Apart from this filing under the “Duh” department for any rationally thinking human being, this is quite old news, but i hadn’t actually seen this specific news-piece, and it’s been popping up on some social networking sites so I figured I’d make a quick note of it so you have some ammo next time your aunt tries to read your star-chart.
Basically all i have to go on is this article from the Daily Telegraph, but they are, as far as i can tell, a fairly reputable newspaper, so i’ll suffice with that for now. As you can see if you go ahead and read their article, it will have a time stamp of August 2003, so this isn’t exactly breaking news.
More or less what the scientists did, was pick 2000 babies born in a very similar time, in some cases just minutes from eachother (and all in the same star-sign, obviously). According to astrology, this should mean that they have similar character traits and other such things. Not surprisingly, no such things were found. This is of course something you could’ve told yourself, but it’s always nice to have some concrete evidence behind you to back up your claims. If you’re interested in some of the specifics of it, I suggest you read the telegraph article. It’s actually quite good and not the usual sensationalist stuff they usually print when it comes to science.
Also interesting to note, assuming that the figures that the article uses are correct, is that more then half of the population believes in astrology now-a-days (or at least back in 2003), compared to only 13% 50 years ago. You would think (and hope) that with the increased scientific knowledge in the world, and the easy accessibility to it through the Internet, that the general public would be more informed and able to rationalize that astrology could not possibly be true, but sadly the opposite appears to be happening.
As a final word on this, i highly recommend, if you haven’t already, to read Phil Plaits article where he debunks astrology systematically (Phil Plait is the author of badastronomy.com, another great science blog).
RSS Feed
April 25th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Yes, I read this article too, and the Telegraph is usually a serious and respected newspaper which I have read on and off for decades, but I was sadly disappointed to notice something that I hadn’t noticed before and thought this paper was too sensible for; they have a horoscope!
April 25th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
While it’s common practice for the scientific community [myself included] to discredit things like astrology and more broadly religion as a whole, I don’t think that’s a very good practice.
Let me explain.
I do agree that religion shouldn’t be pushed as fact. I don’t think that a person should be able to put that the earth is 6000 years old on a geology test and get it right. But I also think it’s important to look at the whole picture.
For thousands of years humans relied on the seasons to guidance. It’s no surprise that they looked to the heavens and imagined a celestial force running the world. Behavior patterns are built on the seasons and on the changing of the constellations as a consequence.
I think astrology and other areas like it are important to understand the human social history and evolution. Ignoring something because it’s silly isn’t very scientific. There is a lot to be learned from a historical point of view rather then a practical point of view.
April 27th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I should of course have been more specific, it sounds like i’m saying that The telegraphs science coverage is sensationalistic (if that’s a word hah), but i just meant mainstream media in general usually does that. I don’t read the Telegraph enough to really have much of a opinion on their science writing.