Astrology, an Abuse of Astronomy

Astrology had its place in history. Not because it was a true scientific theory, it never could be that. Nevertheless, their very false notions required the soothsayers to be able to predict the exact positions of the planets for times to come. The drive for patient observations of the planets and their motions against the backdrop of distant stars came from this need. There was also a saner and more logical need to rationalize sky observations with the calendar for agricultural purposes. Astronomy was born out of these needs felt by our ancestors to place themselves in perspective against what they observed in the skies.

Born together, but, these two fields have been diverging rapidly away from each other these many millennia. One to develop into a rich science and the other to remain where it was and yet continue to exploit the insecure and the gullible.

In recent times the controversy over the nature of astrology, whether it is a scientific theory or not, seems to have reached extreme acerbic proportions. While the astrologers are freely indulging in making personal attacks on scientists, the following pertinent criticism of the theory and practice of astrology, is not in any way being answered by them.

To be called a scientific theory, any body of knowledge would have to answer the question ‘why’ at every level. Put another way, there has to be some fundamental interaction of basic elements of nature involved at the root of any phenomenon. Venus in some position has a baneful influence, Jupiter in some other position is beneficial, born at such and such time a person may grow up to be a criminal or a politician – WHY? What is the basic cause behind such statements? When asked to pin down the fundamental interaction of the planets and stars with us human beings which would give rise to such effects, astrologers falter and mumble something about gravitation, electromagnetic radiation or tidal effects.

Gravitation? The gravitational forces of the nursing home, gynecologist, pediatrician and the anesthetist who may be around at the time of  birth of  a human baby would be far greater than any gravitational force felt from the planets, simply because they are so far away! Similarly, stray electromagnetic radiations coming from your TV screen or sundry other electrical appliances around the house will be far greater than any that reaches us from distant planets, how can the latter affect incidences in your life?

What say we of tides? A statement on an astrological website goes – ‘If the Sun and Moon can exert tidal forces on Earth, which is so huge, to cause tides, can they not exert enormous tidal forces on us puny beings?’ … something like that. The idea being, we do not know what could be the forces that cause astrological influences, but maybe tides have the answer for us…? The point here is that the tidal forces on Earth, by the Sun and Moon are caused precisely because it is so huge. Where do tidal forces originate from? It is not a new or different kind of force – it simply arises from differences in gravitational force felt by the extremities of an extended object – the gravitational force of the Sun or the Moon is larger on that part of Earth that is facing them and smaller on the opposite side. As simple as that. Now try imagining differences in gravitational forces of the distant planets between the tummy and the behind of a baby just born or maybe the head and the toes? Laughable,… tides do not have the answer that astrologers need.

It is true that there a number of physical interactions which have not yet been fully understood from a very basic standpoint – the nature of the nuclear forces, for instance. At the level of complex interactions and chaotic phenomena there are a number of examples where a full scientific understanding and predictability through underlying physical laws is as yet incomplete. All these are rich areas in science where a lot of progress has taken place and there exists room for a lot more work. However, at some level or other these unsolved problems touch upon known and experimentally verified nature’s laws. It is this that is lacking in astrology. The astrologers say – so what if we cannot predict the future very accurately, are scientists able to predict the weather or Earthquakes accurately? The difference here comes in our basic understanding of these phenomena, scientists have plenty of experimental verification for the basic interactions they think underlie weather or Earthquakes or any such phenomenon that is not yet understood in its full complexity. Does astrology have any such basic grounding? No!

So, we do not have a fundamental interaction or force that could explain benign or malignant influences of the planets on our life. But, may be, the cancer of astrology has a way out … empirical evidence? Lacking a fundamental understanding of certain natural phenomenon we may yet find out some partial truth about it by experimentally studying various aspects of it.  Most of the astrological predictions are worded deliberately vague. It is this inherent vagueness that turns out to be the biggest strength of astrologers since it defies experimental verification, a basic requirement for any science.

Anyway, let us try our hands at generating statistics to critically examine astrological conclusions. Positions of planets, Sun and the Moon against the backdrop of the Zodiacal constellations at the time of the birth of a person is supposed to determine their destiny, right? Now, let us take the case of astronauts – Only a dozen men have ever set foot on another world. They are the crew members of the six Apollo missions that landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Surely the planetary configurations during their respective birthdates must have had been similar to have given rise to their similar destinies? Given below are the birthdates and the planetary configurations of these dozen who walked on the Moon – (these are actual positions taking the precession of the Earth’s spin axis into account)

Table 1. Positions of the Sun, Moon and Planets among the Zodiacal constellations at the birthdates of the 12 astronauts who walked on the Moon. 

Can one see any pattern in the planetary configurations at their birthdates? Surely not? Hold on though, is there something significant in the fact that Saturn was in Sagittarius at the time of birth of most of these astronauts? Not really, as a little analysis will show. The birth dates seem to be clustered around 1930. Why would that be? Well, the Apollo missions were concentrated between the years 1969 and 1972. Quite likely that most of the astronauts recruited around that time would be close in age, so nothing significant in the clustering around 1930 that is seen. Now, Saturn is a planet with an orbital period round the Sun of a little less than 30 years. It is quite natural for Saturn to stay near the same Zodiacal constellation for  a few years in its slow motion through the Zodiac. In many instances where astrologers point out significant correlations (as in the infamous Mars effect where someone found Mars to be in some particular constellation for athletes) could have similar explanation by looking closely at honest data.

One can look at alternate data that is not likely to be plagued with such bias. Listed below are the birthdates of a number of Nobel Laureates who had received the peace prize. Again, astrologically speaking, we should expect to see some correlation in the planetary positions on these dates, which we do not see.

Table 2. Positions of Sun, Moon and Planets among the Zodiacal constellations during the birth dates of some Nobel Laureates for Peace.