A statistical argument against  Astrology

Most of the astrological predictions are worded deliberately vague. It is this inherent vagueness that turns out to be the biggest strength of astrologers since it defies experimental verification, a basic requirement for any science.

Anyway, let us try our hands at generating statistics to critically examine astrological conclusions. Positions of planets, Sun and the Moon against the backdrop of the Zodiacal constellations at the time of the birth of a person is supposed to determine their destiny, right? Now, let us take the case of astronauts – Only a dozen men have ever set foot on another world. They are the crew members of the six Apollo missions that landed on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Surely the planetary configurations during their respective birthdates must have had been similar to have given rise to their similar destinies? Given below are the birthdates and the planetary configurations of these dozen who walked on the Moon – (these are actual positions taking the precession of the Earth’s spin axis into account)

Table 1. Positions of the Sun, Moon and Planets among the Zodiacal constellations at the birthdates of the 12 astronauts who walked on the Moon.

Can one see any pattern in the planetary configurations at their birthdates? Surely not? Hold on though, is there something significant in the fact that Saturn was in Sagittarius at the time of birth of most of these astronauts? Not really, as a little analysis will show. The birth dates seem to be clustered around 1930. Why would that be? Well, the Apollo missions were concentrated between the years 1969 and 1972. Quite likely that most of the astronauts recruited around that time would be close in age, so nothing significant in the clustering around 1930 that is seen. Now, Saturn is a planet with an orbital period round the Sun of a little less than 30 years. It is quite natural for Saturn to stay near the same Zodiacal constellation for  a few years in its slow motion through the Zodiac. In many instances where astrologers point out significant correlations (as in the infamous Mars effect where someone found Mars to be in some particular constellation for athletes) could have similar explanation by looking closely at honest data.

One can look at alternate data that is not likely to be plagued with such bias. Listed below are the birthdates of a number of Nobel Laureates who had received the peace prize. Again, astrologically speaking, we should expect to see some correlation in the planetary positions on these dates, which we do not see.

Table 2. Positions of Sun, Moon and Planets among the Zodiacal constellations during the birth dates of some Nobel Laureates for Peace.

This exercise can be endless. Try it for any such list of people and you are sure to see that no patterns exist in the planetary positions, or if at all any faint pattern emerges, it will have a very mundane explanation as in the case of the Astronauts.

By the way, it will be a very simple matter to find out the planetary positions for dates in history. There exist a number of planetarium software, made freely available by dedicated astronomers and educators, which does this job for you in a simple manner. There is a wonderful shareware called skyglobe, produced by KlassM Software, a demo version of which can be downloaded from http://www.seds.org/ Using such software, you can look at the planetary, or stellar positions in the sky in history, as well as a few thousand years in future. All this is astronomy, or rather, celestial mechanics, nothing to do with astrology. Anyway, trying to look at possible patterns emerging during birthdates of famous people could be an interesting senior school statistics project to do and could quickly demonstrate the falsehood of astrology. Students who may be thinking of enrolling for astrological courses, particularly, may do well to look at such simple statistics before making a tricky career decision.

                        Written by

                              N. Rathnasree,

                              Director, Nehru Planetarium,

                              New Delhi