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Astrology

Statement

Astrology chart Astrology is the method of determining the character and future of a person through the alignment of the stars and planets. Astrology does not work and cannot predict future events or personalities. Astrology is a failed science. The fact that people have been using astrological divination for thousands of years does not mean it works. The notion that the stars and planets affect your personality or events makes no scientific sense. Known physical effects of these bodies are negligible. The choice of the stars in constellations are random both in visibility from the earth when you include the southern sky and in their distances from earth and each other. The gravitational, electrical effects of planets is also negligible and astrologers ignore the effects of asteroids; of equal significance with other bodies. Horoscopes cast by astrologers are usually quite vague. If you randomly assign horoscopes to people without telling them, they find the horoscopes describe them quite well and offer good advice. Astrologers explain that twins or people born on the same day in the same geographic area may not have the same character or future because the time of birth is not exactly the same. If the final outcome varies so widely with the exact time of birth, the theory is essentially useless. Does it matter if you are born in Scorpio if being born 2 minutes later radically changes your outcome?

Sources

Astrology - Skeptic's Dictionary
George O. Abell and Barry Singer, eds. Science and the Paranormal: Probing the Existence of the Supernatural. New York: Scribner's, 1981. 296-309.
Online Edition of Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia. Copyright 1993 Grolier Electronic Publishing, through Compuserve
The New Columbia Encyclopedia, Harris and Levey, Eds. Columbia University Press 1975, p.171
James Randi, Flim-Flam! (Buffalo: Prometheus Press, 1982, pp. 55ff