• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Evidence Proving The Validity Of Astrology

littlebrowndragon said:
Finally, I know that personally, even with my level of education, I would not understand a scientific paper (even if it were written by an articulate scientist, which is a rarity). Therefore I know perfectly well that you couldn’t.
Click to expand...

That's just rude.
 
Astrology isn’t science, but your horoscope is more real than you think
"Astrology isn't real science, but there's more to the zodiac than ancient superstition. Before horoscopes were popularly debunked, astrology drove scientific discoveries for thousands of years. And researchers say that astrology still has a lot to contribute today to modern science and medicine. So maybe your zodiac sign is not all nonsense. Does it matter if you are a Pisces or a Virgo? "
 
Firstly, several members have expressed scepticism about my assertion that academics work entirely from memory. (I can appreciate that there is such scepticism, for my assertion is not the commonplace and, in addition, since scientists and academics in general are usually held in very high regard, then my claim does not flatter them.) One member, INT2, responded by checking with a scientist from CERN who – again, no surprises here – also disagreed with me.

I will say more about this reliance on memory in a second post. Here, however, I will make some further pertinent points re the nature of science, this because they have a bearing on my second post as well as on the OP. (It makes sense to split up these two posts for ease of reading.)


So, to the additional points I want to make:

As I said in my previous post, my sister is a published physicist. She became a scientist because she had been led to believe that the world of science was a world in which information was shared openly and freely. This sort of world was the world to which she aspired: freedom, honesty, cooperation, world peace etc, etc. She also felt that it was extremely important, not to say necessary, to achieve an understanding of the nature of existence and she thought to find that in both physics and philosophy. She was very naïve in those days.

I will describe two of many incidents that served to finally disillusion my sister with respect to science:

The first incident happened at her first place of employment, namely a prestigious, if not the foremost, private sector research and development lab then operating in the UK. She had just published her first paper. One day a letter arrived in the post. It was from a professor in her field of study who was based at UCL. My sister was very excited to receive this letter, expecting it to contain possibly praise or congratulations or interest or something positive of that nature. Not a bit of it. Instead, what this very nasty letter contained was an accusation that my sister had stolen this professor’s ideas. My sister was dumbfounded at the accusation. In the first place, she knew no one at UCL, so how, she asked herself, could she get hold of these ideas?

The “evidence” used to back up the professor’s claim was at the level of “my sister knew someone who knew someone who knew the Prince of Wales” – that is how vague it was. My sister took the letter to her Head of Division who appointed a third party to investigate. My sister was found innocent. It was eventually decided by her Head of Division that what had put this professor’s nose out of joint was that my sister had not referenced this professor in her own paper. (It should be noted that references are almost more important than papers themselves to a scientist’s reputation.)

The second incident happened a few years later at a big international conference in her field of research held that year in New Orleans. My sister had decided she was going to tell the truth and took a post-deadline paper with her to the conference which did tell the truth about the research she was doing. She did not accuse anyone of lying, however the implication of what she had written was that either she was lying or that numerous of the prominent scientists in her field were lying. Needless to say, her paper was rejected. She realized then that that it was pointless trying to tell the truth – she was never going to get published that way.


That second incident was possibly the nail in the science coffin for my sister. In other words, she was not prepared to pay the price for success i.e. to sell her soul, and she left the profession shortly afterwards.

Science, as my sister discovered, is just as competitive as high-level sport. Scientists, just like sports people, will resort to any measure to win. Science is a dog-eat-dog world or, to put it more topically, it is a Game of Thrones world. There is no more truth to be found in science than there is in, say, politics or, indeed, in Cercei Lannister.


Finally, I will just add here that I do not wish to single science out in this regard. This is a highly competitive world. Game of Thrones exists in all areas of endeavor: in education (my own area), in business, in politics, in religion etc, etc. This competition, of course, is justified by Darwinism and is assumed to be healthy and natural. I would take issue with this attitude.

It is for this reason, among others, that I believe that science can never get to the truth about astrology.
 
Use of memory.

