The Unbearable Stupidity of Astrology

Every winter, I go star gazing at least once and just listen to Greek and Indian mythological stories. Stories that were invented when we had no understanding of the universe. Stories that didn’t know what stars actually were. We just saw shapes, we put them together and voila, we have characters. Some are amazing spreading across the sky, some are small though significant. However, some of them moved weird (planets). They were in a different parts of the sky every season. No one could understand that. People assumed they might be God. Hence, the names.

The seed of Astrology was this innate and insatiable thirst of the unknown. Humans have always tried to solve difficult puzzles. What we can’t answer, we either ignore or make stuff up with our powerful imagination.

Who put them there? Why do some stars move and others don’t? I see a dog in the sky. Oh there I can see a bull’s face. Does that mean anything? It should mean something if I can see it, right?

This is how it began. We attach meaning to stuff we can’t understand. The early religions basically worshiped the nature. No one could understand why it rained, why it became hot or cold and who started the forest fire destroying out settlements. Astrology was just another irrational misfitted piece in the puzzle that we had to come up with to fill the void of knowledge the Cosmos put forth.

Even the great Astronomer Ptolemy believed that stars could affect our lives for better or worse. He among others of his generation advised rulers on strategies of war, on husbands for their daughters as well as on prediction of weather patterns and prosperity of the kingdom. But Ptolemy knew there was no exact science. He made predictions and reiterated based on whether the prediction came true. Some were false positive, some false negative. Machine learning 101, pretty much.

Coming to the present, we have the ultimate con artists. They use specific software to input your date and place of birth, generate a beautiful looking chart of the sun sign, the moon sign and the planetary positions during that time, and with the most elegant stupidity start blabbering out shit so generic that if you hear them out of context, it would sound like the bumper sticker of a random truck. But, people fall for it. And I want to get to the root of it. I am going to list a few defensive points by Astrology believers.

Astrology is Mathematics mentioned in the Vedas

Well, the Vedas somehow missed out on the Pythagoras Theorem, but yes, it must be right about Astrology.

Did Vedas have the part of Nuclear fusion going on in the stars? I mean it should have been mentioned since the people at the time were so smart. There is an important reason that we updated Science textbooks. It is because we understand the universe better with every passing year.

Astrology was a form of study of the stars when we didn’t even know what they actually were. People thought God put them for a reason, to look over us, to affect our lives and our crops and our businesses.

If you can’t explain back to me the process of nuclear fusion precisely, then you can’t tell me that Astrology has been mentioned in the Vedas. You have read neither so shut up!

The fear of Shani

Saturn is probably the most scary planet to every Indian. It is a God they respect, it is what they fear. The fear of 7 and a half years of doom that will destroy them unless they visit the temple and pour some oil. Stories are shared of losses in business, degradation in health because you didn’t go to the his temple on Saturday. I have gone to the temple a hundred times wasting oil which could have been donated to the needy.

Every star in your zodiac sign is light years apart from each other. From our perception they seem on the same plane but they would not even be neighbours. It is just like saying the lamp post and the mountains are friends because from where I stand they are of the same height. Saturn is a tiny spec that those stars themselves won’t be able to see. So, I think it is highly unlikely that the entry of Shani in your zodiac are planning a conspiracy against you.

Have you ever wondered why do we have only 7 days in a week? Why our Uranus and Neptune not causing any emotional imbalance in your life?

That’s because Astrology hasn’t been updated ever. In those books, there are only 7 celestial bodies in the sky. The sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

The Personality matches

Let’s do a live example of this. The following is a prose written for a particular sun sign. I will remove the obvious comparisons to the metaphorical signs. You can guess which sign it was written about.

The people born under this sign are kind, gentle and lovers of beauty, harmony and peace. However, in their effort to keep everyone happy, they find it difficult to say ‘NO’ to anyone, and as a result, they end up getting stressed. They have a lot of positive traits, but some negative ones, too. Whatever they do in life is driven by the feelings of love. They have a very pleasing manner of talking and also choose pleasant subjects to talk about, which makes people feel happy in their company. They have a strong sense of justice and fair play. They may skilfully find their way out, but they will never resort to cunning methods to get what they want. They are well-known for their diplomatic skills and have the ability to listen to differing points of view with a great deal of patience. People born under this sign are firm and strong, but they can also be detached and pretend to be pleasant sometimes as they don’t wish to displease anyone.

This is an excerpt I found from the first Google search result. Can you tell me who it is written for? When you are thinking about this, for a second, also think how can every person born in this period actually have such personality traits. You look at one or two points that match your personality and subconsciously assume that it must be true.

Anyway, the prose was for Libra. The words were so well generalized that for a moment I may have thought I am a Libra. Well, the moment has passed.

The daily predictions sometimes come true

Well, when you toss a coin, you will be wrong half of the times in your predictions and half of the times you would get it correct. It is the same rule of probability. Everyone of us have the same pool of problems. Money, relationships, family, career, happiness. Everyone of us will some day or the other stumble upon one of these problems. And everyday, the daily horoscope uses the same probability to engage you.

Some of you may say that it is not true for all Astrologers. Some of them are really good. Well, of course some are good. Not in their skill of prediction but their skill of writing, and in some cases their skill of reading people. Instead of writing the apple is red, they vaguely say that the fruit you may have today has seeds and may be sweet. Personal sessions with an Astrologer too is mostly detecting personality traits when you react to a question in a certain manner or based on previous sessions you had with him/her.

And most of them just want to upsell to you more services by predicting something bad that will happen in the future. That’s how business works.

It’s not all random, but it is all chaos

I am not saying prediction is impossible or cannot be known at all. It can be. However, you need a micro-level understanding of all the infinite number of variables at work. The words that I speak at a given time may vary according to the time of day, my mood, the information in my short term memory, the time I woke up, among infinitely many variables. However, if somehow we know all of these, we could predict with 100% surety the next words coming out of my mouth. It is impossible to actually know which variables are actually in play, let alone measuring them accurately. So a right prediction is highly unlikely.

Nevertheless, I am not saying Astrologers have got nothing right. Of course they would. They base their predictions on probability in the same way we predict whether the coin toss will give a head or a tail. Half of us get it right, the remaining half say the coin is rigged and you may need to please the Gods first. That is essentially how Astrology works. They sell you a prediction. You pay for it. If it comes true, you go to him for the next prediction. If it doesn’t, he upsells you a pooja or a ritual (like feed green grass to a brown cow to get white milk to pour on a black stone and pray until the next blue moon) which could help please the right planets and the right Gods.

I know I have no business telling you what to believe or not. Most of you may get their free horoscopes on the phone, have some fun while reading it. However, there are people who are conned on a daily basis. Astrologers play with our weakest emotion, the fear of losing. It potentially makes us paranoid and compels us to spend our life savings on things that would never work in a thousand years. I want to educate those people and prevent them from draining their money into this cesspool.

If you want to really learn about stars, the meaning of life, the world and philosophy in general, read Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. It is one of the most insightful books I have ever read. It makes our everyday problems seem irrelevant leaving us with a glassful of curiosity and a bucket full of wonderment. Or you can also join me for a star gazing event. I guarantee that you will leave enlightened and more curious about the Universe than ever before.

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