Reliable Horoscope charts?

Back in the 1970s (if I remember correctly) a group of Scots astrologers collected newspaper "horoscopes", kept diaries, and then compared them. The predictions fared no better than chance. But then that was what they expected, since sun-sign forecasts are not astrology in any real sense.

As for "pseudoscience", that would be a subject which pretended to be a science but wasn't. So, first one needs to define "science". If you use it in the most common modern sense, as short for "physical science", then astrology cannot be a pseudoscience since it doesn't claim to be a science in that sense. If you use it in the older sense, which it still has in French and other European languages, to mean a discipline with a verified body of discoveries and a method of making more, then astrology clearly is a science. For example, some years ago two groups of astrologers, one in Australia and one in the USA, studied unaspected planets in horoscopes. They worked without being aware of each other, but their published results were the same. In my experience those who dismiss astrology as a pseudoscience either don't know what astrology is, or don't know what science (of any sort) is, or both!

DavidMcCann said:

Back in the 1970s (if I remember correctly) a group of Scots astrologers collected newspaper "horoscopes", kept diaries, and then compared them. The predictions fared no better than chance. But then that was what they expected, since sun-sign forecasts are not astrology in any real sense.

Click to expand...

Yes, so true. And given that those horoscopes are very brief general statements, one would not really expect anything approaching real prediction. They are 'fun' at least as far as the publishers are concerned, a source of income as far as some Astrologers are concerned but also something that the general public takes semi seriously (or at least more seriously than they admit too).

DavidMcCann said:

As for "pseudoscience", that would be a subject which pretended to be a science but wasn't. So, first one needs to define "science". If you use it in the most common modern sense, as short for "physical science", then astrology cannot be a pseudoscience since it doesn't claim to be a science in that sense. If you use it in the older sense, which it still has in French and other European languages, to mean a discipline with a verified body of discoveries and a method of making more, then astrology clearly is a science. For example, some years ago two groups of astrologers, one in Australia and one in the USA, studied unaspected planets in horoscopes. They worked without being aware of each other, but their published results were the same. In my experience those who dismiss astrology as a pseudoscience either don't know what astrology is, or don't know what science (of any sort) is, or both!

Click to expand...

I think you have summed it up beautifully. Since the Eighteeth Century, "Science" has come to mean empirical investigations to test hypotheses, themselves the product of theories of how the things work. This view was born out of the 'mechanistic' analogy used by those early 'scientists'.

You are completely right, in that this modern definition does not and never did match the claims of Astrology. However the word 'science' does not entail the modern view. It comes from the Latin 'scientia' meaning knowledge in the sense of the exercise of a skill. Thus a 'scientific' approach literally means the application of skills based knowledge and that certainly fits Astrology.

Interestingly, William Lilly on the dawn of the new 'scientific' era does not use the word, 'science' overmuch. For him Astrology is an 'Art' and he refers to the Astrologer as an 'Artist'. By that, I take him to mean that Astrology goes beyond the simple application of a skill and enters the realms of human interpretation and expression. The nearest I can get to what I mean by that is an analogy. My wife is quite a skilled painter, she can copy a Van Goch quite accurately but then Van Goch is an artist - what you see is more than the skillful use of a brush or the application of particular techniques.

So for Lilly the Astrologer does need to have some science - the ability to apply skills with knowledge but to be successful he (or she) needs to translate that knowledge into Art , that is it contains creative human expression, based on those skills and knowledge (and occasionally knowing when to 'break the rules'). Perhaps we should refer to it as 'super science' rather than pseudoscience'

Wow! I've learned so much just by reading all of your replies, thank you!! I wasn't expecting anything so in depth; it's piqued my interest in astrology now. Guess I'll be returning to these forums soon........
And an update on the class: since this is one of my first assignments of the year, I didn't want to start things off by getting in an argument with the teacher, so I tried to keep my paper subtle. I pointed out that merely going by horoscopes can be unreliable and that there is much more to astrology than horoscopes - my teacher was using them interchangeably.

rainier said:

Wow! I've learned so much just by reading all of your replies, thank you!! I wasn't expecting anything so in depth; it's piqued my interest in astrology now. Guess I'll be returning to these forums soon........
And an update on the class: since this is one of my first assignments of the year, I didn't want to start things off by getting in an argument with the teacher, so I tried to keep my paper subtle. I pointed out that merely going by horoscopes can be unreliable and that there is much more to astrology than horoscopes - my teacher was using them interchangeably.

