I was always amused to see the younger generations in India becoming more backward and talking about their sun signs and rashi phala etc .
we in India seem to be walking backward while the countries older generations are achieving scientific break throughs .
one of the best articles debunking astrology is fro ratna sree director of delhi planetarium
I am adding the salient points of the article .here for wider dissemnation of sensible information .
Astrology, an Abuse of Astronomy
Astrology had its place in history. Not because it was a true scientific theory, it never could be that. Nevertheless, their very false notions required the soothsayers to be able to predict the exact positions of the planets for times to come. The drive for patient observations of the planets and their motions against the backdrop of distant stars came from this need. There was also a saner and more logical need to rationalize sky observations with the calendar for agricultural purposes. Astronomy was born out of these needs felt by our ancestors to place themselves in perspective against what they observed in the skies.
Born together, but, these two fields have been diverging rapidly away from each other these many millennia. One to develop into a rich science and the other to remain where it was and yet continue to exploit the insecure and the gullible.
In recent times the controversy over the nature of astrology, whether it is a scientific theory or not, seems to have reached extreme acerbic proportions. While the astrologers are freely indulging in making personal attacks on scientists, the following pertinent criticism of the theory and practice of astrology, is not in any way being answered by them.
To be called a scientific theory, any body of knowledge would have to answer the question ‘why’ at every level. Put another way, there has to be some fundamental interaction of basic elements of nature involved at the root of any phenomenon. Venus in some position has a baneful influence, Jupiter in some other position is beneficial, born at such and such time a person may grow up to be a criminal or a politician – WHY? What is the basic cause behind such statements? When asked to pin down the fundamental interaction of the planets and stars with us human beings which would give rise to such effects, astrologers falter and mumble something about gravitation, electromagnetic radiation or tidal effects.
Gravitation? The gravitational forces of the nursing home, gynecologist, pediatrician and the anesthetist who may be around at the time of birth of a human baby would be far greater than any gravitational force felt from the planets, simply because they are so far away! Similarly, stray electromagnetic radiations coming from your TV screen or sundry other electrical appliances around the house will be far greater than any that reaches us from distant planets, how can the latter affect incidences in your life?
What say we of tides? A statement on an astrological website goes – ‘If the Sun and Moon can exert tidal forces on Earth, which is so huge, to cause tides, can they not exert enormous tidal forces on us puny beings?’ … something like that. The idea being, we do not know what could be the forces that cause astrological influences, but maybe tides have the answer for us…? The point here is that the tidal forces on Earth, by the Sun and Moon are caused precisely because it is so huge. Where do tidal forces originate from? It is not a new or different kind of force – it simply arises from differences in gravitational force felt by the extremities of an extended object – the gravitational force of the Sun or the Moon is larger on that part of Earth that is facing them and smaller on the opposite side. As simple as that. Now try imagining differences in gravitational forces of the distant planets between the tummy and the behind of a baby just born or maybe the head and the toes? Laughable,… tides do not have the answer that astrologers need.
It is true that there a number of physical interactions which have not yet been fully understood from a very basic standpoint – the nature of the nuclear forces, for instance. At the level of complex interactions and chaotic phenomena there are a number of examples where a full scientific understanding and predictability through underlying physical laws is as yet incomplete. All these are rich areas in science where a lot of progress has taken place and there exists room for a lot more work. However, at some level or other these unsolved problems touch upon known and experimentally verified nature’s laws. It is this that is lacking in astrology. The astrologers say – so what if we cannot predict the future very accurately, are scientists able to predict the weather or Earthquakes accurately? The difference here comes in our basic understanding of these phenomena, scientists have plenty of experimental verification for the basic interactions they think underlie weather or Earthquakes or any such phenomenon that is not yet understood in its full complexity. Does astrology have any such basic grounding? No!
So, we do not have a fundamental interaction or force that could explain benign or malignant influences of the planets on our life. But, may be, the cancer of astrology has a way out … empirical evidence? Lacking a fundamental understanding of certain natural phenomenon we may yet find out some partial truth about it by experimentally studying various aspects of it. Most of the astrological predictions are worded deliberately vague. It is this inherent vagueness that turns out to be the biggest strength of astrologers since it defies experimental verification, a basic requirement for any science.
