Does astrology work?

[cantdog]

No.

Pycho-somatic, maybe, like other shaman "magic."

Have you read Asimov's critique? He sketches the origin of the zodiacal signs, and then notes that the sun and moon are not, nowadays, actually in the 'house' that the traditional horoscopy says they are, due to the precession of the equinoxes. The sun and moon have moved on, while the dates given have stayed fixed. So that, even if there had ever been any validity to the astronomical influence on one's life, the system used would guarantee a false reading.

 

[cantdog]

Errrmmmm.... phenomenal exercise in missing the point. The sun is, as you say, very very large and very very heavy, and also very very far away. The midwife is relatively small and relatively light, but she's very very close by. The gravity exerted by one body on another is a function of the mass and the cube of the distance. Regardless of whether the midwife is actually touching the baby or not, the gravitational attraction between the baby and the midwife is greater than the gravitational attraction between the baby and the sun, because the sun is a long, long way away.

OK?

PS Expect this fellow to miss the point, Simon-- you'll be more accurate than most horoscopes.

 

[cantdog]

I read the horoscopes sometimes but don't take them seriously. I am quite sure they are pure bunk. I'm a Libra, by the way, and we Libras are hard to trick because we are smart and can calculate and think things over.

Told you ! You got wit, dude. I love it.

 

[cantdog]

I bought a year-in-review science magazine last month and they had a small segment called, "Stuff We Pretty Much Figured Was True." It included short paragraphs overviewing science papers published within 2006. Sure enough: "Your sign doesn't shape your personality. In one of the largest studies of it's kind ever undertaken, researchers in Denmark found no validity for astrology's link between one's star sign and character traits." Don't worry though, there's always hope for tarot cards. That is until the Danish start investigating them.

I think, notwithstanding, that there is a place for coin flipping, tarot reading, I Ching, and all the rest. Scapulomancy, if you know somebody who can do one.

Most of the time, you can go ahead and make decisions, rightly or wrongly. You go by what you know and by what you assume and intuit. Once in a while you can realize beforehand that you have insufficient data. So, since you have no way to make a rational decision on the facts, that's when you bring on the divination.

Since you have nothing to guide you that you can count on, you may as well invite your luck.

Besides, I find that while the coin is in the air, I usually develop a desire that it land heads or tails. That lets me know that I have already decided what I would prefer to be the decision, and that resolves it.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Belief in astrology, as with most religions, is just a leap of faith, isn't it? You're believing that this person or newspaper column will somehow predict natural random occurrences.

Truth be told, what most call the modern astrological calendar was devised by the Babylonians, some 2,000 years ago. Problem with that is, the rotation of the earth has shifted some 30 degrees since then, relative to the signs deemed astrological.

So, by the calendar, I'm born an Aquarius, but by the actual stars in the sky, I'm a Pisces. What the fuck ever.

Just as the lottery is a tax on people who are no good at math, astrology is a tax on people who are no good at science. Morons.

--Zack

Just as the rotation of the earth has shifted since then, so has the study of the stars (including astrology) shifted since then. Do not think that just because it is ancient that it is dead or has stagnated since ancient times. It continues and grows just like anything that continues to be in use.

Believe or don't believe, but I don't see the point of calling those who do morons. Especially when it is the skeptic such as your self that often has an incorrect understanding of what they are trying to disprove.

Many great scientific minds have believed in things that are considered to be "occult" "psudoscience" or "bunk." So, it's really untrue to say that only the uncientific minded could believe in these things or that only morons do.

Germs where once considered by the scientific community to be "bunk." I think mollecules and atoms probably once where too. History has shown time and again that just because science hasn't proven something (and even sometimes when it has 'proven' the opposite) doesn't automatically make it false. Science to me is a false idol. It is a tool for understanding things, not the absolute truth of the universe.

 

[Pure]

simon said.

Originally Posted by SimonBrooke
Errrmmmm.... phenomenal exercise in missing the point. The sun is, as you say, very very large and very very heavy, and also very very far away. The midwife is relatively small and relatively light, but she's very very close by. The gravity exerted by one body on another is a function of the mass and the cube of the distance. Regardless of whether the midwife is actually touching the baby or not, the gravitational attraction between the baby and the midwife is greater than the gravitational attraction between the baby and the sun, because the sun is a long, long way away.

OK?

---

no.

first, it's the square of the distance.

I cranked out the numbers for both Sun and Jupiter and they clearly have greater gravitational influence that does the midwife.

Equation is F = G * M*m/[d**2]

G=6.67 * [10**-11]* N*(M**2)(KG**-2), but can be ignored, since it's the same.

Take the mass of woman and the midwife, each at 6*10**1 kg

Take the distance as, one half meter, 5*10**-1 m


[Ignoring G]The top of the equation will come to (6**2) * ( 10**2) kg
The bottom will be (5**2) * (10**-2)

We're in the vicinity of G* [10**4.], i.e. 1.44[10**4]

---
For the woman and the sun,

the sun's mass being 2*[10**30] kg

sun's distance, 150 million kilometers, 150*10**6 km or

1.5* [10**8] km or 1.5 *10**11 m

Now the top of the equation is [6*10**1]* {2*10**30]}

The bottom is [(1.5)**2] * (10**11)**2

We're in the vicinity of 10**32 on top
And 10**22 on the bottom

or roughly F= [G]* [10**10] overall or .5*10**10 or 5*10**9

I make that about 6 orders of magnitude in favor of the sun.

---
For Jupiter I used 2* 10**27 kg for mass. and
for average distance 10**12 m.

So the result is similar in that the result is about F= G*[10**5]

about 1 order of magnitude in favor of Jupiter.

--
IN a word, the sun's mass being a trillion, trillion, million times that of the midwife, [corrected, 12:37 pm edt]

more than compensates for its distance being 100 billion times farther away, even with the square factor.

----

this objection is generally without merit.

---
revised 12:00 noon edt to calculate in meters rather than km.