Anecdotal evidence is an informal account of evidence in the form of an anecdote. The term is often used in contrast to scientific evidence, as evidence that cannot be investigated using the scientific method. The problem with arguing based on anecdotal evidence is that anecdotal evidence is not necessarily typical; only statistical evidence can determine how typical something is. Misuse of anecdotal evidence is an informal fallacy [1]
What is astrology? Invented sometime around the third millennium BCE [2], astrology evolved into a conglomeration of different belief systems, all of which describe a predictive system from inferred positioning of planetary, constellation, and astronomical bodies. Astrologers believe that the arrangement of astronomical bodies, according to the time of your birth, can predict your personality traits. Whats more, they believe that they still have influences even after your birth.
Astromancy refers to a kind of astrological fortune-telling that views the stars as predicting an irrevocable destiny for the person having her or his fortune told. Modern astrologers tend to distance themselves from this tradition of predicting specific events. Instead of predicting events, most contemporary astrologers describe upcoming planetary conditions, with the understanding that clients have the free will to respond to planetary influences in different ways. Like meteorologists, astrologers can only predict trends and probabilities- not details. [3, pg. 54, italics mine]So by making vague predictions about "trends and probabilities" they've rendered their divinations unfalsifiable, which makes them pseudoscientific claims. The idea that astrology can predict your personality is fortunately a claim that can be scientifically tested and, oh snap, they have! Here's a study published in the Telegraph hilariously titled "Astrologers fail to predict proof they are wrong"
For several decades, researchers tracked more than 2,000 people - most of them born within minutes of each other. According to astrology, the subject should have had very similar traits.
The babies were originally recruited as part of a medical study begun in London in 1958 into how the circumstances of birth can affect future health. More than 2,000 babies born in early March that year were registered and their development monitored at regular intervals.
Researchers looked at more than 100 different characteristics, including occupation, anxiety levels, marital status, aggressiveness, sociability, IQ levels and ability in art, sport, mathematics and reading - all of which astrologers claim can be gauged from birth charts.
The scientists failed to find any evidence of similarities between the "time twins", however. They reported in the current issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies: "The test conditions could hardly have been more conducive to success . . . but the results are uniformly negative."Another one: Is Astrology Relevant to Consciousness and Psi?
A meta-analysis was conducted pooling 40 studies consisting of 700 astrologers and over 1000 birth charts. Ten of the tests, which had a total of 300 participants, involved subjects picking the correct chart interpretation out of a number of others which were not the astrologically correct chart interpretation (usually 3 to 5 others). When the date and other obvious clues were removed no significant results were found to suggest there was any preferred chart. [4]This study often refers to astrology as being very similar to shamanism. Which is somewhat true, but often astrologers are teetering on the edge between pure magical thinking and reason. When you read astrological books, they often present the vague notion that its predictive capabilities are somehow scientifically attained by inserting complicated "science sounding" filler.
Aspect refers to the angular relationship between various points in a horoscope especially to a series of named angles, such as trines (120°) and squares (90°) The twelves signs of the Zodiac, in addition to being bands of astrological influence, also provide astrologers with a system for locating planets and other points of space. A circle contains 360°, each 12 star signs representing 30° slices of the circle. Hence, a planet located near the beginning of Aries, for instance, might be at 1° Aries; in the middle of Aries, 15° Aries; and so on. Earth, which is understood to be at the center of the horoscope (unless one is using a heliocentric or Sun-centered system), constitutes the vertex for any angle between planets or between other points in the chart. Thus, for example, if Mercury is located at 1° Aries, it would make it a semisextile (30°) aspect with another planet. [3, pg 40]Let's just analyze these statements for a brief moment. All of the angles and names of angles are definitions of astrological aspects. They have not changed since Ptolemy made them up in the 1st Century AD [5] along with the positions of the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Due to the slow warbling of the earth on its axis, the length of time the sun transits through the position of a Zodiac constellation would vary in the number of days it would take to pass (traditional Astrology is supposed to be a set 30 days for each constellation). Also, there is actually not just 12 constellations, but 13 (Ophiuchus). [6]
Astrologers often dodge scientific refutations of their chosen subsystem with various astrological reasons, regardless, the scientific findings still call into question the very basic effectiveness of sun-sign astrology. When a basic predictive ability (of which all of astrological predictions are based on top of) is proven to be ineffective and you can only account for its ineffectiveness by piling on top of it pseudoscientific jargon that supposedly accounts for the fact that it still doesn't work, you have to dismiss any claims to its validity. The fact is, it just plain doesn't work. Nevermind about which forces are supposed to be influencing it (is it gravity, weak nuclear, strong nuclear, or the electromagnetic force that makes planets and their particular alignment positive or detrimental to the human condition?). When the scientific data falsifies your predictions over and over again, you must dismiss any clinging threads of belief.
People don't actually still believe in astrology in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence do they? Actually yes, they do. According to a 2005 Gallup poll in the UK and the US, about one-quarter of the population agrees with the statement "Astrology or the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives." [7] With this many people believing that their personalities and destinies can be divined by planetary alignments when "Where astrology has made falsifiable predictions, it has been falsified." [2] then rational minded individuals need to stand up and stop allowing it to pervade our newspapers and the minds of impressionable children.
The amazing Phil Plait, of BadAstronomy.com sums up the harm astrology does on our society very succinctly:
For one thing, it's estimated that hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on astrology every year in the United States alone. That's real money, folks, wasted on something that doesn't work.
For another, astrology promotes the worst thing in the world: uncritical thinking. The more we teach people to simply accept anecdotal stories, hearsay, cherry-picked data (picking out what supports your claims but ignoring what doesn't), and, frankly, out-and-out lies, the harder it gets for people to think clearly. If you cannot think clearly, you cannot function as a human being. I cannot stress this enough. Uncritical thinking is tearing this world to pieces, and while astrology may not be at the heart of that, it has its role.
For a third, and this one irritates me personally, astrology takes away from the real grandeur of the Universe. We live in an amazing place, this Universe of ours, and it's quite fantastic enough without needing people to make up things about it. Astrology dims the beauty of nature, cheapens it.[8]
Sources
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdote
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology
[3] The Astrology Encyclopedia 1994 by James R. Lewis
[4] A summary of the article's findings found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology#Scientific_appraisal
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_aspect#Major_aspects
[6] http://www.livescience.com/4667-astrological-sign.html
[7] http://www.gallup.com/poll/4483/americans-belief-psychic-paranormal-phenomena-over-last-decade.aspx
[8] http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/astrology.html#harm
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