Anyway, let us try our hands at generating statistics to critically examine astrological conclusions. Positions of planets, Sun and the Moon against the backdrop of the Zodiacal constellations at the time of the birth of a person is supposed to determine their destiny, right? Now, let us take the case of astronauts – Only a dozen men have ever set foot on another world. They are the crew members of the six Apollo missions that landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Surely the planetary configurations during their respective birthdates must have had been similar to have given rise to their similar destinies? Given below are the birthdates and the planetary configurations of these dozen who walked on the Moon – (these are actual positions taking the precession of the Earth’s spin axis into account)
Table 1. Positions of the Sun, Moon and Planets among the Zodiacal constellations at the birthdates of the 12 astronauts who walked on the Moon.
Astronaut
Birthdate
Sun
Moon
Mercury
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Neil Armstrong
August 5, 1930
Cancer
Sagittarius
Leo
Leo
Taurus
Gemini
Sagittarius
Buzz Aldrin
January 20, 1930
Capricorn
Virgo
Capricorn
Capricorn
Sagittarius
Taurus
Sagittarius
Pete Conrad
June 2, 1930
Taurus
Leo
Taurus
Gemini
Pisces
Taurus
Sagittarius
Alan Bean
March 15, 1932
Aquarius
Aries
Pisces
Aries
Aquarius
Cancer
Capricorn
Ed Mitchell
September 17, 1930
Leo
Gemini
Leo
Libra
Gemini
Gemini
Sagittarius
Dave Scott
June 6, 1932
Taurus
Gemini
Taurus
Gemini
Aries
Cancer
Capricorn
Jim Irwin
March 17, 1930
Pisces
Virgo
Aquarius
Pisces
Aquarius
Taurus
Sagittarius
John Young
September 24, 1930
Virgo
Virgo
Virgo
Libra
Gemini
Gemini
Sagittarius
Charlie Duke
October 3, 1935
Virgo
Scorpio
Virgo
Leo
Scorpio
Libra
Aquarius
Alan Shepard
November 18, 1923
Libra
Pisces
Libra
Scorpio
Virgo
Libra
Virgo
Gene Carnan
March 14, 1934
Pisces
Aquarius
Aquarius
Capricorn
Pisces
Virgo
Capricorn
Harrison Schmi
July 3, 1935
Gemini
Cancer
Taurus
Leo
Virgo
Libra
Aquarius
Can one see any pattern in the planetary configurations at their birthdates? Surely not? Hold on though, is there something significant in the fact that Saturn was in Sagittarius at the time of birth of most of these astronauts? Not really, as a little analysis will show. The birth dates seem to be clustered around 1930. Why would that be? Well, the Apollo missions were concentrated between the years 1969 and 1972. Quite likely that most of the astronauts recruited around that time would be close in age, so nothing significant in the clustering around 1930 that is seen. Now, Saturn is a planet with an orbital period round the Sun of a little less than 30 years. It is quite natural for Saturn to stay near the same Zodiacal constellation for a few years in its slow motion through the Zodiac. In many instances where astrologers point out significant correlations (as in the infamous Mars effect where someone found Mars to be in some particular constellation for athletes) could have similar explanation by looking closely at honest data.
One can look at alternate data that is not likely to be plagued with such bias. Listed below are the birthdates of a number of Nobel Laureates who had received the peace prize. Again, astrologically speaking, we should expect to see some correlation in the planetary positions on these dates, which we do not see.
Table 2. Positions of Sun, Moon and Planets among the Zodiacal constellations during the birth dates of some Nobel Laureates for Peace.
Nobel Laureate
Date of Birth
Sun
Moon
Mercury
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Mother Teresa
August 27, 1910
Leo
Taurus
Leo
Cancer
Leo
Virgo
Pisces
Lech Walesa
September 29, 1943
Virgo
Virgo
Leo
Leo
Taurus
Leo
Taurus
Andrei Sakharov
May 21, 1921
Taurus
Libra
Taurus
Pisces
Taurus
Leo
Leo
Norman E. Borlaug
March 25, 1914
Pisces
Aquarius
Aquarius
Pisces
Gemini
Capricorn
Taurus
Martin Luther King Jr.