An explanation re my assertion that scientists and academics rely solely on the use of memory:

I do not think that many people will disagree with me that the world is in a pretty bad state. Corruption is rife. And that corruption manifests itself in, for example, the desire for power.

The phrase “knowledge is power” is well enough known. What that means is that the use of knowledge i.e. the ownership of knowledge, is used by some people to gain power over others. (By knowledge, I mean secrets, what is referred to as “intelligence” by the military, as well as the likes of scientific facts etc, etc. )

When people first cottoned-on to the use of knowledge to gain power, they still had and used understanding. But understanding cannot be misused in the way that knowledge can. So, as people became more corrupt, they became more and more reliant on knowledge at the expense of understanding. Of course, knowledge is memory intensive. So, when people took to favouring knowledge they developed phenomenal, but very unhealthy, use of memory. The consequence was that, like any unused limb, people’s ability to understand eventually withered and died. That is why people today are so reliant on memory.

This reliance on memory is another reason why I think science will never prove the validity of astrology.
 
littlebrowndragon said:
Firstly, several members have expressed scepticism about my assertion that academics work entirely from memory. (I can appreciate that there is such scepticism, for my assertion is not the commonplace and, in addition, since scientists and academics in general are usually held in very high regard, then my claim does not flatter them.) One member, INT2, responded by checking with a scientist from CERN who – again, no surprises here – also disagreed with me.

I will say more about this reliance on memory in a second post. Here, however, I will make some further pertinent points re the nature of science, this because they have a bearing on my second post as well as on the OP. (It makes sense to split up these two posts for ease of reading.)


So, to the additional points I want to make:

As I said in my previous post, my sister is a published physicist. She became a scientist because she had been led to believe that the world of science was a world in which information was shared openly and freely. This sort of world was the world to which she aspired: freedom, honesty, cooperation, world peace etc, etc. She also felt that it was extremely important, not to say necessary, to achieve an understanding of the nature of existence and she thought to find that in both physics and philosophy. She was very naïve in those days.

I will describe two of many incidents that served to finally disillusion my sister with respect to science:

The first incident happened at her first place of employment, namely a prestigious, if not the foremost, private sector research and development lab then operating in the UK. She had just published her first paper. One day a letter arrived in the post. It was from a professor in her field of study who was based at UCL. My sister was very excited to receive this letter, expecting it to contain possibly praise or congratulations or interest or something positive of that nature. Not a bit of it. Instead, what this very nasty letter contained was an accusation that my sister had stolen this professor’s ideas. My sister was dumbfounded at the accusation. In the first place, she knew no one at UCL, so how, she asked herself, could she get hold of these ideas?

The “evidence” used to back up the professor’s claim was at the level of “my sister knew someone who knew someone who knew the Prince of Wales” – that is how vague it was. My sister took the letter to her Head of Division who appointed a third party to investigate. My sister was found innocent. It was eventually decided by her Head of Division that what had put this professor’s nose out of joint was that my sister had not referenced this professor in her own paper. (It should be noted that references are almost more important than papers themselves to a scientist’s reputation.)

The second incident happened a few years later at a big international conference in her field of research held that year in New Orleans. My sister had decided she was going to tell the truth and took a post-deadline paper with her to the conference which did tell the truth about the research she was doing. She did not accuse anyone of lying, however the implication of what she had written was that either she was lying or that numerous of the prominent scientists in her field were lying. Needless to say, her paper was rejected. She realized then that that it was pointless trying to tell the truth – she was never going to get published that way.


That second incident was possibly the nail in the science coffin for my sister. In other words, she was not prepared to pay the price for success i.e. to sell her soul, and she left the profession shortly afterwards.

Science, as my sister discovered, is just as competitive as high-level sport. Scientists, just like sports people, will resort to any measure to win. Science is a dog-eat-dog world or, to put it more topically, it is a Game of Thrones world. There is no more truth to be found in science than there is in, say, politics or, indeed, in Cercei Lannister.


