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From: padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Astrology
Message-ID: <731@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 10:06:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.731
Posted: Tue Sep 17 10:06:22 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 02:29:10 EDT
References: <304@pyuxn.UUCP> <2137CJC@psuvm> <397@scgvaxd.UUCP>  <2109@burdvax.UUCP> <2178@iddic.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 46

> In article <2109@burdvax.UUCP> bnapl@burdvax.UUCP (Tom Albrecht) writes:
> >
> >Communism is to government what astrology is to science.
> 
> The rest of the article was bo-ring, but this little message in his
> signature caught my attention. Do any of you netters out there know
> what the origin of astrology is? I think I remember hearing something
> about the ancient Egyptians, but I don't know what the true story is.
> 
> I'm not convinced that astrology is totally bogus. I don't mean the
> astrology you get on the comic page. I mean the idea that a person's
> life, health, and personality are (to whatever extent) influenced by the
> exact time and place of his/her birth. Any astrology buffs/debunkers
> out there care to comment?
> 
> Kendall Auel

Astrology claims that the relative positions of the planets and stars
influence your future. There is no evidence of the existence of any
force that can do that. If one postulates that the gravitational
pull of a planet has significant effect on you well the answer strictly
speaking is a qualified "yes". I say "qualified" because a simple
calculation shows that the gravitational attraction between a planet like
mars and you is about the same as an average size car less than 1m away
from you. If one wants to claim ability to determine the influence planets
have on your future, they must first take into account the influence
that auto's which pass by you every day make.

Because there is a unique configuration in the sky when each of us is
born, and each of us leads an independent life, the fallacy of association
is committed. Astrologers cannot justify why the time of birth is so
significant; why not use the beginning of the third trimester? the second?
or conception? or any point in between. Certainly the time and place
of birth influences your future (suppose you were born near the end
of the second world war at a place near Hiroshima), but astrological
claims have the least credibility for having insight into our
future; I would say that social scientists, our parents banker etc. would
be able to make better predictions.

A further aspect of astrology is the removal (or reduction) of self
determinism that it entails, which goes hand in hand with reduced
responsibility that we must take for our own actions. The world is
full of people that want others to tell them what to do, how to behave
etc. Unfortunately, there are many that are only too willing to oblige.

Padraig Houlahan.