How do you view astrology?

[DrButch]

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it turns out that sklansky would rather have a son addicted to heroine instead of one that belived in astrology in spite of the evidence

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What evidence?

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The evidence against it. There is plenty.

(You're reading the sentence with an implicit "for it" at the end, but that's not what it says.)

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Oops. I assumed that the original author included the "in spite of the evidence" as a modifier to argue against Slansky's view.

Hmmm... my bias is so strong against astrology that I probably couldn't be persuasive...

[imported_luckyme]

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Astrology addiction is more indicative of inherent problems with brain/mind structure

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So is a heroin addiction.

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Heroin addiction is easier to cure because you only need to deal with the specific addictive nature that herion is laying on the person. You can become heroin addicted by forced injection or twists on that, you don't need a certain type of mind in order to 'accept' the addiction.

It's not just a matter of an 'addictive personality'... if you get hooked on herion you're hooked, no types of people excluded. Astrology, otoh, requires something faulty in the reasoning dept, and astrology is just evidence of it, it's not the cause.

luckyme

[hmkpoker]

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Heroin addiction is easier to cure because you only need to deal with the specific addictive nature that herion is laying on the person.

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That's pretty naive. You do realize that most people who have done heroin tried it once or twice, then stopped, right? Yes, it's addictive, and so is oxy and opium...I've done them at parties before, then yes, there was a mild craving the day after, but I just said no, that's the start of addiction, stopped, and never had a problem with it. Same is true of heroin from what most of the people I know who've tried it have said. Addiction always requires a certain kind of ignorance.

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You can become heroin addicted by forced injection or twists on that

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No, you don't. That doesn't even happen! Who forces people to inject heroin?

I have trouble believing that an "astrology" addiction is as bad as a heroin addiction can be, and in the most extreme cases, I'd say it's a general dependance on New Agey spirituality, but that's far from incurable. Hell, I used to be a pretty naive new ager (my astrology library would probably shock you [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]), but once I realized that it causes more harm than good, I decided to break from it. Anyone willing to get control of their life can do the same, and it's the same will that's needed to break a heroin addiction...except you don't need methadone for an astrology addiction [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[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.

[andyfox]

The constellations are an accident of how the stars happen to line up from one among an infinity of possible points of view. For example, the principal star of Orion, Sirius, is 8.6 light years from Earth. But the stars of the belt are approximately 1,500 light-years away.

The belt is an accident of perspective. From other parts of space these three stars would form a triangle or their order would be reversed. From just the right angle, all three of them would merge in a single light, an apparent triple star. Were you in the center of the space that the three stars enclosed, each would appear in a far-flung corner of the sky.

[Borodog]

Um, Sirius is not in Orion. Sirius is in Canis Major. Rigel and Betelgeuse are the principle stars in Orion.

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From just the right angle, all three of them would merge in a single light, an apparent triple star.

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No they wouldn't... the stars aren't collinear.

Edit: I can spell, really I can.

[andyfox]

Yeah, it's in the nearby dog, thanks.

[andyfox]

Hmm, thanks. I got the information from Miss Leavitt's Stars by George Johnson. I guess you can't believe everything you read.

[BluffTHIS!]

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I guess you can't believe everything you read.

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Your posts in the politics forum are proof of that! [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]