January 15, 1929
Sagittarius
Aquarius
Capricorn
Aquarius
Taurus
Pisces
Sagittarius
Linus Pauling
Febraury 28, 1901
Aquarius
Gemini
Pisces
Aquarius
Leo
Sagittarius
Sagittarius
Dag Hammarskjold
July 29, 1905
Cancer
Gemini
Leo
Taurus
Libra
Taurus
Aquarius
Albert Schweitzer
January 14, 1875
Capricorn
Pisces
Capricorn
Scorpio
Libra
Virgo
Capricorn
Theodore Roosevelt
October 27, 1858
Virgo
Gemini
Virgo
Scorpio
Sagittarius
Taurus
Cancer
Henry La Fontaine
April 22, 1854
Pisces
Aquarius
Pisces
Aquarius
Leo
Capricorn
Taurus
Thomas Woodrow Wilson
December 28, 1856
Sagittarius
Sagittarius
Sagittarius
Capricorn
Capricorn
Pisces
Gemini
Fritjof Nansen
October 10, 1861
Virgo
Sagittarius
Libra
Libra
Virgo
Leo
Leo
Arthur Henderson
September 13, 1863
Leo
Leo
Virgo
Virgo
Leo
Virgo
Virgo
Carlos Saavedra Lamas
November 1, 1878
Libra
Capricorn
Libra
Virgo
Virgo
Capricorn
Pisces
Carl Von Ossietzky
October 3, 1889
Virgo
Capricorn
Virgo
Leo
Leo
Sagittarius
Leo
Cordell Hull
October 2, 1871
Virgo
Taurus
Leo
Virgo
Scorpio
Gemini
Sagittarius
Emily Greene Balch
January 8, 1867
Sagittarius
Capricorn
Sagittarius
Scorpio
Gemini
Capricorn
Libra
Betty Williams
May 22, 1943
Taurus
Sagittarius
Taurus
Gemini
Pisces
Gemini
Taurus
Henry Kissinger
May 27, 1923
Taurus
Virgo
Taurus
Aries
Gemini
Libra
Virgo
This exercise can be endless. Try it for any such list of people and you are sure to see that no patterns exist in the planetary positions, or if at all any faint pattern emerges, it will have a very mundane explanation as in the case of the Astronauts.
By the way, it will be a very simple matter to find out the planetary positions for dates in history. There exist a number of planetarium software, made freely available by dedicated astronomers and educators, which does this job for you in a simple manner. There is a wonderful shareware called skyglobe, produced by KlassM Software, a demo version of which can be downloaded from http://www.seds.org/ Using such software, you can look at the planetary, or stellar positions in the sky in history, as well as a few thousand years in future. All this is astronomy, or rather, celestial mechanics, nothing to do with astrology. Anyway, trying to look at possible patterns emerging during birthdates of famous people could be an interesting senior school statistics project to do and could quickly demonstrate the falsehood of astrology. Students who may be thinking of enrolling for astrological courses, particularly, may do well to look at such simple statistics before making a tricky career decision.
Several astrologers make claims that they have predicted events that have happened. Lets go through a sample - several astrologers are thumping their chests saying that they had predicted the Gujarat quake – what have these predictions been? Take a sample – ‘The nation may face a national calamity in the first weeks of January’, ‘Inspite of many security arrangements the government may be taken by surprise on the republic day’, and so on. These are statements taken from claims being made on the net by astrologers saying that they had predicted the quake.
If the quake had not taken place, these predictions however vague would never have been seen in limelight again, the case with innumerable other predictions these same astrologers would be making day in and day out, and which do not come out as predicted. And then again, the predictions themselves are so vague, as can be seen from the motley sample above, that a person needs to be completely shameless to make such tall claims after the event – making moolah out of vague statements and large scale real suffering of people! Is the harm not obvious? False alarms leading to stampedes in the quake torn towns and people re-building their houses with the right muhurtams and according to Vaastu shastra rather than using mechanical engineering to make their homes quake proof?
Lets go back in time. A story floating around refers to an astrological prediction of Bhaskara that his daughter would become a widow and its happening exactly so! Now, at this period of time, we do not have record to tell us the exact times of Bhaskara to better than a century or two. Where do we have records to verify the truth of this story? Is it not quite likely to be a legend perpetuated by astrologers to better their claims? Following the style of typical astrological predictions, lets say, a statement made at birth of Leelavati that she would undergo a lot of suffering (which Indian woman does not?) may have been taken to mean this event after it happened. If the event did not take place, a difficult childbirth may have been sufficient to meet the case.
