h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hmm, bored tonight, so I'm going I've been musing a little on a new vague interest of mine: astrology.

Now I have always been very skeptical of astrology. Something that irritated me very much recently was when someone told me that I was skeptical because I'm a stubborn capricorn. Ok, so I can see the funny side, honest.

Anyway, I still remain skeptical of the idea that the movements of the stars and planets have any measurable effect on a person. The inverse square law means that you'll experience a greater gravitational field from your kitchen sink than from Pluto. The only other noticeable effect would be light. Well how many babies star gaze? These effects are negligable

At this point I should point out that I am not a very "spiritual" person, I do not believe in mystical energies or whatever. I believe in the world I have evidence for from my senses. If I had evidence for other worlds from my senses then things would be different, but I don't.

Onwards then, why am I even bothering discussing this? Clearly I think its a load of nonsense. Except then there are the statistics. Now as much as I hate it, a huge chunk of science that I am quite happy to believe in is based on statistics. Energy conservation, entropy & occam's razor for instance. Ok so I know that these can all be violated small scale, but the statistics are strong enough that for my life they become certainties. When I think about this it applies to almost everything I believe in, starting with my own existence.

So then I believe in statistics, and then there are statistics demonstrating astrology. However, I know that statistics are slippery things and so are people. Statistics supporting astrology are almost always created by people who's livelihood depends on astrology, and that evokes cynicism. Then I look at the methods of collection and calculation when they're published and things begin to look dodgy.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you look hard enough for something then you will find it. If you put in a large amount of data about a small sample of people into a computer and have it search for correlations then its going to find correlations.

It doesn't make that much difference whether that data is about whether they were abused as a child or whether they happened to be a Taurus with Jupitur Rising (see, I can make nonsense up too, hell its gotten me through enough exams) or whether they have hairs on their feet. I'm still waiting for someone to put the theory of relativity and all the known positions of stars into a computer and 'prove' that the universe spells out the name of the devil or something.

So here's all my cynicism. I really don't believe there is any substantial evidence that the stars or planets affect out personal lives, or indeed our societies.

But what I might believe about astrology is that the time of year at which you were born might have a noticable and perhaps even testable effect on a person. We will see. I haven't had enough time to test this for myself yet. The issue at stake is: is the time of year at which you were born a big enough feature to make a dent in our personalities alongside all our other experiences of life? If so, could it act in a loosely predictable manner, or would it simply be lost to chaos?

feels dense

Heh, it is kind of long and boring isn't it? I was kind of talking to myself and then I thought I'd write it down and see if anyone else had any thoughts. Summarised it is:

1) Most of astrology is complete and utter bull.
2) The time of year at which a person is born might have an effect on their personality, although again it might not.
3) Most of the evidence about this stuff seems to be made up.

lol