Written in The Stars

Astrology, you could define it in multiple ways, but generally speaking, it is the interpretation of this universe’s star and celestial activity and how that relates to our world. Many people get this mixed up with astronomy. While both study the universe and have similar origins, astronomy studies the movement of the universe outside of the Earth's atmosphere, and astrology focuses mainly on how this movement relates to the Earth and all of its events.

The debate of astrology and whether or not it’s an actual “science” has been going on for quite some time. Philip Balla, a freelance science writer, and trained chemist at the University of Oxford, picks up on this topic and argues that while astrology has been proven by many scientists to be under the category of pseudoscience, it has been vital in the development of science. Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician discovered the laws of planetary motion while also casting horoscopes for The Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. In addition to this, the ancient Babylonian empire made discoveries of geometry through astrology (Ball). So if astrology has made some influences on the ancient world, how come it seems so unreliable in today’s world? As earlier mentioned, astrology has been proven to be

a pseudoscience, and there have been numerous studies, tests, and experiments directly disapproving the validity of astrology. An example includes a quantitative experiment conducted by David Voas, a quantitative social scientist who currently is a professor of Social Science and Head of the Department of Social Science at the UCL Institute of Education. In this experiment, he wanted to test whether people’s love signs affected their chances of getting married or staying married. Twenty million married couples in England and Wales were tested and analyzed by the Senior Research Fellow at the University’s Center for Census and Survey Research (Voas). The results showed that there was no real evidence of the attraction between star signs. Although this data may seem like something that everybody knows and it should be common knowledge, in 2017 Pew Research Center reported that around 29% of the total American population believed in astrology (Gecewicz). People still believe in astrology either by social trends or how superfluous it is in western culture i.e. zodiac signs are printed in newspapers to add interesting content that may give the impression that it is legitimate information. Furthermore, as Jesus says in the old testament, close to the beginning of time itself, “Don’t look to the skies, to the sun or the moon or the stars, all the heavenly bodies, and be led astray, worshiping and serving them. The Lord your God has granted these things to all the nations who live under heaven” (Common English Bible, Deut. 4:29).

References

Ball, Philip. “How Astrology Paved the Way for Predictive Analytics”. The Guardian. 11,

Sept. 2020. www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/11/how-astrology-paved-way-predictive-analytics. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

Common English Bible. Bible Gateway,

www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%204:18-20&verson=CEB. Accessed 22 Nov 2021.

Gecewicz, Claire. “‘New Age’ Beliefs Common Among Both Religious and Nonreligious

Americans. Pew Research Center. 1, Oct. 2018. www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/. Accessed 22 Nov. 2021.

Temming, Maria. “Astrology vs. Astronomy: What’s the difference?” Sky and Telescope:

The Essential Guide to Astronomy. 14, July. 2014. skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/whats-difference-astrology-vs-astronomy/ Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.

Voas, David. “Love Not in the Stars”. Manchester 1824. 26, Mar. 2007.

www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/love-not-in-the-stars/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021.