Finally, I will just add here that I do not wish to single science out in this regard. This is a highly competitive world. Game of Thrones exists in all areas of endeavor: in education (my own area), in business, in politics, in religion etc, etc. This competition, of course, is justified by Darwinism and is assumed to be healthy and natural. I would take issue with this attitude.

It is for this reason, among others, that I believe that science can never get to the truth about astrology.
Click to expand...

..



I actually wrote..

..You do know, Littlebrowndragon, that Escargot's son works (or did work) at CERN ? ..

You wrote..

One member, INT2, responded by checking with a scientist from CERN who – again, no surprises here – also disagreed with me...

Escargot's response was..(post#91)..

That's just rude.

So you misread my post; and apparently misconstrued Escargot.

I asked you if you would supply more info on your sisters published work. This is a reasonable request as a published work is, well, public.
In light of your above post a link to the professor in question would also be helpful as we can then compare the two.

I take it by UCL you mean University College . London.

You wrote..

(It should be noted that references are almost more important than papers themselves to a scientist’s reputation.).



Very important. Shows they are not working from memory or attempting to plagiarise others.

INT21.

(That's INT21, not INT2)
 
NOW, believe it or not - Here is a short lecture on how and why to protect yourself
FROM astrology and its potential influence:

Does Astrology Work - Sadhguru's Talks - Spiritual Life

There is an old occult saying "Everything affects Everything" - And in a limited sense
this is true - But as Sadhguru is trying to point out - Do you really want to have your
life affected by planets that could not care less ???
 
AlienView said:
Do you really want to have your
life affected by planets that could not care less ?
Click to expand...

Astrologers would say you can't help 'having your life affected by planets that could not care less'. You needn't consult a horoscope for it to work; it's true whether you believe it or not, like, er, science. ;)
 
escargot said:
Astrologers would say you can't help 'having your life affected by planets that could not care less'. You needn't consult a horoscope for it to work; it's true whether you believe it or not, like, er, science. ;)
Click to expand...

Even so, as we've seen with 'the observer affect',
that the observer affects the observation.

If one keeps believing that a black cat crossing your path is unlucky
- then one will soon record 'evidence' that every-time a black cat crossed their path
they ran into bad luck - One can delude oneself with observations. Real science
tries to separate the wheat from the chaff - Is the observation in fact actually
causing the affect perceived ? And to what extent do we create reality by
observation ?
 
AlienView said:
Even so, as we've seen with 'the observer affect',
that the observer affects the observation.

If one keeps believing that a black cat crossing your path is unlucky
- then one will soon record 'evidence' that every-time a black cat crossed their path
they ran into bad luck - One can delude oneself with observations. Real science
tries to separate the wheat from the chaff - Is the observation in fact actually
causing the affect perceived ? And to what extent do we create reality by
observation ?
Click to expand...

That's not science OR astrology though. That's people's individual interpretations.

Science is the study of nature. Observation doesn't change that. Astrology is based on largely misinterpreted and largely erroneous observations of the movements of heavenly bodies, invented at a time when the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe and everything else revolved around it.

I know you're not actually disagreeing with me on this. But science and astrology are not comparable in terms of evidence and efficacy.
 
Of course for those who insist on giving astrology scientific validity
- this is interesting:

Quantum Mechanics and Astrology

"
I read science books from time to time, astronomy, physics, history and research topics that may relate to astrology and provide another point of view. The Cosmic Code (1982) by Dr. Heinz Pagels was one of these. Physicist Pagels wrote an accessible book about quantum mechanics, which could help explain astrology.

Einstein and others had identified a paradox called “spooky action at a distance” involving entangled atomic particles. This action is impossible according to relativity theory, but is a logical part of quantum mechanics. TechnologyReview.com describes it nicely: “Entanglement arises naturally when two particles are created at the same point and instant in space… Entangled particles can become widely separated in space. But even so, the mathematics implies that a measurement on one immediately influences the other, regardless of the distance between them.”

They are talking about particles, but the idea of being linked at the time of creation, despite distance between particles, is very resonant of distant planets continuing to have an influence on us after birth..........."

