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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astrology | 9/10 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:17:04.565712+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Reception in the social sciences === The general consensus of astronomers and other natural scientists is that astrology is a pseudoscience which carries no predictive capability, with many philosophers of science considering it a "paradigm or prime example of pseudoscience." Some scholars in the social sciences have cautioned against categorizing astrology, especially ancient astrology, as "just" a pseudoscience or projecting the distinction backwards into the past. Thagard, while demarcating it as a pseudoscience, notes that astrology "should be judged as not pseudoscientific in classical or Renaissance times...Only when the historical and social aspects of science are neglected does it become plausible that pseudoscience is an unchanging category." Historians of science such as Tamsyn Barton, Roger Beck, Francesca Rochberg, and Wouter J. Hanegraaff argue that such a wholesale description is anachronistic when applied to historical contexts, stressing that astrology was not pseudoscience before the 18th century and the importance of the discipline to the development of medieval science. R. J. Hakinson writes in the context of Hellenistic astrology that "the belief in the possibility of [astrology] was, at least some of the time, the result of careful reflection on the nature and structure of the universe." Nicholas Campion, both an astrologer and academic historian of astrology, argues that Indigenous astronomy is largely used as a synonym for astrology in academia, and that modern Indian and Western astrology are better understood as modes of cultural astronomy or ethnoastronomy. Roy Willis and Patrick Curry draw a distinction between propositional episteme and metaphoric metis in the ancient world, identifying astrology with the latter and noting that the central concern of astrology "is not knowledge (factual, let alone scientific) but wisdom (ethical, spiritual and pragmatic)". Similarly, historian of science Justin Niermeier-Dohoney writes that astrology was "more than simply a science of prediction using the stars and comprised a vast body of beliefs, knowledge, and practices with the overarching theme of understanding the relationship between humanity and the rest of the cosmos through an interpretation of stellar, solar, lunar, and planetary movement." Scholars such as Assyriologist Matthew Rutz have begun using the term "astral knowledge" rather than astrology "to better describe a category of beliefs and practices much broader than the term 'astrology' can capture."
== Cultural impact ==
=== Western politics and society === In the West, political leaders have sometimes consulted astrologers. For example, the British intelligence agency MI5 employed Louis de Wohl as an astrologer after it was reported that Adolf Hitler used astrology to time his actions. The War Office was "...interested to know what Hitler's own astrologers would be telling him from week to week." In fact, de Wohl's predictions were so inaccurate that he was soon labelled a "complete charlatan", and later evidence showed that Hitler considered astrology "complete nonsense". After John Hinckley's attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan, first lady Nancy Reagan commissioned astrologer Joan Quigley to act as the secret White House astrologer. However, Quigley's role ended in 1988 when it became public through the memoirs of former chief of staff Donald Regan. There was a boom in interest in astrology in the late 1960s. The sociologist Marcello Truzzi described three levels of involvement of "Astrology-believers" to account for its revived popularity in the face of scientific discrediting. He found that most astrology-believers did not think that it was a scientific explanation with predictive power. Instead, those superficially involved, knowing "next to nothing" about astrology's 'mechanics', read newspaper astrology columns, and could benefit from "tension-management of anxieties" and "a cognitive belief-system that transcends science." Those at the second level usually had their horoscopes cast and sought advice and predictions. They were much younger than those at the first level, and could benefit from knowledge of the language of astrology and the resulting ability to belong to a coherent and exclusive group. Those at the third level were highly involved and usually cast horoscopes for themselves. Astrology provided this small minority of astrology-believers with a "meaningful view of their universe and [gave] them an understanding of their place in it." This third group took astrology seriously, possibly as an overarching religious worldview (a sacred canopy, in Peter L. Berger's phrase), whereas the other two groups took it playfully and irreverently. In 1953, the sociologist Theodor W. Adorno conducted a study of the astrology column of a Los Angeles newspaper as part of a project examining mass culture in capitalist society. Adorno believed that popular astrology, as a device, invariably leads to statements that encouraged conformity—and that astrologers who go against conformity, by discouraging performance at work etc., risk losing their jobs. Adorno concluded that astrology is a large-scale manifestation of systematic irrationalism, where individuals are subtly led—through flattery and vague generalisations—to believe that the author of the column is addressing them directly. Adorno drew a parallel with the phrase opium of the people, by Karl Marx, by commenting, "occultism is the metaphysic of the dopes." A 2005 Gallup poll and a 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center reported that 25% of US adults believe in astrology, while a 2024 Pew survey found a figure of 27%. According to data released in the National Science Foundation's 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study, "Fewer Americans rejected astrology in 2012 than in recent years." The NSF study noted that in 2012, "slightly more than half of Americans said that astrology was 'not at all scientific,' whereas nearly two-thirds gave this response in 2010. The comparable percentage has not been this low since 1983." Astrology apps became popular in the late 2010s, some receiving millions of dollars in Silicon Valley venture capital.
=== India and Japan ===