Astrology
by Hand Week 2
Rectifying Science and Astrology
Last
week I described the efforts to make astrology capable of being
examined by science. This week we look at a major problem with that whole
effort.
A
Problem with the Scientific Approach: The Gauquelin Data
Beginning
in the 1950s, two French Psychologists, Michel and Francoise Gauquelin began
doing research of tremendous importance. The details are too complex
to go into in this column, but in general they discovered that planets
did affect individuals who were born with those planets in certain specific
places in the chart. The results they obtained were extremely statistically
significant with odds against chance that were very much greater than
the minimum usually considered necessary to establish a statistical correlation.
Almost
everyone who has studied the Gauquelins’ work has concluded that their
results confirm the existence of some kind of astrological effect, that
is, planets do seem to have some influence in determining an individual’s
character or behavior. This is radical enough in itself, but most of those
who have examined the results have overlooked the most radical implication
of the results.
The
Importance of the Birth Moment
In
astrology, we take the moment of birth as the beginning of life. The natal
chart is erected for the moment of the first breath or cry after the child
is completely out of the mother. This has always been a source of controversy
because of conception. Doesn’t the life of the individual actually begin
when the egg is fertilized in the mother’s womb? Even in ancient times
this fact was recognized, although ancient astrologers did in fact give
very good reasons for using the birth moment. They did not just ignore
the objection.
But
with our modern understanding of genetics, the argument for the time of
conception over the moment of birth seems even more compelling. This argument
has often been used by astrology’s critics as a reason for rejecting astrology,
at least as we practice it. However, the Gauquelin results were obtained
using the moment of birth, not conception. This is a strong confirmation
of the standard astrological practice, even if that practice seems against
logic from a modern point of view. That is point number one!
But
point number two is even more radical. Even if we grant that the planets
somehow influence our lives, why should one moment of that influence be
so important? Conception makes a little more sense than birth because
one could argue that the arrangement of the planets at conception might
affect which sperm unites the egg and therefore what the genetic make-up
of the individual is going to be. But at birth the individual that is
born is fully-formed genetically. Only the results of environment are
left to have an effect. But those influences should be the continuing
product of the motions of the planets at any time.
There
is no reason why the birth moment should have any continuing effect on
how the individual reacts to the ongoing planetary influences. Yet this
is exactly what astrology claims, and the Gauquelin data demonstrates.
This is the main hurdle that any would-be “scientific” explanation of
astrology has to overcome. If geomagnetism affects people, why should
the geomagnetism of the birth moment have a continuing effect?
And
It Gets Worse!
All
of this is also only taking the birth chart into account. What about some
of astrology’s other methods of prediction such as progressions, and directions
that do not even use real-time celestial motions, but rather celestial
motions in a kind of symbolic time? All told, either the methods that
astrologers use are completely bogus (which is obviously not my experience),
or it is going to be very hard to make astrology into a new kind of science
without making some radical changes in our notions of science.
This
is my point: For science to accept astrology in anything like the form
in which it now exists, the fundamental philosophical assumptions of science
have to change radically. I think that scientists, even those who know
very little about astrology (which is most of them) intuitively recognize
that astrology and science, as they both are now, are completely incompatible.
We
can do scientific-type investigations of astrology. The Gauquelins did.
We can find things that are truly astounding. But I do not think that
we can incorporate astrology into the theoretical and philosophical structure
of the sciences without abandoning most of what constitutes astrology.
I believe that science will discover more and more that there are correlations
between planetary movements and terrestrial phenomena, but that will be
about it. They will declare that this is not astrology, or that it is
the “real” astrology, and that what we do is bogus.
In
the next several articles we will look some more at this question and
also look at some other theories and explanations concerning astrology.
Next
Week: I plan to look at whether or not astrology is a form of magic.
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