See whole article here:
https://karenchristino.com/quantum-mechanics-and-astrology/

And even the great physicist Max Planck, one of the founders of Quantum Mechanics, wrote:

"When you change the way you look at things
- the things you look at change"
- Max Planck
 
Astrology is all about the apparent position of planets and stars. Entanglement on the other hand, tells us position is irrelevant.
 
I am not going to waste much time here in a discussion about "the validity of astrology", but I would like to point out that any contemporary astrologer worthy of the title most certainly does not believe that the planets or stars, etc. are themselves causing anything to happen down here. They are purely symbolic, and function as such within what might be termed a symbolic worldview (as distinct from an objective worldview, in which apparently separate entities can only be related through cause and effect).

The only reason I bring this up at all (since I prefer to avoid the subject of astrology entirely when I find myself in "mixed company") is that I am curious about the mindset of the Forteans here who expect proof of the validity of astrology within an objective worldview. As Forteans, do you entertain the possibility of phenomena/lifeforms whose "reality" may never be able to be confirmed within an objective worldview? Or do you believe that Science shall, one day, succeed in making the repeatable observations and measurements which confirm, once and for all, the "reality" of such "things" as fairies, satyrs, devas, humanoid aliens, etc.?

Would you say that if Science can never confirm the reality of such phenomena, that they are therefore "unreal", or, conversely, that they are simply a form of reality that cannot ever be (fully?) apprehended scientifically? And if the latter, would you be willing to agree that astrology, as well, might be the kind of phenomenon which can never be (fully?) explained scientifically, or within an objective worldview?
 
INT21 said:
..I actually wrote..

..You do know, Littlebrowndragon, that Escargot's son works (or did work) at CERN ? ..

You wrote..

One member, INT2, responded by checking with a scientist from CERN who – again, no surprises here – also disagreed with me...

Escargot's response was..(post#91)..

That's just rude.
Click to expand...

It is not rude. However, it is an error. My apologies.
 
littlebrowndragon said:
It is not rude. However, it is an error. My apologies.
Click to expand...

What I found rude was this patronising statement -

Finally, I know that personally, even with my level of education, I would not understand a scientific paper (even if it were written by an articulate scientist, which is a rarity). Therefore I know perfectly well that you couldn’t.
Click to expand...

We get it, you're clever and everyone else is thick.
 
Indrid Drood said:
As Forteans, do you entertain the possibility of phenomena/lifeforms whose "reality" may never be able to be confirmed within an objective worldview? Or do you believe that Science shall, one day, succeed in making the repeatable observations and measurements which confirm, once and for all, the "reality" of such "things" as fairies, satyrs, devas, humanoid aliens, etc.?
Click to expand...

speaking personally, exploring "scientific proof" is one necessary tool for being a fortean.
 
littlebrowndragon said:
Clever? When I’ve just admitted that I wouldn’t understand a scientific paper? Oh, well, I'll take any compliment I can get on this forum!
Click to expand...

Trust me, that wasn't a compliment. You were stating that you assumed that someone else, of whose intellect or level of education you know nothing, would not understand a scientific paper. You assume that they must be less intelligent than you are. That is arrogant and rude.
 
Frideswide said:
speaking personally, exploring "scientific proof" is one necessary tool for being a fortean.
Click to expand...

Would you please explain what you mean by "exploring" in this context? For example, do you mean "exploring the validity of scientific proof"?
 
The essence of scientific proof is the experiment. And the repeatability thereof.

And the repeatability has to work every time or there is deemed to be a fault in the theory behind it.

If astrology is subject to the same criteria, it would have to indicate that all people born under a particular star sign were of more or less identical nature.

Does the evidence show this ?
 
INT21 said:
The essence of scientific proof is the experiment. And the repeatability thereof.

And the repeatability has to work every time or there is deemed to be a fault in the theory behind it.

If astrology is subject to the same criteria, it would have to indicate that all people born under a particular star sign were of more or less identical nature.

Does the evidence show this ?
Click to expand...

