Ball lightning is one thing, astrology is another. While there is some evidence to support the existance of ball lightning, AFAIK there are no unbiased studies at all which have provided evidence for astrology's correctness...

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If ignorance is bliss, why is the world so full of misery?

I believe we still have a basic misunderstanding here.

First of all, I just brought up the case of ball lightning to show that in some cases phenomena exist for which we have no explanation right now.

The conclusion that ergo there must be something to astrology which you attribute to me is incorrect. I never said that.

I applied a conditional phrase "If it is true that there is something to astrology, could there also not be...".

You seem to interpret my statements in an apparent role which you have assigned to me (e.g. fringe).

As to your final statements: astrologers are not chomping at the bit to find an explanation. Most of them are only interested in the results. Scientists, for their part, have never seriously studied the methodology of the Jungain school of astrology in an attempt to conduct any tests to prove/disprove it, because their minds are made up a priori, e.g. it can not possibly work because we have no explanation for it so why even look at it.

There certainly are no observations to explain if you do not attempt to observe in the first place. The only way to do this is to study the methodology and conduct an investigation. There has never been an investigation into this type of psychological-based astrology. Just attacks against tabloid astrology.

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

Correct. And why? Because none have ever been conducted. See previous post. (I do not mean Gaugelin's tests, I mean tests for psychological-astrology).

The ball lightning example was just to elucidate the principle that we do have phenomena for which we have no current explanation.

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

No one said we didn't.

I inferred that from the way you followed it with your opinion on astrology. If the two points were unrelated and just happened to appear next to each other in your post then I apologise.

So to paraphrase: "If there's an unexplained phenomenon, then couldn't there be an explanation for it that we don't yet kow?" Well unless you believe in the supernatural then this is vacuous tautology.

You use this line of reasoning on everyone who disagrees with you so I won't take it personally

Many genuine believers of much nonsense have become skeptics as a result of trying to prove their beliefs scientifically. Others turn into pseudo scientists. Even if astrologers are not at all interested in why astrology works (strange enough) surely they would be interested in showing that it works.

If the Jungian school of astrology is so different to all the others that have been thoroughly debunked in the past then surely they would want to distance themselves from the others, maybe even change the name, and possibly give some evidence for their claims.

"Tabloid Astrology" is just a strawman. We've been talking about charts for very specific times and places of birth. It is not up to the scientists to prove the astrologers wrong. If they have any evidence for their claims they should present it. Testimony is not enough, they need to do proper tests. They refuse because they know they're peddling the by product of an out dated mode of transport.

You have this amazing ability to come up with really bad analogies.

First, ball lightning exists...it has been observed...not knowing exactly what causes it doesn't make it's existance "go away".

Second, you seem to be saying that this "natal astrology" works, but that scientists don't understand the process by which it works. Another thing that made me laugh is the idea that real scientists would waste their time studing something that's basically made up.


Let me try this again...

The problem with any type of astrology is that it uses position/location of astronmical objects to (and I'll even use your word here) describe what a person's traits are without any reasoning, whatsoever.

It boils down to "When the Moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, THEN, being born under these "conditions" will directly relate to what kind of personality one will have.

It's just a flat-out statement based on what? How do the Moon, Jupiter, and Mars have any effect on people?? For example, if a person were born when a planet was in a certain position, and another person were born when that planet were in a differnt position, they (according to this) should be different...and that hasn't been proven...not at all.

...And it really doesn't matter if you call it "predictive" or descriptive", because astrology (of any type) can't do either.
It's just a series of statements based on nothing!

Now, I'm not saying that you're not welcome here, but perhaps you'd best be served if you posted about natal astrology on a psychology board, or better yet, an astrology board. This is, after all, a science board, and as such, the people here will demand evidence for any "against the mainstream" claim. Problem is that you can't provide any. You (basically) just keep saying the same old things over and over and over again. The BA has been very considerate to allow this thread to continue, but the time grows very short when you'll have to give us something. This thread is 13 pages of nothing.

Yes, we know that you think that there is "something" to this natal astrology, but you're thinking is not enough for the people here...we want to see evidence...you have none to offer.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

I told you what has to be done. You have to study the methodology and try it out.

