| What's Your Sign?
by Cindy Voetsch
It's really hard to say exactly what the particular belief or theory is behind
astrology because there are so many different types which often contradict
each
other. Some focus on the moment of birth and
some on the month but they all work under the same premise and that is that the stars and planets control and effect people here on earth.
Astrology began as early civilizations tried to codify the natural world. These efforts led to the first calendars in pursuit of agricultural goals. Knowing that the appearance of a certain star on the horizon was the harbinger of Spring was crucial to the farming cycle. Predicting the Nile’s annual flood was pretty handy for the ancient Egyptians. Eventually these calendars and star patterns in the heavens, took on certain anthropomorphic qualities and were worshipped. These "dieties" were believed to control peoples lives. Since early man did not in the least know what guided the seasons, rains, or their lives, this concept was as good as any......but for people Now to believe this, is really insane.
Now lets take a moment to digest that. Stars and planets are essentially made up of rock, minerals, ice, and gas. They are also pretty far away from us.....correction, they are REALLY far away from us. It is literally impossible and irrational to even think that someone's personality, destiny, love life, or fortune would be remotely affected by a planet or star. In fact, even though from our vantage point on earth, the constellations look like a group or pattern, they are really nothing of the sort. In reality, these "groupings" or star formations are very far apart and not connected in any way.
The only two forces of nature that could affect anything at all (there are a couple of others which are the strong and weak forces and have to do with atomic and subatomic forces but that would not be applicable at this scale) are gravity and electromagnetism. So lets look at realistically for a bit, at these two forces and see how they could even remotely affect us.
First lets talk about gravity. We know quite a bit about gravity and how it works on a scale as large as our solar system. I am no scientist by any means so this will be explained in laymans terms. Basically, the gravity of an object depends on two things: how big or massive it is, and also how far away it is. The more massive an object, the stronger its gravity. The closer it is, the more its gravity affects you.>/p>
Jupiter has about 25,000 times the mass of our Moon but it is about 1500 times further away from the Moon. But even though Jupiter has a lot more mass it is so far away that our Moon is the winner when you measure the effect of gravity on us, in fact if you take the gravity from all of the planets in our solar system and put them together, their combined gravity does not amount to the Moon's. But the moon does not appear in horoscopes so if the force behind astrology is gravity, why is the moon of no consequence to astrologers? So apparently astrology is not based of the effects of gravity.
Since most large objects are not electrically charged and planets are essentially nutural, electromagnetism cannot be the force guiding astrology either. Some planets like Jupiter do have a strong field near their planet but we are too far away for it to effect us. The Sun though, has large electromagnetic field that does effect us especially during solar storms and flares but astrology almost completely ignores the sun and consentrates on the planets.....which have NO effect on us. So what is the force that causes the planets to have an effect on our lives.......imagination that's what
There is nothing really that the planets can do to effect us, our personalities, or our daily lives. I know several people who claim their horoscope is accurate and "right on the money." But really when you read anyone's horoscope it is so general and so vague, it could almost apply to anyone. I have friends who claim the predictions come true. Unfortunately, the predictions do not state any specifics, just generalities. The predictions are really applicable to almost everyone like the following: "Love will find you today" "You will resolve an old conflict" "Someone will appreciate your efforts today" "You will come into some money." You will rarely if ever find a horoscope that is specific because specifics are rarely right while vage predictions are rarely wrong. Horoscopes also tend to flatter us with things like "You are someone who cares about others." People want to believe something that makes them feel good about themselves.
The skeptic James Randi did an experiment on a college campus about horoscopes. He took personal information from a group of students in a classroom and then latert handed them each a horoscope. He told them the horoscope was taylored personally for them and had them read it to themselves. He then had everyone raise their hand if they thought the horoscope was accurate. All of the students not only thought it was accurate but were really impressed with how much the horoscope was right about. It was then revealed that all of the horoscopes were not only made up and completely fake, but that they were all the same. Each student picked out from the horoscope the things they felt pertained to them.
This brings me to another point and that is, we remember the hits and not the misses. There may be 10 things in a horoscope and 9 will be wrong but if one vages statement is right, we think the horoscope is accurate. If the horoscope says we will "come into some money" and we find a dollar in out pocket, we do not see the randomness of finding the dollar anyway and feel the horoscope was right. If we meet someone and fall in love, we forget all of the many, many days love was no where near. A wild guess by an astrologer even a specific one, will eventually mean something to someone. If the newspaper has a horoscope that says to "be careful today" out of the possible thousands who read it, there will be at least some who will have a mishap, that's just the odds.
So, what does it hurt to believe in astrology? Well, first it means that a large number of the population are not using fully functioning brains. It also causes people to not think critically. Next, people spend millions of dollars on astrology which means they are wasting money that could be put to good use. (although I suspect there are a lot of people who are making big bucks swindling suckers)
One of the worst things about astrology and other idiotic fads and or pseudoscience, it takes away from how wonderful and spectacular the universe really is. I have a telescope and my husband and I love astronomy, astrophotography, and exploring the night sky. Often I have people look at my telescope or ask me about my hobby and confuse astrology with astronomy. I will be at a star party (astronomy club members having a public sky viewing with their telescopes) and someone will come up and say "I have always been into astrology, what's your sign?" It is sad and embarassing that adults do not know the difference between astrology and astronomy. I once had someone ask me if "I could see UFO's or aliens with my telescope?" How sad that this is the "science" people know about in stead of the awesome beauty of a nebula or the grandeur or the rings of Saturn. Astrology and these other fads and idiocies cheapens real science and nature.
Thousands of years ago when man was a young species, the night sky was a mystery and since they really had no way of explaining things, they frankly made a lot of shit up. They also had no electricity, TV, or much of anything else to do at night except make shit up and worship it. The real question is, why in these modren times with all we know about the universe, do people still make this shit up and worse, why to others believe it.
Here are some additional articles you can find on the web to enlighten you:
The Amazing James Randi about astrology (he also has a great video on his experiment on YouTube)
Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Astrology Defense Kit
Skeptic Dictionary's entry on astrology
Comments
|
