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Astrology, like other forms of pseudoscience, tries to lay claim to the prestige of science without submitting itself to the discipline of the scientific method. The key is falsifiability. Some believers in astrology consult a horoscope published in a newspaper, which claims to make predictions for the coming day. Newspapers often publish horoscope columns with the title "Astrological Forecast," implying that they should be considered on the same footing with weather forecasts. However, astrology has failed carefully designed empirical tests of its predictive claims,[1] unlike meteorology, which, although not always correct, has been proved to be statistically more accurate than random guessing.
As is often the case with pseudoscience, the practitioners of astrology respond to such disproof either by changing their claims, or by refusing to accept the scientific method as a valid test of their claims. As an example of changing their claims, some astrologers may say that astrology is only useful when the astrologer can have personal contact with the client, in which case the newspaper astrology columns should be abolished. If, on the other hand, the scientific method is to be rejected entirely, the problem is that astrologers do not agree on any alternative method of determining whether a particular astrological method is any more or less correct than any other.
There are also some specific criticisms about methodology that scientists make of astrologers. Almost all modern astrologers eschew direct observation in favour of specially constructed astrological ephemeris.
Astronomers dispute the existence of some and claim others are trivial well-understood relationships despite irrelevance to astronomy. Scientific verification of the existence of astrological influences have yielded negative results in most, but not all, cases. Scientists claim the effect of tidal forces is too weak over a small area, such as the human body, to have influence on biological organisms. Astrologers counter that gravity may not be the mechanism of astrological phenomena, whereupon the opponents dispute the existence of correlations.
Main article: History of astrology
The belief in a connection between the heavenly bodies and the lives of people has played an important part in human history.
For the overwhelming bulk of human history, astrology and astronomy were regarded as one and the same subject, with a distinction being made between "natural astrology" (the study of the motions of the heavenly bodies, timing of eclipses, etc.) and "judicial astrology" (the study of the supposed correlations between the positions of various celestial objects and the affairs of human beings).
Isidore of Seville (d. 636) was one of the first todistinguish between astronomy and astrology. However, astronomy did not begin to be separated from astrology until the 16th century, when, with the system of Copernicus, the conviction that the Earth itself is one of the heavenly bodies was finally established.
The study of astrology and the belief in it, as part of astronomy, is found in a developed form among the ancient Babylonians; and directly or indirectly through the Babylonians, it spread to other nations. It came to Greece about the middle of the 4th century B.C., and reached Rome before the opening of the Christian era.
In India and China, astronomy and astrology are largely reflections of Greek theories and speculations; and similarly with the introduction of Greek culture into Egypt, both astronomy and astrology were actively cultivated in the region of the Nile during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Astrology was further developed by the Arabs from the 7th to the 13th century, and in the Europe of the 14th and 15th centuries astrologers were dominating influences at court.
A most important application of mathematics during the Middle Ages was in astrology; astrologers were called mathematici. Inasmuch as the practice of medicine was based largely on astrological determination of the proper treatment, physicians had to become mathematicians, and thus astrologers as well.
Even up to the present day, men of intellectual eminence have convinced themselves that astrology has a foundation of truth, just as there are still believers in chiromancy or other forms of divination.
There is an obvious tendency, however, for astrology to be employed, like palmistry, as a means of imposing on the ignorant and credulous. The generally established belief of the scientific community is that astrology is either mere superstition or absolute imposture, and that its vogue is due either to willful deception or to fatuous, unscientific gullibility.
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