I agree we have come to a dead end:

I can not offer you any proof other than to say, try to understand it, then try it out. You refuse to do it.

You say refuse to do it, saying I have to prove it. You will not even look at it.

BTW: I have no interest in posting to an astrology board. This is an excellent board, except that I have difficulty in comprehending the refusal of posters to even look into the methodology. And by look, I mean read the books I mentioned, then try it out. Of course, it your minds are made up a priori, you will refuse to do this.

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

gzhpcu

Earlier you said, "What I am saying is that there is IMHO no acceptable, rational scientific basis for astrology." But now I'm getting the impression that you do think that there is a rational scientific basis for astrology, but it just hasn't been discovered yet. Correct or no?

Do you believe that if scientists objectively researched Jungian astrology, that they would come to the conclusion that there's something to it?

Are you certain that there has been absolutely no research done on your preferred type of astrology? I don't know either way, myself.

Just in case the others take on the "predictive" "descriptive" stuff is still a mystery to you, I'll illustrate with an example. Say you do the natal chart of a newborn baby. Now, the baby has all the information needed to map out his/her personality with the chart, but the baby is not yet old enough for his/her personality to have fully developed or manifested. So, in effect, the natal chart "predicts" what personality this baby is going to have when he/she gets older.

Congratulations, Lycus. That is a perfect example. (I wish I had thought of it. )

Gzhpcu, if after reading Lycus example, you still insist that natal astrology is descriptive and not predictive...well, then we really have nothing further to discuss.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Yes, that’s what I’m assuming. A natal horoscope shows the tendencies and free will and environment makes us who we are.
I think you have me confused with gzhpcu. I did not make that claim. On the contrary:
I was wrong here. Some people state that birth order can determine personality traits. I’m unsure whether it’s scientifically accepted.

Agreed, but science is also about observations and trying to explain those observations. gzhpcu has made some observations and is trying to explain them. 35+ years ago, I had my horoscope done. There were errors, but some parts of it were accurate enough to get my interest. In those 35+ years, some erroneous statements became accurate and some accurate statements no longer appeared to apply to me. So either astrology is bunk or other factors are involved. Astrology needs to be evaluated with these other possible factors, ie environment and free will.

gzhpcu, may I make a recommendation. If you do a chart again, ask the person what their most memorable childhood experience is and their birthorder. See if you can include those into your evaluation and if improves your accuracy. Also, if you have someone evaluate your results, have them rate the accuracy on a scale of 1 to 5 instead of right and wrong.
I disagree. A well written program would be the best way to prove the astrology. Trouble is, try finding a competent programmer that is also a competent astrologer .

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"To excel in physics is to embrace doubt while walking the winding road to clarity." - Brian Greene

Lycus,
OK, yes I see your point. I will now agree that the natal horoscope is predictive.

There really has not been any scientific study done of astrology other than the famous Gaugelin tests. I am not aware of any test on the type of astrology I am interested in having been done.

Here is a link, which I find goes a long way explaining the situation and also reflects a bit the discussion we have been conducting in this thread:
Astrology

Yes, the quote from me is correct. The comment is simply that as things stand today this is the case. Since I am still puzzled by my own personal experiences, I can exclude the possibility of some link between science and astrology of which we are unaware.

Klausnh,
When I criticize canned text, the reason is the following:
- it is usually used by programs which simply list the canned text according to the parameters detected
- this might lead to errors, either because the orb (i.e. strength) of an aspect is not taken into considered, or
- no integration/synthesis is done to resolve or show potential conflicts between parameters.

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

Phil, are you aware of any mechanism proposed by which this is all supposed to happen? I'm not asking you to explain it yourself - but have you heard of any?

I would specifically exclude gravity/tides. Those are easily shown to be utterly insignificant at such distances. We can also exclude the strong and weak nuclear forces for the same reason, and electromagnetism for that and other reasons. In fact, all of the known physical forces can be excluded because they are dependent on distance (as well as mass or charge) - something which astrology ignores.

Just wondering.

I would almost categorize the last sentence as an ad hominem. I'll just assume that isn't intentional but based on misunderstanding. Let's see...

