Christine Adams

Holly Deegan

Jill Castellano

Mary Mccartney

Astrology

The science of astrology is in understanding how the movement of the planets and stars relate to human behavior. To understand this, astrologers use astrological charts or simply put a birth chart. This chart is a map of universe made for the location, date, and time each person was born. By understanding the position of the sun, planets, and the zodiac signs during that day, the astrologer uses this map explain such things as ambition, career, and public image (Gerwick-Brodeur and Lenard pg. 4).

“Early astrologers identified twelve lunar cycles (i.e., months) for the sun to return to its original position. They then identified twelve constellations that they observed were linked to the progression of the seasons and assigned them names of certain animals and person. The signs of the zodiac are subdivided into four groups:

Fire SignsAries, Sagittarius, Leo

Water SignsCancer, Scorpio, Pisces

Air SignsLibra, Aquarius, Gemini

Earth SignsCapricorn, Taurus, Virgo

( Throughout the course of history astrology has played a role in many different societies and it is still playing a part in our society today. Currently there are 700 hundred phone numbers for physic advising based on astrological signs.

The history of astrology can be dated back over 2000 years ago during the time of the Babylonians. ( When we take a look at the history of astrology there is three main areas worth exploring. Theses are the Babylonian Beginnings, the Greek and Roman Times, and the Zodiac and Horoscopes Foundation.

The first real record of astrology is found within the time period of the Babylonians. Babylonians used astrological charts to predict different things. These charts helped them predict the recurrence of the seasons and certain celestial events. ( though not everything is known about the Babylonians use of astrology, they do know that “ while earliest astrology was used to bring a sense of order out of apparent chaos, it soon utilized to predict weather patterns, primarily for agricultural purposes.” ( While the Babylonians experienced much success with astrology, the Greeks and Romans helped define what it is today.

Although the birth of astrology is credited to the Babylonians, the most common association is linked to the Greeks and Romans. The Babylonians first introduced the Greeks and Romans to astrology in 4th century BC and “through the studies of Plato, Aristotle, and others, astrology came to be highly regarded as a science.” ( At its peak, astrology was used by every type of person in every social status and was used in every branch of ancient culture. Many famous Greek philosophers wrote colossal works on astrology, one of the most important being the work written in the 2nd century AD by Ptolemy. His work, The Almagest and The Tertabiblos are the most complete written records of ancient astronomy and astrology that we have to date ( On a side note the Greeks are also famous for using the word zodiac, which represents “An imaginary band of sky that follows the Sun's annual path as seen from Earth. In astrology, the band is divided into twelve equal parts, each containing a different astrological constellation. The word zodiac comes from the Greek word zodiakos, which literally means circle of animals (

Astrology has also been observed in the present. On it says that “Even the former First Lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan, and her husband, Ronald, consulted an astrologer while he was the leader of the free world ( In many different areas of the world people use astrological charts to predict future events and to better understand themselves. Zodiac signs and horoscopes have become a common tool for self understanding and choosing a life path. The credit for the word comes from the Greek word horoskopus, which means, “I observe the hour” or “I watch what rises.” This refers to “the art of predicting the general patterns that are preprogrammed in a person’s future life based on an examination of the celestial bodies that were coming over the horizon in the east at the time and in the place he or she was born.” (Behind the Crystal Ball, pg.22)

The question raised in this paper is whether or not Astrology is a pseudoscience or science. There are several concepts that demonstrate astrology as a pseudoscience. These concepts are consistency, evidence, experimentation, and its ability to be corrected.

Consistency is one factor used to prove that astrology is a pseudoscience. Astrological predictions are not consistent. A real life example of this would be to go on to the Internet and get your daily horoscope. Each site has a different prediction for your day. Therefore predictions are not consistent. “To qualify as a scientific theory, an idea has to be logically consistent, both internally (all of its claims must be consistent with each other) and externally (unless there are good reasons, it must be consistent with theories which are already known to be valid and true). “If an idea is inconsistent, it is difficult to see how it actually explains anything at all, much less how it could possibly be true.”(Cline, sec. 2) According to these standards, astrology is not consistent on either level. Evidence is another way of determining whether astrology is a science or pseudoscience. “If a theory is not based upon evidence and cannot be empirically verified, there is no way to claim that it has any connection with reality.”(Cline, sec.4) It is hard to view astrology as a valid form of science when there is no real evidence that its claims are true.

A point to ponder is that there is no real way to experiment to see if astrological claims are true or not. There can be several different horoscopes for ones sign on any given day; the whole process of determining what ones day holds follows no particular path. If there is not one way in which astrologers reach their conclusions, then it is something that becomes almost impossible to put to a test.

Another way to distinguish whether astrology is a science or pseudoscience to test whether or not it can be corrected. Science is “susceptible to correction due to new information, either from experiments done for the theory in question or done in other fields”. (Cline, sec. 7) Over time, astrology has not proven to be correctable. Through research it has been determined that nothing has changed about the techniques astrologers use to come to their predictions, and the traits for the different zodiac signs have all remained similar to their original patterns.

If we look back at the history of Astrology we might be able to look at it as they did which was a science. Astrology was first used as a science to study the "wandering" stars. During ancient times astronomy and astrology were considered one science. Pythagoras studied and taught astrology and his major contribution to astrology was in the theory that the basis of the Universe was number and numerical relationships (Gerwick-Brodeur and Lenard pg 10). Whether his theory was ever tested and proved correct is unknown.

The scientifically observations of astrology is responsible for our calendar and the number and names of each day of the week (Gerwick-Brodeur and Lenard pg.6). The reason why there are seven days in a week is actually because that’s how many planets could be seen during ancient times.

Astrologers were some of the best educated people, having to understand astronomy, math, and psychology and until about the 1600's astrology was taught in the universities. We are unsure whether or not universities considered it a science. Famous astrologer, Isaac Newton, studied the stars and the planets and believed that there was a larger relationship between everything( Gerwick-Brodeur and Lenard pg. 10). Today there are physicists that currently believe that astrology reveals the order underneath what is shown on the surface. David Bohm, who worked with Einstein, is responsible for that theory. His theory explains how “the inner and outer reality are connected, by understand that energy, matter, and meaning are enwrapped together (Gerwick-Brodeur and Lenard pg. 8).”

As of today astrology isn’t recognized today by many scientists as a "rational" science because it does not follow the scientific method. In addition there are many forms and uses of astrology, making it difficult for astrologers to come to a general conclusion of which method of astrology is more or less precise.

Astrology is something that is up to each individual to decide if they want to believe or not. It continues to be something that has held the interests of people through a long period of history. In our observations there seems to be a lot of evidence pointing toward astrology as a pseudoscience, but just because something cannot be proven does not that it is not valid.