Astronomy and Astrology

Okay, so some Americans (and others in the world) apparently think that astronomy and astrology are the same, or that astrology is somehow “scientific”.  In actual fact, it’s astronomy that is the science. Astrology is… something else.

Let’s talk about that, shall we? (I’m putting on my lead-lined armor now.)

Astrology (as “practiced” today) is a pseudo-scientific “method” for predicting people’s lives based on some magical and heretof0re-unmeasured properties of the Sun and planets that somehow affect people at the moment of their births. It’s based on the position of the Sun in various constellations as seen by ancient stargazers millennia ago.

The problem for astrologers is that time has moved on and due to the precession of Earth on its axis, the constellations the Sun and planets THEY use to predict who you’ll date next week have shifted by a month. So, if you’re a Libra, the Sun was probably actually in Virgo when you’re born, or if you’re a Taurus, the Sun was really in Aries. That’s just one of the problems with astrology as a method for predicting your love life or your work life or whatever it is people turn to it for. (I remember a president’s wife who consulted astrologers…)

Astrologers do not actually physically study the stars to understand how they work. I’m not sure what they study because descriptions of their methods are full of mumbo-jumbo that boggles the mind. I spent quite a bit of time looking around at “real” astrology sites and of course, no two of them agree on methods. That’s not science. It’s obfuscation. And, in many cases, astrologers somehow imply that their mysterious methods are scientific. They’ve hijacked a word that doesn’t belong to their practice and use it to lend what they do a false air of legitimacy.

More to the point, the claims of astrology — such as that the Sun or a given planet somehow had an effect on you on the day of your birth — can’t be checked on. You can’t measure the things astrologers claim are there. That’s because there’s NO unearthly, ethereal connection between the Sun and you on your birth day. Oh, people have argued that the Sun has some sort of mystical force, but it lies a long ways away from Earth. So do most of the planets.  Their distance would actually attenuate any such force because forces fall off as a function of distance.  It could be argued that the person delivering you had MUCH  more of an influence on you, since he or she was much closer to you. But, that doesn’t fly with astrologers, apparently.  Suffice to say, astrology’s claims can’t be tested. It can’t be the science it claims to be.  It CAN be a belief system, and people are welcome to believe in it all they want.  It’s their time and money.  But, as it’s practiced today, it’s not a science and never will be.

Ancient astronomers WERE astrologers, claiming all kinds of mystical things from their divination of the stars. From them we got our star and planetary motion charts. They were pretty good observers. But they weren’t scientists and their interest in the cosmos was as a tool to power and glory, not an explanation of the physical characteristics of the stars and planets. That came much later, when people who really DID want to know how things worked began studying the sky as scientists.

Look, I GET how our minds and spirits are lured by the pull of the mystical. Every child goes through a fairytale phase, a magical phase, a unicorn phase, whatever you want to call it. Our subconscious WANTS to have ghosts and spirits and fairies and wizards for some reason. But, that part of the brain shouldn’t rule the intellect. Eventually, most of us grow up to learn more about the wonders of the cosmos through astronomy. Believe me, it’s more amazing than any sparklepony vampire-glitter fairy-powder tales can explain. The information is there for anyone to study, science can be tested and improved. Astrology’s claims are stuck in the past, and astrologers don’t want them to be tested. There’s power in them thar readings! (Just not the power you expected.)

The job of explaining how the universe works has never been the job of astrologers. That important job belongs to  astronomers — scientists who focus in on the physical characteristics of stars, galaxies, planets, and the cosmos. They have a pretty good idea of what forces are at work in the universe, such as gravity. They know how stars work, at least in general. They have figured out, using observations and measurements, how stars form, how planets are both, what the first stars were like, how galaxies formed. And, they know that there are no magical, mystical forces emanating from stars and planets.

So, there really should be no confusion about what an astronomer does and what an astrologer attempts to do.  The first is based on science and observation. The second is based on mysticism and misunderstanding.  The world has moved on, literally, beyond our need for mystical, magical beings and soothsayers. The universe is more amazing than any sparklepony an astrologer can gin up for you. You just have to want to see that for yourself.