There is natal astrology. There is Feng Shui. There is dowsing, remote viewing, astral projection, homeopathy, energy balls and many, many more. There are many methodologies for each and even more books. Reading all of them and trying them all out is enough work for a few life times. So why would we spend many hours we wouldn't get back, knowing that we are most likely wasting our time?

An incentive would be some evidence that the subject is actually real. On the subject of natal astrology all you have presented us your assertion that there is something to it based solely on the fact that you think your horoscopes actually apply to people. Well, the Forer effect was mentioned already, which leaves us with nothing but one person who shows signs of deluding him/herself.

Then there is the refusal of the scientific method, which is widespread in the woowoo community and thus does not exactly create confidence. More specifically, if something has an effect, that can be measured and scientifically researched. If it is outside the realm of science, as you claimed for astrology, it just exists in some peoples' heads and isn't objective reality.

Also, the claim that your favorite strand of astrology wasn't debunked so hard it wouldn't stand up again in scientific research is a rather easy cop out. As soon as one topic is convincingly debunked, just modify it here and there, give it a new name and proclaim that this one didn't get debunked yet.


And by the way, here's some test of the methodology you can do on your own: Pick a random list of dates and locations, some subjects on which you want to concentrate, then sit down and create horoscopes for these dates. Lock them away and don't look at them any more. After a suitable amount of time passed (say, a month) and preferably after you did some other horoscopes so that it is pretty sure you don't remember the details, take the list of dates and redo the horoscopes. Then get the original horoscopes and compare.

If they aren't mostly identical, your method is flawed. It still doesn't disprove astrology, but if you don't have a working method you can't possibly know if there is something to it. And no, claiming that astrology isn't exact doesn't help you. If horoscopes are not accurate to a degree and not reproducible, they are simply meaningless and that means that there can't possibly be something to astrology.

sts60,
No, I am aware of any mechanism but must admit that once I started getting what I considered from my point of view as being positive results, I was no longer interested in this researching this aspect.

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

Andreas,
I agree with much of what you say. I know there are a lot of things out there that one does not want to spend time on investigating.

However, you do state you are wasting your time in studying astrology. I can understand and respect your decision but regret it at the same time.

Actually I did not modify my claims in regards to testing astrology. I may not have been initially clear enough when speaking of natal astrology that I was only refering to the kind I tested, namely the Jung pscyhological - astrology school.

As to the test you mentioned, I have actually re-interpreted a number of horoscopes after a year, without consulting the previous horoscope, and have come up with effectively the same interpretation except for a number of addtiion points which I have in the meantime picked up with experience.

So who knows? Maybe I am an unwilling example of someone who has fallen for the Forer effect. I do not know.

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

{emphasis mine)
Glad to see you admit that you don’t have the definitive answer.

Do you think every successful scientific investigation did not involve hours of “wasted time”? Don’t you think that for every scientific accomplishment there were many more that were unsuccessful. So how does one decide which observations to investigate? Plate tectonics and solar wind are just 2 examples of people “wasting” their time because there was no scientific reason to continue investigating them. I have not made any observations on FengShui, dowsing, remote viewing etc, so I am not interested in them. If someone has made observations, then they should use the science and investigate them, or at the very least keep an open mind. If it’s a “waste of time” then it’s their time to waste. (BTW, I have made some observations on the concept of Chi, if you like to “waste” more time learning about it)

Actually there are 2 delusional people in this thread.
As I stated before, science does not do well in making predictions when free will is involved. Astrology allows for free will. If I understand you correctly, you do not accept free will since it cannot be measured or researched. How does science prove or disprove free will?

Edited: added smiley

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"To excel in physics is to embrace doubt while walking the winding road to clarity." - Brian Greene

Glad to see I am not entirely alone....

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

Hope you don't mind an answer from me.
One idea is that the planets have no influence in astrology, but were used by ancients as a cosmic clock to determine time of birth. So if a child was born with the sun in Leo, moon in Pisces, etc. it was a way of dating the birth. However, this still does not explain why a child born in a certain time and place should inherit unique traits.

