{"id":742,"date":"2012-10-21T23:06:42","date_gmt":"2012-10-21T23:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=742"},"modified":"2012-10-22T08:15:57","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T08:15:57","slug":"skeptical-about-astrology-dealing-with-horoscopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2012\/10\/21\/skeptical-about-astrology-dealing-with-horoscopes\/","title":{"rendered":"Skeptical About Astrology: Dealing With Horoscopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since about a quarter of people in the US and even more in some countries in Western Europe continue to believe in the powers of astrological prediction, it makes sense to some degree that the blog website Patheos would start up an\u00a0astrology section<\/a>\u00a0in their spirituality section. And since, according to one post there,\u00a0Saturn the teacher is moving into Scorpio today<\/a>, I\u2019ll talk a bit about this.<\/p>\n

First off, the planet Saturn is currently\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0in the constellation of Scorpio today, tomorrow, or any time soon. It\u2019s really not, go check for yourself.Right now it is in Virgo, which isn\u2019t even adjacent to Scorpio in the Zodiac. So why this astronomically wrong statement? There is the system of\u00a0precession of the equinoxes<\/a>, the movement of where the sun in on the equinoxes relative to the constellations. It is due to the wobbling of the Earth in a 26,000 year cycle. It was first discovered by Hipparchus of Rhodes in the 2nd century BCE, though this is better known through the works of the great ancient astronomer and astrologer Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria (2nd century CE). And it was around this time that the fixed system that did not track the actual stars of the visible constellations. So when astrologers talk about Scorpio, it is not the actual constellation, but instead the sign of Scorpio, which happened to conform to the position of Scorpio ~2000 years ago.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all a bit strange, but it is derivative of the idea that the position of the equinoxes is what assigned domains in the sky, each with their given properties and powers, so the signs (what used to be constellations) track the movement of the equinoxes. So, signs =\/= constellations, you can\u2019t just look up but you need some calculations. I highlight this since skeptics will point this out as if astrologers don\u2019t know about precession.<\/p>\n

But this can be rather pointless if astrology doesn\u2019t make accurate or even precise predictions.\u00a0Fred Clark<\/a>\u00a0of the same blogging network has a simple testing procedure:<\/p>\n

When someone asks what your sign is, tell them you\u2019re an Aries (unless you really\u00a0are<\/em>an Aries, in which case, tell them something else).<\/p>\n

If they respond with a detailed description of why that\u2019s appropriate and why, yes, you do seem to embody the classic characteristics of an Aries, admit that you were lying. Tell them you\u2019re not really an Aries, but actually a Gemini (unless you really\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0a Gemini).<\/p>\n

If they tell you that lying about your sign was a very\u00a0Gemini<\/em>\u00a0thing to have done, and then explain how this just confirms that you really are\u00a0such<\/em>\u00a0a total Gemini, interrupt to say that you were once again lying.<\/p>\n

In theory, you could keep this up, repeating the process 11 times. My personal record was four rounds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The same point was stated by\u00a0Hemant Metha<\/a>\u00a0and nicely made by astronomer Neil deGrasee Tyson:<\/p>\n