Astrology, astronomy charts and inquiry?

Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 2:08 am

Ronald Asked:

The associations between astrology and astronomy charts have a far longer historical base than the two as separate fields of study.
Our ancestors for thousands of years before the advent of the telescope saw enough correlations between celestial events and planetary surface events to accept the two as a matter of faith.
However, with the advent of scientific methods and the 'superstition' label associated with astrology, little scientific inquiry has been done to examine possible connections in modern life.
Using modern tools such as spreadsheets and computerized astronomy charts, it seems to me a relatively simple matter to choose a microscopic, easily tested line of inquiry involving records of a specific sort historical events to establish whether any connection exists between the positions of celestial bodies and earth surface phenomena.

What do you think?

Reply:

Our ancestors for thousands of years before the advent of the telescope saw enough correlations between celestial events and planetary surface events to accept the two as a matter of faith.
Ancient astrologers fell into the same traps that modern astrologers do: Namely, seeing past 'predictions' after the fact, being incredibly vague so that the buy drugs astrological messages can just about always be interpreted as true, and citing the few coincidental cases when the stars were accurate while ignoring the vast quantities of failed trials.
However, with the advent of scientific methods and the 'superstition' label associated with astrology, little scientific inquiry has been done to examine possible connections in modern life.
It's an excellent refutation of astrology, and I think anyone who still believes in this crap should read it.
Using modern tools such as spreadsheets and computerized astronomy charts, it seems to me a relatively simple matter to choose a microscopic, easily tested line of inquiry involving records of a specific sort historical events to establish whether any connection exists between the positions of celestial bodies and earth surface phenomena.
Such tests have been done! And for the most part, they didn't find anything (surprise!). You can read about some statistics here: