Topics Science

Question Is astrology really a science that can be proven? Can the alignment of the planets of when and where someone was born make them who they are?

Accepted:
October 30, 2005

Comments

In spite of the enormous interest in astrology over thousands of years and by some very bright people, there seems to be no good reason whatever to believe that the position of the planets when you are born affects your future.

It's perhaps worth adding the astrology evolved at a time when people's conceptions of what planets are were very different from what they are now. There was a time when it was thought that the planets were points of light embedded in giant crystalline spheres whose rotation was caused by the tireless work of angels. If that were what planets were, then, well, gosh, who knows what strange and wonderful inferences could be made from their positions.

That astrology survives despite the downfall of this kind of conception is testament to some profound human impulse.

And just to pick up on one word from your question, one reason astrology cannot be proven is that no claim about the natural world can be proven. Justifications in natural science are always such that we can accept their assumptions and yet intelligibly question the truth of their conclusions; the truth of the ultimate assumptions don't force the truth of their conclusions. (This "forcing" is what's distinctive about proof.) This does not characterize arguments in mathematics, but it does those in the natural sciences. So, in point of being capable of being proved, there is no real distinction between astrology and astronomy. That doesn't mean that there isn't an important difference between the two. There is: we have very impressive evidence for many claims in astronomy and no good evidence for believing any astrological claims.

The "profound human impulse" mentioned by Richard Heck in his response is worth characterizing further: it is the impulse to believe that there are correlations between dimensions of which we have direct experience (the earthly, the present) and those which lie beyond the realm of experience (the cosmos, the future). But the believer forgets that these correlations only work in virtue of the other-worldly, cosmic dimensions being and of course remaining other-worldly. Astrologers establish a correlation between the movements of the astrological form (itself a mere collection of unrelated astral bodies connected by lines) and the earthly, biological dimension. But it is only because the form is an intangible construct that it can be meaningfully correlated to life on earth in the first place. By drawing a celestial form one draws a human one. Astrology may thus seem true (but about what?) because the very possibility of attributing meaning to what is intrinsically meaningless confers on it the meaning that one is looking for. That is why it still "works" for so many people.

Question Is astrology really a science that can be proven? Can the alignment of the planets of when and where someone was born make them who they are? Accepted:October 30, 2005

Question Is astrology really a science that can be proven? Can the alignment of the planets of when and where someone was born make them who they are?

Accepted:
October 30, 2005