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"To excel in physics is to embrace doubt while walking the winding road to clarity." - Brian Greene

Now there was a group of psychologists that sorely needed to have their licenses revoked. Hopefully they're all retired or otherwise no longer practicing. :roll:

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Nice straw man Klausnh .. when are you going to quit boring me and actually make a case for astrology when you post? I can respect gzhpchu's position. He might believe but doesn't pretend to approach his belief scientifically. "Free will" and "science?" :roll: .. this is worse than your Mach Principle. You mock science by invoking it IMO. If you can't tell me how Mars affects someone at birth "scientifically", just admit it. Comparing free will and science won't cut it.

If anyone is interested, here is a link which presents the marriage of Jungian psychology and astrology:

Glenn Perry on Psychological Astrology

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

From the linked site:

Now there is a psychologist who sorely needs to have his license revoked.

Why is it not surprising that the license was issued in California?

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Four Arguments Against Astrology -- Part One -- Missing Data

In this post and the ones following I am going to present a few arguments against astrology, some of them possibly novel. These arguments are:

1. Missing Data
2. Coordinate System Dependence
3. Unused Aspects
4. Lack of a "Paper Trail"

No one would think much of a discipline that throws away two-thirds of the data available without using it, and certainly no one would call it a science, yet that is what astrology does. Astrology only uses the longitudes of the Sun, Moon, planets and (in some systems) lunar nodes. I cannot fault the ancients for not using distances, they had no clue as to their relative and absolute values, but they did have observations of latitudes. I know of no system of astrology that takes latitude into account.

Astrology also makes a big deal out of whether the motion of a planet is direct or retrograde (for those planets capable of both). No mention is made of the relative velocity of this direct or retrograde motion, nor is any account taken of whether the latitude is increasing or decreasing.

Let me soften this argument a bit: some of the effects that I attribute to missing data could be hidden in the interpretations given to the presence of the planets in the various signs. The nodes and perihelia of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto all move very slowly, so that close oppositions with the outer planets always occur in the same signs for thousands of years at a time. Likewise a planet is north of the ecliptic at certain longitudes and thus in certain signs for thousands of years at a time. But this is not true of the Moon, whose nodes complete one revolution in the retrograde direction every 18.6 years, and whose line of apsides complete one revolution in the direct direction every 8.85 years.

Lastly I will mention the very fact that the ascending and descending nodes are counted as "planets" in some systems of astrology. If you have N planets, you will have a total of N*(N-1)/2 pairs of nodes. If you count the Sun and the nine planets (substituting Moon for Earth) you have 45 pairs of nodes. By my argument above, though, the only pair that exhibits significant motion on a human time scale is the pair of nodes for the Sun and Moon. A truly rigorous astrology developed from first principles (if such a thing could be done) would use all of the coordinates of actual celestial objects and not use imaginary objects such as nodes. The use of the Solar-Lunar nodes can only be justified as a substitute for the full computation of Lunar coordinates that ancient astrologers were unable to perform.

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Maksutov,
I grew up in California... Are you implying a "California Connection"?

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

Four Arguments Against Astrology -- Part Two -- Coordinate System Dependence

One theme of twentieth century physics has been the principle of "general covariance". General covariance means that one can always state the laws of physics in a coordinate-free manner, and once stated, they can then be stated for any system of coordinates that we wish to use. (I just know that milli360 is going to tear into this one!)

All systems of astrology I've ever seen have been heavily dependent on three coordinate systems: the ecliptic system used by western astrology, the equatorial system used by Chinese astrology, and the horizon-based system of "houses" used in western astrology, in particular the natal astrology that we've been discussing here.

Time for a thought experiment: Maybe we'll never go to the stars, but at least I hope that we do settle elsewhere in the Solar System. Eventually there will be a child born on a spaceship somewhere between here and Jupiter. What should an astrologer choose as the "horizon" so that they can calculate the ascendent and houses?

Somehow astrology needs to rid itself of its coordinate system dependence, yet still allow for variability from place to place.

A postscript: Please keep in mind that general covariance is a guide, not a discriminator. Newtonian gravitation can be expressed in a coordinate-free form, but it is very messy compared to general relativity. On the other hand, if a theory cannot be expressed in a coordinate-free manner, we are probably correct in dismissing it.

