystical, the subjective, the emotional, the artistic..."

Since that is the case, you are similar to many religious people and other believers of various sorts here at the JREF and have chosen consciously to have faith in something without evidence, or with the type of evidence that is generally not considered valid in the scientific community. If that is your choice, so be it. Who can argue with pure faith? (Well, we all do, but really, there is no argument that can ever dispel pure faith, no matter how logical, rational or passionate.)

My daughter believes in Santa. I'm not keen on keeping up the fantasy of Santa, so I never lie to her about it and I hardly ever talk about Santa with her. I don't need to. The peer connection (few churches are as full of faith and belief as a first grade class is about Santa Claus...) and her goofy but well meaning other relatives are more than enough to keep the dream alive. She believes unreservedly.

We were watching a movie the other night and a character in the film said, "Yeah, just like when I used to believe there actually WAS a Santa Claus..." I didn't say anything, I just watched her face. I was mildly afraid of a big cognitive dissonance episode, or her angry accusations that I had let her believe in something fake when I always promised her I would tell her the truth about everything...

Instead, she didn't even look at me and said, "Santa always makes grown ups believe that there's no Santa."

One day, she'll be ready to let it go. Until then, she'll believe and she will twist the facts and information she gets to fit her belief system. I do not rush that inevitable awakening along, nor do I participate in dispelling her fantasy. Neither do I participate or encourage the fantasy. One would be unfair and the other would be rude. I just know that it will happen one day and she'll ask me the question and I'll answer her truthfully and then hopefully, we can go for a walk to the lake and watch a movie and everything will be okay. Until the Tooth Fairy. And then the Easter Bunny.

She believes still because she HAS to believe. It hurts too much not to believe. One day it will hurt more for her to believe in something her head tells her is false. And then she will choose not to believe.

I believed in Santa when I was a kid, Aquila. And when I knew there wasn't a Santa I still pretended for a while because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. The performances I gave! The letters I wrote! The songs I sang! And that, my friend, was NOTHING compared to the game I threw when I was trying to be a good Baptist when in my head I knew it was all baloney.

There is no one more creative and imaginative than a skeptic trying to act as if they believe something when they do not.

So, as to your point about skeptics reconciling the creative side of life with the scientific and rational... I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Also, have you seen the Meme Thread? Anytime you think we lack imagination, talent, insight and creativity, take a look at what we can do. (Ignore my rap song... really...that's, ah, not really a good example of anything...)

I think that you already know that calling the JREF full of uninspired, non-creative, non-imaginative people is false but that you said it because you felt attacked and threatened. Please know that I'm sure no one is attacking you, just the belief that you hold regarding the Sun and Stars and all that stuff. Since you are on this board, and you have chosen to engage in a discussion, maybe what's happening is the start of a process for you. And when and if it hurts you more to continue to believe than to stop believing in something that I think a big part of you knows is bunk, you will stop believing.

And you'll still be the same person, with all your creativity, imagination and insight firmly in tact.

Take care,

FSM
 
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schlitt said:
Your response here Aquila shows the issue.

You are not willing to look at the big picture, and try to see the situation from a non biased perspective.

With everything there is the possibility that it is correct, and there is the possibility that it is incorrect. Only once we accept that there is a possibility of us being wrong, we can then look at evidence, and come to a conclusion that is meaningful. Because without accepting the possibility of being wrong, the conclusions made will always be from a flawed biased perspective.

The problem is Aquila, that you WANT astrology to be valid, because you have things invested in it, and you need the validation. You have things like; Time, emotion, effort invested in astrology, and therefore you desperately want it to be valid or else you will have to admit to yourself that you have made mistakes, and this will take a toll on you emotionally.
The reason this is a problem is because it is causing you to be biased, and blinded from the fact that astrology has no evidence, and does not make sense logically.
Only once you accept that there is a possibility that astrology is rubbish, and look at the evidence from a completely non biased perspective, will you then be able to reach the correct conclusion.
The hardest part in this process is swallowing your pride, and addressing the fear that you may have been wrong all of this time.

Remember, just because you want something to be true, does not make it so.
The truth will always exist, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
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Well said schlitt.
If we remove the phrase "...the fact that astrology has no evidence, and does not make sense logically" and substitute the word "astrology" for "a purely materialistic worldview", I hope that it applies to you too.

Skeptics need objective evidence. But maybe you are never going to get it. The only way of explaining the philososphy of astrology is to use one's imagination and picture a world bigger than the material level of existence. I will try to explain this larger view in the next few posts.
 
sthomson said:
I think you make a few false assumptions here: that skeptics can't be spiritual, that artists must be mystical, and so on. Essentially, what you're saying is that skeptics and scientists are too much yin and not enough yang.
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If any of you thought I was implying that skeptics and scientists were unspiritual or uncreative, or unimaginative or unartistic, then I am sorry. I certainly do not believe that. I know for a fact that all the great scientists, for example Newton, Jenner, Salk, Einstein, were initially inspired by experiences that did not involve the scientific method.

sthomson said:
... BUT, if a painter claimed that the position of the planets affected the color of her paints, I'd have to call that woo, not art.
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Actually, according to kaballistic philosophy, the position of the planets does affect the color of her paints!

The artist would not know this consciously, because her self-conscious mind - the Yang, or "male" principle thinks that it is separate from the totality of consciousness (the "One" or "All"). This is what science does - it looks at the objective evidence of the physical world and thinks that's all there is to life. But the Ying, or "female" principle is subconscious, and receptive to the totality of consciousness, which is of course much larger than the material level and includes the influence of the the light emanating from stars and planets.

What the artist is doing when she choses colors for her painting, is using intuition, which is really a combination of self-consciousness and sub-consciousness. The self-conscious mind is filtering and controlling the subconscious influences. It is only when we omit the self-conscious "censoring" of these sub-conscious influences that the yin or famale side of consciousness becomes unbalanced, as in psychism and mental illness.

If you will bear with me, I will try to explain this using the kabalistic map of consciousness known as the Tree of Life in further posts.
 
FSM, Please read my reply to schlitt, as I think it also addresses your post.
 
Elizabeth I said:
Didn't we already do that? (Age of Aquarius)
It was back in the sixties. There was a song about it and everything.
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In the 1960s there was a conjuction of the planets Uranus (which is one of the rulers of Aquarius) and Pluto, the co-ruler of Scorpio, both in the Tropical sign of Virgo. The conjunction was exact in 1966 but these planets were "in orb" from about 1963. The conjunction was also modified during some of those years by being opposite Saturn and the asteroid/cometoid Chiron, both in Pisces.

Some of the most striking (non -scientific) correlations of that era were revolution (Uranus) in sexuality (Pluto), and in the way we make the world run, through work (Virgo). The children of the 60s changed and continue to change the world though technology. They are also bringing about a new way of looking at health, also ruled by Virgo.

The actual Age of Aquarius won't be officially here until sunrise on the Spring Equinox, round about March 21 every year, has the constellation of Aquarius behind it. Thie position of this equinox moves backward though the zodiac at the rate of one sign about every 2500 years, so that when Jesus was born it was just entering the end of Pisces. Right now it is at about 4 degees Pisces.
 
Since we seem to be talking about astrology again, it's odd how that sexual revolution only applied to a relatively few number of people in a limited geographic sense. One would think that such a major conjunction would have a larger global effect. "Non-scientific correlation" indeed.
 
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