Astrology's Utility

I'm a avid non-astrologer. As a means for understanding the world, it's as pseudo-science as one can get - with no plausible mechanism, good reasons for seeing the patterns as artefacts of the mind, and evidentially doesn't describe what its meant to do. Astrology isn't dominant in our culture, but newspapers still carry star signs and there are people who look to the star signs as determining personality. It's total nonsense, and I cannot stress that enough.

Recalling my childhood I remember, however, where astrology did have a utility. It was something that helped form a bond between my brother and aunt, who had close birthdays and shared the same star sign. She got him a blanket with a lion that he really loved as well as a stuffed toy. His star sign, in other words, was used to enrich his childhood.

This is just one case where astrology has had a positive influence on the world. Would they have bonded over other things? Perhaps, but because of the belief in astrology it seems that there was this bond in particular. As Douglas Adams put it, it's people thinking about people.

I can recognise that utility without supposing that astrology is true. I can also recognise that positive outcomes like this exist while maintaining that astrology is harmful nonsense. Because it's not these experiences that make astrology harmful, but that these experiences don't contribute to the truth value of astrology and it's in the apparent truth value of astrology where harm can result. The utility of astrology doesn't mean the truth of astrology.

Morning Scepticism: Astrological

Astrology is, generally speaking, a way to ascertain knowledge about affairs and events that happen here on earth. It's like trying to figure out how a ball would behave if let go - for if we knew how the ball would behave then we have a predictive power for the future. The hope, ultimately, is to use such a tool in order to have better outcomes than would happen without. The problem, though, is in the notion of a causal mechanism. There's nothing linking the stars to personalities or events, except through the practice of astrology itself. The belief that Mars ascending might signal a good time to go to war will mean that looking back there will be a correlation between war and the ascension of Mars. It's causation, in other words, is entirely imposed by the pattern itself.

It's not to say that one needs to know a mechanism in order for the pattern to be meaningful, after all washing hands helped reduce infection before the germ theory of disease was known. But the lack of mechanism, combined with the tautological nature of causation based on the explanation is what makes astrology an unwarranted belief.

Morning Scepticism: Anecdotal

There are so many problems that come from the subjective nature of anecdotes that it really should be obvious that they aren't data. Take astrology, for example. That there are people born around the same time as you who might have a similar personal is not evidence that astrology works at all. At best it's going to be an amusing coincidence. But beyond that, how can anyone possibly see it as fitting a pattern? It's trying to find a pattern with only tiny pieces of data, data that is gathered and recalled subjectively, prone to all the problems that come with being human.

It's nice to hear that two similar people have found each other, but to think that it could possibly mean that there's a link between us and the constellations? Be serious!

Morning Scepticism: Astrology

It would have to be out of desperation that anyone would leave important life decisions to some chumps vague interpretation of stars and planets. I can appreciate that life sometimes seems out of control, that there's confusion over what to do and the need for assurance over life-changing decisions. But astrology is pure interpretation and from a really tenuous source at that. How could such a tenuous source of validation be anything other than temporary and fragile?

Morning Scepticism: Relevance

A critique of astrology involving the lack of causal relation between the stars and us, constellations being an artefact of the earth's relative position, and empirical studies show there's no link between star sign and behaviour is don't going to satisfactorily be counted by complaining that the non-astrologer doesn't know what Mars being in ascension signifies. Likewise, could people please stop complaining that atheists don't know theology? It's as irrelevant as a non-astrologer understanding that Leos are passionate or something.

Morning Scepticism: Astrology

How does a modern astrologer justify the practice? The wandering stars are merely other orbiting planets as seen from our perspective, the constellations are but the Sun's relative position in the galaxy - there's nothing that could possibly link what we see in the skies to what happens here on earth. Yet the belief still persists and many take it seriously.