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Four Arguments Against Astrology -- Part Three -- Unused Aspects

One of the crucial parts of astrology is the interpretation of aspects, usually defined as when the differences in longitudes (elongations) are certain submultiples of 360 degrees. The submultiples used are:

360/1 = 360 = 0 degrees -- Conjunction
360/2 = 180 degrees -- Opposition
360/3 = 120 degrees -- Trine
360/4 = 90 degrees -- Quadrature
360/6 = 60 degrees -- Sextile

Noticeably missing from this list are the two "quintiles", at 72 degrees and 144 degrees respectively. Nor are there any higher submultiples, such as 360/7, 45, 40, 36 degrees, etc., and their multiples. Even if we can justify stopping at sextile, there is no reason for ignoring the quintile aspects.

Another problem I have is that these aspects are calculated using only the ecliptic longitude. A rigorous astrology would use all the coordinates and calculation of the aspects would be one dot-product away. Some marginal aspects would go away if latitudes were included in the calculation.

Also, the general practice is to count an aspect if the elongation is within 5 degrees of the nominal value, that is, if the elongation is between 175 and 185 degrees it is counted as an opposition. If, as seems logical to me, the influence of the higher order aspects is weaker, the range should also be smaller, a trine might only be valid within 3 degrees, a quadrature within 2. This must be determined by observation! There is no substitute. This would also lower the number of aspects in a typical chart.

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Four Arguments Against Astrology -- Part Four -- Lack of a "Paper Trail"

Read any paper in a peer-reviewed science journal and you will see a list of references, usually at the end, but (rarely) in footnotes. References can be used in many different ways. They can be used to outline the history of the topic of the paper. They can be used to refer the reader to a proof of a stated result elsewhere in the literature in order not to interfere with the flow of the paper. (And to save space. Those page charges are a killer!) They can refer the reader to alternate approaches to the topic of the paper. And yes, sometimes they can be padding meant to show off the "erudition" of the author, although I think most quality journals filter these submissions right out.

What exactly constitutes the "literature" of astrology? Where did all these descriptions of "what Mars in trine to Uranus means" come from? Where are the observations? Who did them? If Sepharial wrote one thing and Robert Hand another, and Carl Jung still another, which one are we to believe?

In celestial mechanics our literature goes back to Ptolemy and Copernicus, but the modern era really starts with Kepler and Newton. For each century from the seventeenth on there has been one encyclopedic work that summarizes the state of the art for that century. These books are:

17th century: Principia, Sir Isaac Newton.
18th century: Mecanique Celeste, Pierre-Simon de Laplace.
19th century: Mecanique Celeste, F.-F. Tisserand.
20th century: Celestial Mechanics, Yusuke Hagihara. (I hope I have the name right.)

Works by Gauss, Euler, Lagrange and many others figure in the literature of celestial mechanics. What are the "classics" of astrology? Which works are the "encyclopedic" references of astrology?

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Celestial Mechanic,
I think we are all in agreement that the astronomical (and scientific) foundation for astrology is very dubious.

Regarding the slow moving planets, just one comment:

During interpreation of the natal horoscope, the planets are placed in two groups - personal and generational. The placements in the signs of Uranus through Pluto are applicable to an entire generation or more than one. Also aspects between these planets are regarded în the same fashion.

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

I'm not at all sure that a psychological foundation is any better.

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Actually some astrologers have a table definîng the orb (elongation in your terminology) in function of the aspect and of the planet involved, for example, Robert Hand. On one end of the scale a conjuction between sun and moon has an orb of 9 degrees, a sextile between moon and uranus has an orb of 4 degrees and a quintile between the sun and pluto has an orb of 3 degrees.

Regarding the minor aspects, while neglected by most astrologers, some do list them and interpret them:
Quintile: 72 degrees
Septile: 51 degrees 25' 43"
Semisquare: 45 degrees
Novile: 40 degrees
Decile: 36 degrees
Semisextile: 30 dergees
Quindecile: 24 degrees
Vigintile: 18 degrees
Unnamed: 15 degrees

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“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.

Granted. All I can really say is to experience it yourself.

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______________________________________________
“He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever”
Chinese proverb
"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure." - Mark Twain.