Dangerous pseudoscience: why horoscopes are meaningless and astrology is harmful

From the point of view of the academic community, astrology is a pseudoscientific doctrine. But many still think that this is science, and the position of the planets and stars affects fate. Alexander Panchin together with Trends debunked this myth

Why astrology is pseudoscience

Astrology has been around for thousands of years. But in all this time, not a single person has been able to provide a single convincing evidence that astrology works at the level of scientific argumentation. All experimental checks on astrology ended today with a negative result. Several typical examples can be given.

One of the studies looked like this. In 2009, Indian astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar offered 27 leading astrologers and one whole astrological institute “natal” schoolchildren’s charts, which included birth information necessary for compiling horoscopes. Among the schoolchildren whose cards were presented, there were both outstanding genius students and children with mental retardation. All that was required of astrologers was to predict, on the basis of natal charts, which of the schoolchildren was a child prodigy and which was not. None of them could predict or even guess what was required with a satisfactory percentage of matches.

Another popular experiment that demonstrates the failure of horoscopes was conducted in the late 40s by psychologist Bertram Forer. He offered the students a personality test, but instead of the results, he gave them all the same text with a vague description of the features of one of the signs of the Zodiac. After that, he asked the students to rate how well the results of this mock test described their personality. Students rated the agreement of the results by more than 80%.

contrary to the laws of physics

There are four main types of interactions in physics: electromagnetic, gravitational, strong and weak. The last two operate at very small distances. If we talk about the influence of heavenly bodies on people, then the gravitational effect is negligible. Take for example the influence of Mars on our lives, and find out that the midwife in the hospital, who is next to you, influences you more. Yes, its mass is less, but it is right next to you.

Even to see Mars, you need a good telescope. At the same time, we see the light bulb in the maternity hospital very well, because the electromagnetic radiation of visible light has a very good effect on us.

Astrologers, for some reason, believe that Mars affects people more and should be taken into account when drawing up a natal chart and describing a personality. This makes no sense, as there is no physical interaction that Mars would affect you more than everyday objects that are around.

There is no professional astrology

For many people, astrology is associated with newspaper horoscopes with the twelve signs of the zodiac. But “professional” astrologers draw up individual natal charts, which take into account the time of birth to the nearest minute.

This creates the illusion that behind all this there is some kind of complex computational intellectual process using mathematics, astronomy and precise calculations and special knowledge. However, it is necessary to know that astrologers have not obtained any knowledge in the entire history of their existence, since no experimental tests have been carried out by astrology. For example, the effectiveness of drugs is tested by clinical trials. As for astrology, here people are led to a scientific, as it were, complex and intricate system, because we tend to accept all thoughtful reasoning.

Illusion of truth effect

Gordon Pennycook’s study, “On Recognizing and Defining Pseudo-Profound Bullshit,” describes an experiment where people were presented with randomly generated texts containing scientific words like: “quantum sense generates gravity three times the sine of the cosine angle.” It was a nonsensical jumble of words, although it may sound impressive to an uninformed person.

It turned out that a large number of people found meaning in such a set of random words. And among them, in turn, there is a much larger proportion of those who believe in various anti-scientific ideas, including astrology. This is used by those who are trying to create the appearance of scientificity and hide the lack of a research approach.

When reading a horoscope, a person sees a certain text that immediately fits a very large number of people. And since he was convinced that this description was made by science, the person agrees that this is a text specifically for him.

Harm of astrology

Astrology does a lot of damage. Firstly, people are deceived, earning a lot of money on this. An entire industry has been built around this, which worsens the well-being of people. Secondly, astrology, like any anti-scientific idea, pulls others along with it.

A person who becomes ill with the human immunodeficiency virus may eventually die not from the virus itself, but from the fact that against the background of reduced immunity and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, opportunistic infections occur. Other viruses, bacteria, fungi attack the body and finally destroy it. It’s the same with anti-science myths. One pulls the other.

A person who believes in astrology will inevitably face the understanding that the scientific community denies it, but will not accept this and will consider that there is a conspiracy, and scientists are fools who cannot be trusted.