Astrology and Astronomy: From Conjunction to Opposition CAPjournal, No. 5, January 2009 Astrology and Astronomy: From Conjunction to Opposition Astrology Society Key Words Summary As science communicators dealing with astronomy we often ind a strong interest amongst the public in astrology — how the stars and planets directly affect our individual lives. Nowadays astrology is at odds with the scientiic nature of astronomy, but this has not always been the case. Presented here is a background to astrology, to give a deeper understanding of where it has come from and why it has such an enduring place in all forms of global media. Resources Daniel Kunth Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, France E-mail:kunth@iap.fr Astrology has adapted to changes in soci- ety throughout history, and as a result it continues to beneit from a positive public image. The commercial and social success of astrology, largely driven by the media, is surprising given the dominance that science enjoys within our society. Its foundations exploit the widely held belief that pervasive connections exist between the macrocosm (the Universe as a whole) and our microcosm (human society and social relationships). Astrologers aim to decipher the hidden meaning behind planetary movements and positions, which they believe correspond to human personality traits or predict major and minor life events. The lexical ambiguity, with which these predictions are made, however, produces results that can be neither proven nor disproven. Without an objective method by which a pre- dicted result can be tested, astrology cannot be considered a science. Astrological analy- sis, while sometimes quite sophisticated, does not utilise any traditional scientiic methodology. Astrology even skips the nec- essary confrontation between hypothesis and proof, the opposite of a rigorous scien- tiic approach. Astronomers oppose not only the astrological assertion that cosmological positioning can directly impact a person’s destiny, but also astrology’s ignorance of the physical reality, richness and variety of stars and planets. Moreover, no serious statistical study has been able to establish the reliability of astro- logical predictions. In modern times, most of its adherents opt for a psychological inter- pretation of astrology in which the stars have set forth the keys to our destiny, personality and predilections at the very time of our birth. The foundation of a belief in astrology is based upon a deterministic approach and constitutes a psychological alienation that can easily be over-exploited by those inter- ested in inancial gain. Throughout our own civilisation, astrology has had both fervent and casual believers within nearly all social classes or cultures. From ancient times to the present, humans have been challenged to predict and pre- pare for life events from the joyous to the catastrophic. Faced by disorder on Earth, astrology proposes that an ordered and readable structure exists in the irmament that is intricately involved with the saga of human life. However, this belief does not at all constitute a cosmic science because neither the tools of the astrologer nor their subjective analysis allows the astrologer to deduce facts or test a theory. Is astrology therefore more of a social science? That is to say a mode of knowledge in competition with scientiic cosmology? Page 11