Astrology Apologetics

[Loren Pechtel]

In "defense" of astrology:

Your birth sign actually does have an effect in how you do in life.

Show

The issue is school. We lump all kids born over the range of a year together in one grade in school but some of them will actually be more developed than others. This is a definite factor in sports but has some effect in general education also. Your birth sign is a proxy for how old you were when you entered school.

Only if you forget (as Americans are prone to doing) that other countries exist, and do things differently.

While you can use slightly different measures for what kid ends up in what grade the basic issue exists worldwide.

 

[bilby]

In "defense" of astrology:

Your birth sign actually does have an effect in how you do in life.

Show

The issue is school. We lump all kids born over the range of a year together in one grade in school but some of them will actually be more developed than others. This is a definite factor in sports but has some effect in general education also. Your birth sign is a proxy for how old you were when you entered school.

Only if you forget (as Americans are prone to doing) that other countries exist, and do things differently.

While you can use slightly different measures for what kid ends up in what grade the basic issue exists worldwide.

But different countries start their school years in different months. So the entire system breaks down.

 

[Politesse]

But people who believe they are being healed, by whatever means, do have a higher recovery rate from just about everything. The "placebo effect" may not be caused by the instrument at hand, but it is real.

And if astrological counseling sessions are meaningless bullshit, then so is neotraditional, secular psychological counseling. You might not realize it if you haven't witnessed both, but they use more or less the same strategies to help people cope with the slings and arrows of life. Indeed, I'd rather consult an astrologer than, say, a Freudian. Not that I would do either given the choice.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

While you can use slightly different measures for what kid ends up in what grade the basic issue exists worldwide.

But different countries start their school years in different months. So the entire system breaks down.

So? Your birth sign will have different effects in places where you walk around on your head all the time but that doesn't mean it won't have an effect.

 

[bilby]

While you can use slightly different measures for what kid ends up in what grade the basic issue exists worldwide.

But different countries start their school years in different months. So the entire system breaks down.

So? Your birth sign will have different effects in places where you walk around on your head all the time but that doesn't mean it won't have an effect.

But it does mean it won't have an effect. My position in the school year had an effect; But it was different from the position in the school year that most people living here and born in the same month as me experienced. The two proposed 'causes' - month of birth, and position in the school intake - are decoupled for many people, and we can show that one remains relevant, while the other does not.

 

[lpetrich]

And if astrological counseling sessions are meaningless bullshit, then so is neotraditional, secular psychological counseling. You might not realize it if you haven't witnessed both, but they use more or less the same strategies to help people cope with the slings and arrows of life. Indeed, I'd rather consult an astrologer than, say, a Freudian. Not that I would do either given the choice.

I think I'd prefer a Freudian to an astrologer. Try giving a wrong birthdate to an astrologer and see what happens.

 

[Juma]

But people who believe they are being healed, by whatever means, do have a higher recovery rate from just about everything. The "placebo effect" may not be caused by the instrument at hand, but it is real.

And if astrological counseling sessions are meaningless bullshit, then so is neotraditional, secular psychological counseling. You might not realize it if you haven't witnessed both, but they use more or less the same strategies to help people cope with the slings and arrows of life. Indeed, I'd rather consult an astrologer than, say, a Freudian. Not that I would do either given the choice.

”Neotraditional secular”?
You really hold a grunge agains atheists... , but I dont believe you: in a freudian session the patient is constantly talking and the therapist silent (leading to the rubber duck effect which is actually useful) in the astrological session its the astrologer that informs of what the stats says. Which is pure nonsens.

 

[James Brown]

In "defense" of astrology:

Your birth sign actually does have an effect in how you do in life.

Your birth sign is a proxy for how old you were when you entered school.

I'm not following this. My birth sign is Aries. How old was I when I entered school?

My best friend in elementary school is a Libra. How old was he when he entered school?

 

[DrZoidberg]

In "defense" of astrology:

Your birth sign actually does have an effect in how you do in life.

Your birth sign is a proxy for how old you were when you entered school.

I'm not following this. My birth sign is Aries. How old was I when I entered school?

My best friend in elementary school is a Libra. How old was he when he entered school?

Perhaps he's thinking about the Chinese zodiac?

 

[phands]

As NASA pointed out in 2016, astrology is bollocks, because the stars' positions have changed in the 3000 or so years of this nonsense, and.....

Mimi's birthday is August 4. When she says, "I'm a Leo," she means that on her birthday, the imaginary line from Earth, through the Sun, and out into space on the other side of the Sun points to the constellation Leo.
The trouble is, it doesn't! Read this article and find out why.

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/starfinder2/en/

 

[lpetrich]

Here is what I think that Loren Pechtel's argument is.

