“So, what’s your sign?"
More than just a corny pickup line, astrology in various forms, has been with
mankind for a very long time. People from various countries and cultures, have
often looked up to the stars for guidance. Million of people read their daily
horoscopes, though most look at it as a mere form of entertainment. Other
people genuinely take the art of astrology very seriously and think it is a
valid medium with which to predict a person’s personality, as well as their
immediate future (though most serious astrologers view magazine horoscopes as
just being entertainment).
So where did it all get started? Around 3,500 years ago, the
ancient Babylonians were attempting to correlate events that happened on earth
(e.g. good crop yields, bad diseases) with things they noticed in the night
sky. This was not the first time that this happened, either. Other ancient
cultures, such as the Mayans and Aztecs, developed their own form of astrology
too. Most of the astrology we see today, though, comes from India,
Europe and China.
All of it, though, is either deeply routed, or deeply influenced by Babylonian
astrology.
Early astrologers simply correlated earthly events with
celestial ones. It wasn’t until mathematical astronomy developed (which allows us to predict the movement of
stars and planets), around 612-539 BC, that astrologers started to “predict"
the future. It was also around this time that the “twelve" signs of the zodiac,
were created. The oldest recorded horoscope dates back to April 29th 410 B.C. It comes from an
old clay plate that was made for the birth of a Grecian man. The tablet is very
similar to the natal horoscopes given out today. Even more similar, though, is
the vague prediction given about the person. The parts of the tablet that have
still survive, state:
“…things will be good for you."
Early Babylonian astrologers were called: Chaldeans. They
would set up shops in cities, and offer their services to passersby.
Interestingly, it wasn’t until they did this in Greece,
that the concept of free will was entered into the equation. Ancient Greeks
viewed these chaldeans as jokes, and their predictions to be patently false.
They refused to believe that the stars themselves dictated their actions, and
that they had no free will. Because of this, astrologers adopted the belief
that the stars can only show “possible pathways" through life. This turned out
to be a greater boon for the chaldeans and future astrologers, than it did for
the Greeks. Now astrologers had a viable excuse for why their predictions did
not always come true.
Finally, we come to the most influential man in astrology:
Claudius Ptolemeaus. Also known as Ptolemy, he wrote the book: Tetrabiblos. In it, Ptolemeaus attempted
to consolidate all the various aspects of astrology at the time, into some sort
of viable standard. Tetrabiblos is generally regarded as the modern
astrological “bible," from which all western astrology derives.
Okay, so now we see where it all got started, but what’s
with the surge in popularity? Astrology was on the downturn back in the 1600’s,
as astronomy really took off. It wasn’t until the relatively recent events of
World War I, that astrology really started to pick up again. So, why is it that
in this day and age, with the knowledge available to most industrial and
post-industrial nations, that astrology is so popular? Could it actually be a
viable means of telling the future, or a person’s psychology?
So far, that answer is an emphatic NO, from the scientific
community. Despite the fact that one Gallup
poll found that an estimated 50% of Americans believe in astrology, there has
been no scientifically valid evidence to back up this belief. On the contrary,
there are quite a lot of counterexamples for it. In fact, there are so many
counter-examples to the validity of astrology, that most scientists just
dismiss it as a fun diversion. Still, for the sake of closure, a few such
examples are given below.
For starters, we have the arbitrary nature of astronomical
symbols themselves. All the traditional planets of our solar system (i.e. none
of the recently discovered planetary candidates), were named after Roman gods.
This assignment was completely arbitrary. There might have been some logic
behind it (Mars is red, war has blood, etc.), but overall there is no real
reason to think that just because Venus was named after the goddess of love,
that it should hold any sway over one’s relationships. If the “effects" of the
planets on people, had any real relationship to the planets themselves, then
Venus should be the ruler of bad gas, not love.
Other things to consider are the fact that many astrological
terms, are holdovers from a time when the Earth was believed to be the center
of the universe (geocentric). As such, astrologers still talk about cycles and
epicycles. How many times has one heard an astrologer (or astrology minded
individual) say that “Mars is in
retrograde."
Then there is the fact that Uranus, Neptune and Pluto have
only been discovered within the past 250 years. Many astrologers assert that
astrological techniques have been accurate for numerous centuries. If planets
affect people, then one cannot discount these three which is to say nothing of
the recently discovered “10th planet."
Another nail in the proverbial coffin is the mysterious
omission of the 13th sign of the zodiac: Ophiuchus. This constellation falls along the ecliptic, and houses
the sun during one month of the year (December). Yet modern astrologers choose
to ignore the “serpent bearer," in favour of the 12 zodiac symbols. The reason,
they cite, is the turbid history of the constellation. Ophiuchus lies in a spot
in the sky, which once housed multiple constellations. This argument tends to
fall apart, though, when one considers that the ancient Greeks, as well as
“father of modern astrology," Claudius Ptolemeaus, both considered Ophiuchus to
be a valid constellation. The more likely scenario seems to be that 12 zodiac
symbols fit rather well with the 12 months in the Gregorian calendar. As such,
the reason for the omission seems to be convenience and aesthetics, rather than
any real problem with the constellation itself.
Two more examples of where astrology fails the test of validity
include twin studies and the affect of precession. With twin studies, one sees
how two people born at the same time and same place are able to lead lives
completely different from each other, even though their astrological horoscope
should work for both of them. The affect of precession is even more interesting.
As Earth spins through the universe, it “wobbles" along its
axis due to the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun. This wobble can be
compared to the wobble that we see when we spin a top. Even when the top spins
very fast, one can still see it make a small circle on the area it is spinning.
The Earth does something very similar to this. The geographic North Pole makes
a 23.5 arc around, what’s known as, the ecliptic pole. This
precession proceeds at a rate of 1 for every 180 years.
Because of this, the placement of the constellations in the
night sky, no longer conforms to their position in the original tropical
zodiac. Every zodiac symbol is now off by 1 month. So if one is born in the
constellation Virgo, they are actually in the constellation Libra, and so on.
There is a separate type of astrology called: Sidereal Astrology. It does take into account, the precession of the
planet. It does this by deducting ~24 from the constellations. Both
versions still suffer from the fact that the constellations themselves, are not
of equal size, and thus, do not fit neatly into the 12, 30 “slices"
of the sky, that astrologers have assigned them to. As such, constellation overlap
still occurs.
More examples include the affect of gravity (why worry about
Saturn’s pull, when the moon’s pull is so
much stronger!), to magnetic field affects (modern electronics produce
magnetic fields much more powerful than Earth’s).
Astrology can be a fun and entertaining diversion for many,
but one should always keep in mind that it is for entertainment purposes only.
"There is hardly
an absurdity of the past that cannot be found flourishing somewhere in the
present." - Will Durant
The Iconoclast is a student at the University of New Mexico and part of the web building team at http://www.gifteteria.com.