The point being made is, one vague statement and a later event which in a roundabout manner be interpreted as a vindication do not constitute a scientific proof of a theory. Correlations are notorious for showing up patterns out of random data. One would have to go far deeper into statistical analysis before any trace patterns that may be seen in planetary positions and human destinies can be used as evidence. In addition, there do not seem to be studies done with any unbiased data that do show any such correlations.
As for the predictions by all the astrologers that may have been made these few thousand years and their vindication – what price precession of the axis of Earth’s rotation? Our home planet goes through a variety of interesting motions – it spins on its own axis, moves along an elliptical orbit around the Sun, and participates willy nilly in all the movements associated with the Solar system as a whole. In addition, its spin axis wobbles around like a top completing one precession cycle in about 26,000 years. At the time that the astrological concepts may have been crystallized these concepts were certainly not known or rationalized.
But, yes, precession did trouble astronomers and astrologers alike every few hundred years or so. Everytime, the calculated positions of planets failed to agree with the observed positions, corrections based on empirical observations were made which held through for a few hundred years till the corrections were needed yet again. The corrections were done by Aryabhata, several astronomers in the centuries following applied further corrections to Aryabhata’s work all the way till late medieval and modern times when these were done by Swai Jaisingh and Samanta Chandrasekhar. It is only later that all these corrections have been rationalized with the precession of Earth’s axis of rotation. That has been progress in astronomical understanding. Astronomers would have no problem in acknowledging that this phenomenon was not understood earlier and it is only now that we are able to predict with good accuracy the positions of planets which will hold good well beyond a few centuries.
Through all these times what has the astrological updating been? Between 2000 BC to 1000 BC, for instance, the Sun was seen in the Zodiacal constellation of Sagittarius during the time of a year that we now refer to as last weeks of November and the first two weeks of December. This Zodiacal sign was assigned to these times of the year, presumably, somewhere around this time. The same story holds of course, for all other Zodiacal signs, Sagittarius was used only as an illustrative example. Currently, at these times of the year the Sun is in the constellation Scorpio and almost moving over to Libra. So people born at these times of the year, who consider themselves as Sagittarians should actually be a cross between Scorpios and Libras. Is this fact being taken into account by astrological predictions? Not taking it into account should not matter, since the whole foundation of astrology is shaky anyway.
Another danger being overlooked here. By harping on the authenticity of certain ancient notions as the absolute truths, we are detracting from the real achievements of these ancient observers. The Vedas seem to be a celebration of life and the elements of nature. The vedic people, apparently, needed to know the positions of planets against the background of distant stars, because they believed these positions denoted certain times as auspicious or otherwise for the performing of sacrifices. We are able to accept that the performing of sacrifices might not be quite the thing … why can we not accept that they may have been wrong in other thoughts too? Inspite of having certain wrong notions, the history of that period is rich with many an advanced, real, contribution to the progress of human civilization. One of these has been long and patient observations of the sky and attempts to fit the observations to a mathematical pattern. The pattern shifts with precession and this was not incorporated. But, it was no mean achievement to have obtained the pattern to this level!
Not only that, the concept of ‘Ayanamsa’ as a measure of precession of the Equinoxes, was something which was observed, worried over, and observational means of calculating and correcting for it were done by many Indian astronomers – notably, Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Nilakantha, Bhaskara, Trivikrama, Vatesvara, Jagannatha and Parameswara among others. The true rate of precession and its complete rationalization was not achieved in order that centuries later the same mismatch need not have troubled scrupulous astronomers like Jai Singh and Samanta Chandrasekhar. All of this can be seen as the progress of the science of astronomy in India through the centuries, a progress far ahead of many of its contemporaries elsewhere. Superstition and orthodoxy, which have always been present simultaneously with progressive thinking, had prevented these advances from achieving far greater progress in their times.
If we do not deify and proclaim from roof tops that Vedas contain everything from cosmology to the human genome project, then a level headed look at the real achievements of our ancients would become feasible. Please, let us not wash away these unique signals from history in a lot of false notions and obscurantism.