Let's imagine that one starts in a school when one is at least 5 years old on September 1. If one is born on September 1, then one gets in at the age of 5. If one is born on August 31, 5 years 1 day. If one is born on August 1, 5 years 1 month. If one is born on October 1, 5 years 11 months or 6 years minus 1 month. If one is born on September 2, 6 years minus 1 day.

So birth sign does correlate with age at school entry. However, this effect is a continuum, not 12 discrete steps.

 

[lpetrich]

As NASA pointed out in 2016, astrology is bollocks, because the stars' positions have changed in the 3000 or so years of this nonsense, ...

Actually a little less than 2000 years, the time since Claudius Ptolemy published his astrology classic Tetrabiblos ("Four Books"), around 150 CE. But it's almost enough time for the Earth to precess through an entire sign.

Ptolemy gets picked on a lot for advocating geocentrism, but I find it hard to hold that against him. There wasn't much back then that clearly indicated heliocentrism. But he was a very good astronomer, and his astronomy book Almagest was a classic.

It is hard for me to think of any big temporal landmark near 150 CE, something that would mark that date out as a big reference date. I especially don't see how the publication of Tetrabiblos would qualify as such a landmark.

While Western astrology has ignored precession, Indian astrology takes it into account. Thus in Western astrology, Aries starts on March 21, and in Indian astrology, it starts on April 14. Indian astrology is a ripoff of Western astrology, complete with the same signs of the Zodiac. Indian astrology also adds the Moon's orbit nodes to the planets.

Why might orbit nodes be significant? The Moon's ascending and descending nodes are where the Moon goes northward and southward across the Earth's orbit plane. This is significant because the Moon only makes eclipses or suffers them when it is near one of its orbit nodes. Otherwise, the Earth and the Moon escape each other's shadows.


There is a further problem. How successful have astrologers been at resolving discrepancies? A precessing zodiac vs. a fixed zodiac is an obvious one, with a big problem for a fixed zodiac being what time to fix it at. Between Western and Indian astrology there is the problem of the Moon's nodes. If they have an effect, that means that ignoring them would cause unmodeled effects, and Western astrologers ought to have identified them. If they don't, then Indian astrologers ought to have noticed that omitting them causes better-fitting predictions.

Then, of course, there are the planets discovered in recent centuries. Why didn't astrologers predict them from unmodeled effects?

 

[lpetrich]

IMO, this is astrology's greatest scientific triumph. When Galileo Galileo observed Jupiter's four big moons with his telescope, Francisco Sizzi wrote a book called Dianoia Astronomica, in which he argued that those moons cannot possibly exist. His big reason: our heads have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth, and in the sky, there are two favorable planets, two unfavorable ones, two luminaries, and Mercury, erratic and indifferent. It is clear that each of the seven openings in our head corresponds with one of the seven planets, a correspondence that extends to metals and the days of the week. But Jupiter's moons would break that correspondence, therefore they cannot exist.

 

[phands]

Here is what I think that Loren Pechtel's argument is.

Let's imagine that one starts in a school when one is at least 5 years old on September 1. If one is born on September 1, then one gets in at the age of 5. If one is born on August 31, 5 years 1 day. If one is born on August 1, 5 years 1 month. If one is born on October 1, 5 years 11 months or 6 years minus 1 month. If one is born on September 2, 6 years minus 1 day.

So birth sign does correlate with age at school entry. However, this effect is a continuum, not 12 discrete steps.

But, as correlation is not causation, and astrology is palpable nonsense, and the liars quietly removed a 13th sign, and the choice of constellations which allegedly have some effect on people's lives, as opposed to those which don't, is purely arbitrary, the whole edifice is dumber than a southern prayer meeting. Why doesn't Ophiuchus matter to liar astrologers , even though it was the 13th of the original set? Why doesn't Orion, another very noticeable constellation, have some say in the matter? The answer, as always....is that it's complete horse puckey.

 

[Politesse]

But people who believe they are being healed, by whatever means, do have a higher recovery rate from just about everything. The "placebo effect" may not be caused by the instrument at hand, but it is real.

And if astrological counseling sessions are meaningless bullshit, then so is neotraditional, secular psychological counseling. You might not realize it if you haven't witnessed both, but they use more or less the same strategies to help people cope with the slings and arrows of life. Indeed, I'd rather consult an astrologer than, say, a Freudian. Not that I would do either given the choice.

”Neotraditional secular”?
You really hold a grunge agains atheists... , but I dont believe you: in a freudian session the patient is constantly talking and the therapist silent (leading to the rubber duck effect which is actually useful) in the astrological session its the astrologer that informs of what the stats says. Which is pure nonsens.

I don't think you know what "secular" means.

Or, as I noted, how astrological consulting usually goes. Have you ever actually had a session?

 

[Playball40]

His argument is actually quite valid. Because 11 months in terms of maturity, especially in boys is tremendous. And because our school system is structured in the way that it is, it's often difficult for those on the younger end of the spectrum to learn, behave and live up to the expectations. Hence they end up labeled that can stay with them forever. Sorry Leos.

