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An astrologer's defense of astrology

Paradox74 said:
http://www.bobmarksastrologer.com/skeptics.htm
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hm, he correctly identifies where the onus of proof lies, and then goes to great length to ignore that question.

This guy has a good reason for supporting his practice. He has personal readings that go from $125 to $195 each:
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Yes, that would be a good reason to support his practice. That doesn't make it true though.

http://www.bobmarksastrologer.com/readings.html
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Are you in any way related to this person?
 
Gawdzilla said:
I was born within 20 miles of, on the same month-day-year, as Rush Limbaugh. That proves astrology is ********.
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That's why they started taking things down to the hour and eventually the exact second. My BS meter tends to go off when people have to keep changing the rules to continue to make it true.

Admittedly this tends to cause my BS meter to go off around string theory and a few other odd science concepts but at least string theorists aren't telling me to change my life based on their theories.
 
While I agree that many of the objections to astrology that were posted in that blog were silly, I note that Mr. Marks never actually addresses the fundamental question, what is the evidence that astrology works? His "lessons" all assume that there is something there to learn. As for his charge that skeptics do not understand astrology, I call BS. There are many people who have studied astrology and have come to the conclusion that it is a load of bunk.

Probably the best website in terms of balancing the pro and con astrology arguments is this one:

http://www.astrology-and-science.com/hpage.htm

It is a bit out of date, but it does at least attempt to address astrology scientifically and try to find a use for it. Mind you, I disagree with quite a number of the conclusions reached there, but at least the authors do a decent job of presenting their cases.
 
Since he obviously knows what a strawman argument is I'm guessing he knows this is all nonsense and has only put it up there to fool the gullible and keep the money coming in.
 
Weak Kitten said:
That's why they started taking things down to the hour and eventually the exact second. My BS meter tends to go off when people have to keep changing the rules to continue to make it true.

Admittedly this tends to cause my BS meter to go off around string theory and a few other odd science concepts but at least string theorists aren't telling me to change my life based on their theories.
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I'll have to ask Mr. Limbbaw what time of day he was born.
 
Weak Kitten said:
Admittedly this tends to cause my BS meter to go off around string theory and a few other odd science concepts but at least string theorists aren't telling me to change my life based on their theories.
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I'm not sure that anyone is saying that string theory is 'true' as such. More that this is how we understand it at the moment. With an option to modify as we learn more. Astrology on the other hand invites us to shut our minds down to actually discovering more in favour of accepting ambiguous information based upon the arbitrary placement of some planets at the arbitrary time of our birth. :)
 
For all the flagging of fallacies Mr. Marks did in that article, the entire thing is one long "no true astrologer" fallacy from beginning to end.
 
Stray Cat said:
I just thank my lucky stars I don't believe any of that bunkum.
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Several times, when a relative or a friend mentions astrology or asks for my sign, I have said: ''My sign is aquarius, we aquarians don't believe in astrology.'' No one ever gets the joke. The irony flies over their heads.
 
My star sign is Sol, by studying it it can even tell me when to wake up and when to go to sleep.
 
When asked my sign, I just tell the truth: Ophiuchus. That usually causes blank stares. A perfect intro for explaining why astrology makes no sense, too.
 
according to a colleague who believes in this stuff, I'm a triple Aquarius.

Apparently this is not a good thing and whilst I have trouble grokking exactly how this not goodness manifests, I'm now regarded as being the human equivalent of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle tied together with Silly String all wrapped in a frog.

Naturally, this gives me considerable latitude to say stupid things without having to justify them....
 
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