The way astrologers get round this is to state that the earth and the stars/planets would have moved very slightly between one person's birth and the next. They also mention that no two babies can be born in the exact same geographical spot at the same time. So babies are never actually born at the same time and in the same place, meaning that their astrological influences are unique to each.
 
Nice counter, But let us assume that all the people born in the middle week of August are astrologically Leos.

Would they not all be expected to show the same character traits ?
 
INT21 said:
The essence of scientific proof is the experiment. And the repeatability thereof.

And the repeatability has to work every time or there is deemed to be a fault in the theory behind it.

If astrology is subject to the same criteria, it would have to indicate that all people born under a particular star sign were of more or less identical nature.

Does the evidence show this ?
Click to expand...
Dear God, why do I let myself get entangled in this? The idea that "people born under a particular star sign" have similar dispositions/destinies is a fiction developed by newspapermen in tandem with unscrupulous astrologers seeking employment in the early 20th c. Dump all Sun Sign books, columns, etc. in the ocean. They are worse than worthless. Also, there is not one single zodiacal starting point. Sidereal astrologers do use specific stellar starting points for their zodiac (of the familiar twelve signs); Tropical astrologers use the Vernal Equinox as the starting point of theirs (and some of these, including yours truly in a former incarnation) also throw in planetary positions in the Draconic zodiac, which uses the position of the Moon's north node as 0 degrees of Aries.

But I should really just shut up now. Nothing fruitful can come of this.
 
You could just have said 'No'. :)
 
Frideswide said:
speaking personally, exploring "scientific proof" is one necessary tool for being a fortean.
Click to expand...
I sometimes get the feeling that "Fortean" is now functionally synoymous with "Sceptic Lite": we shall not dismiss out of hand the reality of any particular phenomenon (as would a shooting-from-the-hip sceptic/debunker), but will hold our judgment of its reality in abeyance unless and until we have conclusively determined that it is neither hoax, nor a case of misperception/hallucination/delusion. All the while never testing/questioning our received biases/preconceptions and notions of what constitutes "reality" (or whether "reality" -- if there is any such beast -- is single or multiple). Our Western cultural bias -- as victims/products of an Abrahamic monotheistic worldview, from which emerged an equally "monotheistic" Rationalist/Scientific worldview -- is towards viewing reality as single. Should not Forteans maintain a healthy and vigorous scepticism towards this as well?
 
Last edited:
Indrid Drood said:
. Our Western cultural bias -- as victims/products of an Abrahamic monotheistic worldview, from which emerged an equally "monotheistic" Rationalist/Scientific worldview -- is towards viewing reality as single. Should not Forteans maintain a healthy and vigorous scepticism towards this as well?
Click to expand...

So, basically. Damned if you do, damned if you don't ?

And atheists, such as myself, will place the Monotheistic firmly amongst the items that really aught to be investigated.
 
INT21 said:
Nice counter, But let us assume that all the people born in the middle week of August are astrologically Leos.

Would they not all be expected to show the same character traits ?
Click to expand...

Heh, I'm not arguing on behalf of astrology, I'm just repeating what I was told. There's no logic to it.
 
INT21 said:
So, basically. Damned if you do, damned if you don't ?

And atheists, such as myself, will place the Monotheistic firmly amongst the items that really aught to be investigated.
Click to expand...
I hope you're including Monotheistic Science in that "Monotheistic"! What I should have added above is that there seems to be an unspoken assumption among self-styled Forteans that the reality (or absence thereof) of any phenomenon can, ultimately, be determined by the intellect (and in accordance with the "reality definition" to which that intellect subscibes). This, of course, assumes that such "reality" must be entirely consistent with the reality of the phenomena we habitually perceive via our sensory apparatus and with the laws of physics, chemistry, etc. as established at present. But what of something like a mist that condenses into the form of a dwarf in Court Jester costume, who proceeds to poke us in the ribs (leaving measurable and photographable bruises), only to disappear into a mist once again? Does such an experience lead us to question our definition of "reality", or do we persist in our beliefs which are no longer in accord with our experience?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top