[hmkpoker]

I have a bit to say on the subject.

Four years ago I was actually very interested in astrology, and wanted to be a professional natal chart reader (I was making side bucks as a tarot reader at the time too). There is a little bit more to astrology than generalizations in the newspaper; the "science" of astrology usually involves a natal chart, which is a personalized graph depicting the placement of all the planets, the moon, and the horizon based on the time and place of birth. This results in a somewhat personalized chart for each person. (For example, I'm a mid-aries with third triant libra rising, moon in aquarius, etc.) There is a little more specificity than one might think.

I used to, as an exercise, have people send me natal data of people I didn't know so I could write analyses of them and see how accurate they were. I had some arguably good results. My best was guessing that the woman the chart referred to was a pre-school art teacher who taught with the desks arranged in a circle (I still don't know how I did that). I've seen a few professional delineations that seemed pretty accurate (had a few amazing tarot readings too).

I stopped the new age stuff after being disgusted with my ex-girlfriend, who spent more money on crystals than on bills, and pretty much had no control over her life. I agree, there's no scientific reason to believe astrology has any merit (even new agers fail to give a decent...or ANY...explanation in this regard) so I don't put much faith in it, or really care whether it's true or not. And secondly, astrology is not terribly useful, so it doesn't really matter.

If you want to prove or disprove astrology objectively, there's an obvious scientific experiment that could be performed: gather together a bunch of random people and get their natal data. Then get the world's best astrologers, and have them interact with the subjects, let them ask questions (obviously stuff regarding their birthdays is off limits), then have the astrologer try and identify the subject's chart from a short list, like multiple choice. Or, alternatively, give the astrologer one chart and have the astrologer interview several subjects, and assign the chart to the correct subject. Repeat ad nauseum with a large sample size.

A statistically significant correlation will confirm natal astrology, a random distribution will debunk it.

To my knowledge, no such experiment has every been done, although I'm pretty sure it would settle the score pretty well. Unlike, say, religion, astrology is a simple process with mundane results, so you can disprove it empirically. I don't know what the results would be. I lean toward random given my skepticism, but I'd kind of like to see some truth to it. I'm mostly apathetic toward it, but it is "neat" nonetheless, and I think it's fun to think about.