Click to expand...

Good scientific approach by your teacher - set an assignment on something you know nothing about yourself

Good luck with the rest of your course and by all means drop by again

rainier said:

Wow! I've learned so much just by reading all of your replies, thank you!! I wasn't expecting anything so in depth; it's piqued my interest in astrology now. Guess I'll be returning to these forums soon........
And an update on the class: since this is one of my first assignments of the year, I didn't want to start things off by getting in an argument with the teacher, so I tried to keep my paper subtle. I pointed out that merely going by horoscopes can be unreliable and that there is much more to astrology than horoscopes - my teacher was using them interchangeably.

Click to expand...

Good for you to give your teacher some enlightening information to think about, yet not engage in an argument Thanks for the update.

Minderwiz said:

Yes, so true. And given that those horoscopes are very brief general statements, one would not really expect anything approaching real prediction. They are 'fun' at least as far as the publishers are concerned, a source of income as far as some Astrologers are concerned but also something that the general public takes semi seriously (or at least more seriously than they admit too).

Click to expand...

The writers of such columns fall into three groups:
1. Journalists who just make up the column — yes, it does happen.
2. Rather dim astrologers who admit that their techniques aren't very reliable, but over-estimate that reliability. They also hope that the readers of their columns may be drawn into real astrology: just the sort of people we don't need!
3. Astrologers who say (and I've heard them) "I know it's rubbish, but it's better that good astrologers [i.e. the speaker] should get the money if its on offer."

During the UK phone hacking trial it was accidentally revealed in evidence what some of the top newspaper column astrologers get per year here - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/m...ed-how-much-astrologers-can-earn-9563459.html it's an interesting article!

Jonathan Cainer and Mystic Meg write their own but I am sure there was something during the hacking trial that some of the columns were written by junior reporters based on no astrological science but the newspapers and columns weren't revealed. I can't find a link about it now but I am pretty certain it does happen!

Also most newspaper columns are small paragraphs to get you to phone a more expensive service! I have to say that some of the online one's do give me good info and they are worked out in a proper way but are they as good as interpreting a chart? no way

danieljuk said:

During the UK phone hacking trial it was accidentally revealed in evidence what some of the top newspaper column astrologers get per year here - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/m...ed-how-much-astrologers-can-earn-9563459.html it's an interesting article!

Jonathan Cainer and Mystic Meg write their own but I am sure there was something during the hacking trial that some of the columns were written by junior reporters based on no astrological science but the newspapers and columns weren't revealed. I can't find a link about it now but I am pretty certain it does happen!

Also most newspaper columns are small paragraphs to get you to phone a more expensive service! I have to say that some of the online one's do give me good info and they are worked out in a proper way but are they as good as interpreting a chart? no way

Click to expand...

hmm, didn't know that they could take in that much money! I took a look at the article in the link and apparently Cainer's making millions. On his website it looks like he does know about astrology, because some of his references about the planets are correct, but his small, generalized bits of information are diverted to links to get people to buy into a paid, automated service. Talk about big business 'divination'! and then we wonder why astrology has been given a bad rap

DavidMcann and danieljuk, thank you both for the info and the link. I think I heard that story about junior reporters or similar writing the horoscope columns that were syndiacted under someone else's name but I thought it was apocryphal, as surely no national newspaper could sink that low

However according to Philip Knightley it's true!!

http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.06/Media/Knightley.pdf