Introduction
Once there were two sisters living under the same roof, astronomy and astrology. Sometime they separated because of a man named Copernicus. Later on the older one, astronomy, got hooked with Galilei whereas astrology has remained a spinster. She isn't jealous of her older sister, though. She respects and consults her. On the contrary, astronomy despises astrology. Why?
Common arguments of astronomy against astrology :
1. Astronomers say: The Sun and the Moon are not planets and the Sun is not orbiting around the Earth. Hence, the geocentric system of astrology is not scientific.
What is science? A simple and coherent system of statements which affords applicable results. For example, geometry is a science based on axioms which afford theorems and so on. Euclid said : between two points only one straight line is possible. This was an axiom useful for tracing ways and building houses but it has been proved useless when man has wanted to exit the stratosphere. Then Riemann said: there is no straight line between two points. Finally, according to Lobachevsky: between two points there is an infinite number of straight lines. Today astronomers consider the Euclidean geometry as a subsystem of Riemann' s geometry which is a subsystem of the geometry of Lobachevsky. Compromise on compromise in order to get practical results. But when astrology makes its own compromises in order to get its own results, this is not scientific.
2. Astronomers say: The starting points of the zodiac signs does not correspond today to the real constellations. There is a distance of about 25° between the real signs and the signs which astrology uses. The 0o Aries is in fact the 5° of Pisces.
They ignore the distinction between the tropical and sidereal zodiac. The last one is not used by astrology. The fact that the constellation of Virgo occupies an area of 45° in the sky and Libra only 16o is the astronomical image. The astrologer, every year on the day the vernal equinox, takes as zone of 16° (eight degrees above and eight below the apparent path of the sun in the sky) divides this zone into twelve equal parts of 30° each, names the first part Aries, the second Taurus etc and in this circle does his calculations. The starting point of astronomical and astrological zodiac was the same about the age Ptolemy but even him made the distinction between signs and constellations. The Indian astrology, which uses the sidereal system, is a different system of delineation of houses and signs. Nevertheless astronomers very well know that this phenomenon ( the precession of equinoxes, 1° retrograde movement of 0o Aries approximately every 72 years) will bring to this point, after 24.000 years, on the same position which it occupied at the age of Ptolemy. At least then, astrologers will not have this argument.
3. Astronomers initially said: Pluto is a planet but, you astrologers, erroneously use him because there are dozens of similar objects in our solar system. Then in Prague, in 2006 , they dethroned Pluto deciding to redefine in the future what a planet is. All this is astronomical fuss. In so far as Pluto affords useful interpretative results in the astrological system the matter of what exactly is does not concern the astrology. This is the reason why a planetary body like Sedna is, at least for the time being, indifferent to astrology; an orbit of 10.000 years cannot afford much information to the astrological system.
4. Astronomers say: in any case, two people born on the same day in the same place have the same celestial configuration but their lives, most probably, will be different.
They ignore the fact that the most reliable method of astrological prediction, that of primary directions, demands an exactitude of four minutes in the registered time of birth and this accuracy is rarely attained. Consequently, professional astrologers, in order to survive, have turned the whole thing to nonsense of the type " you Capricorns (that is to say about half a billion people all over the world) today with suddenly fall upon an old amour of yours". These cookies served in the morning coffee shows on the TV are the bread and profit of many professionals and the deriding of the astrology. Somehow astrologers are sowing the branch they are seating on, somehow they have their justification as there is scarce feedback from the society for their job. This is the reason why astrology is considered not as a science but, rather, as a craft or an art.