Here is what I think that Loren Pechtel's argument is.

Let's imagine that one starts in a school when one is at least 5 years old on September 1. If one is born on September 1, then one gets in at the age of 5. If one is born on August 31, 5 years 1 day. If one is born on August 1, 5 years 1 month. If one is born on October 1, 5 years 11 months or 6 years minus 1 month. If one is born on September 2, 6 years minus 1 day.

So birth sign does correlate with age at school entry. However, this effect is a continuum, not 12 discrete steps.

 

[bilby]

His argument is actually quite valid. Because 11 months in terms of maturity, especially in boys is tremendous. And because our school system is structured in the way that it is, it's often difficult for those on the younger end of the spectrum to learn, behave and live up to the expectations. Hence they end up labeled that can stay with them forever. Sorry Leos.

Here is what I think that Loren Pechtel's argument is.

Let's imagine that one starts in a school when one is at least 5 years old on September 1. If one is born on September 1, then one gets in at the age of 5. If one is born on August 31, 5 years 1 day. If one is born on August 1, 5 years 1 month. If one is born on October 1, 5 years 11 months or 6 years minus 1 month. If one is born on September 2, 6 years minus 1 day.

So birth sign does correlate with age at school entry. However, this effect is a continuum, not 12 discrete steps.

I am very aware of this - I missed the entire first year of school, due to my fifth birthday falling in the year that the local authority adjusted the cut-off date for enrolments by two weeks. I was too young for year 1 one year; and too old for year 1 the next. Had the rules not changed, I would have been amongst the very oldest kids in my class; Instead I was amongst the very youngest.

I don't think it was particularly significant academically, but it certainly made a huge difference on the sports field, particularly as I was a slow developer physically. Playing Rugby League against young men when you are still a boy is no fun at all.

Astrology still has three eighths of fuck-all to do with it though.

 

[phands]

His argument is actually quite valid. Because 11 months in terms of maturity, especially in boys is tremendous. And because our school system is structured in the way that it is, it's often difficult for those on the younger end of the spectrum to learn, behave and live up to the expectations. Hence they end up labeled that can stay with them forever. Sorry Leos.

Here is what I think that Loren Pechtel's argument is.

Let's imagine that one starts in a school when one is at least 5 years old on September 1. If one is born on September 1, then one gets in at the age of 5. If one is born on August 31, 5 years 1 day. If one is born on August 1, 5 years 1 month. If one is born on October 1, 5 years 11 months or 6 years minus 1 month. If one is born on September 2, 6 years minus 1 day.

So birth sign does correlate with age at school entry. However, this effect is a continuum, not 12 discrete steps.

The argument about age of first attending school is valid in and of itself, but that is not affected in any way by the position of some stars. Thus, it it is actually a derail from astrology apologetics.

 

[Jokodo]

In "defense" of astrology:

Your birth sign actually does have an effect in how you do in life.

Show

The issue is school. We lump all kids born over the range of a year together in one grade in school but some of them will actually be more developed than others. This is a definite factor in sports but has some effect in general education also. Your birth sign is a proxy for how old you were when you entered school.

Only if you forget (as Americans are prone to doing) that other countries exist, and do things differently.

Other countries too have cut-off dates before which the default is that you wait another year before going to school, and after which the default is that you go this year, unless your parents make the school's phsysician assess that doing otherwise would be more appropriate.

And even if it weren't so, school starts at a specified time of the year, so even if every individual pupil-to-be is individually assessed, this'll mean a diagnosis of "it's more than time" in one case and "it might be a wee bit early, but waiting till this time next year would be a definite waste" in another. You'd need a school system where you can join class at literally any time throughout the year for the effect to entirely disappear.

 

[Juma]

But people who believe they are being healed, by whatever means, do have a higher recovery rate from just about everything. The "placebo effect" may not be caused by the instrument at hand, but it is real.

And if astrological counseling sessions are meaningless bullshit, then so is neotraditional, secular psychological counseling. You might not realize it if you haven't witnessed both, but they use more or less the same strategies to help people cope with the slings and arrows of life. Indeed, I'd rather consult an astrologer than, say, a Freudian. Not that I would do either given the choice.

”Neotraditional secular”?
You really hold a grunge agains atheists... , but I dont believe you: in a freudian session the patient is constantly talking and the therapist silent (leading to the rubber duck effect which is actually useful) in the astrological session its the astrologer that informs of what the stats says. Which is pure nonsens.

I don't think you know what "secular" means.

Secular means non-religious. Why?

Or, as I noted, how astrological consulting usually goes. Have you ever actually had a session?

Consulting of what? ”Astrology” isnt a certified profession. Seems that you have been exposed to some fishing woo-er.