Talk:Astrology

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 Definition Any belief that correlates the patterns and positions of celestial bodies to human personalities, human affairs, or terrestrial events. [d] [e]
Checklist and Archives
 Workgroup category Religion [Editors asked to check categories]
 Subgroup category:  Pseudoscience
 Talk Archive none  English language variant American English

General

I attempt to write an introduction that attempt to the origin of astrology, your initial proeminency and, after, your fall in descredit. It is necessary still write mor about astrology itself, your structure and different branches. --L'Astorina 13:26, 02 October 2007 (CST)

Hi Astorina, I've fixed some but not all of the language problems with the article. I take it, that English is not your native language?
In many places, the wording and sentence structure are not clear. If you are still active on this article, leave me a note here, and I will suggest more extensive changes and development of the article. James Davis 20:29, 29 October 2007 (CDT)

Note: A month having passed since my inquiry above, and having had no word from Astorina, I've done a complete rewrite of the article. I had hoped to seek some clarification of the obscure language in the original version so that I could build on it rather than rewrite. But Astornai did not respond so I've made a fresh start. James Davis 14:35, 13 November 2007 (CST)

Comment: A most commendable job there James Davis! John Charles Webb, Jr. 16:14, 13 November 2007 (CST)

Sorry for my so long absense. Yes, my native language is not english, but portuguese, and sometimes i y build some confusing sentenses, sorry about that. But i think the new article is really better: it contains all main ideas of the old one, plus some new ideas and many external references. L'Astorina 17:26, 20 November 2007 (CST)

Claim removed from article

I think this article needs a complete overhaul: it needs a clearer introduction, a discussion of the history of astrology (and better bibliography) and an in depth discussion of current criticisms of astrology from mainstream scienticians and counter-arguments from astrologers. In the absence of such a broader discussion, I have removed a claim from the main page:

There is no widely accepted scientific evidence for the validity of astrology, though numerous modern researches have conducted statistical studies, some of which support the hypothesis of astrological influences. A review of these may be found in Recent Advances in Natal Astrology, A Critical Review, 1900-1976. [1] See also: The tenacious Mars Effect, [2] and Cosmic Influences on Humans, Animals, and Plants, An Annotated Bibliography"[3]

I want to be clear: there is a place for this claim in the final article, but it needs to be better contextualized. I also want to point out that if anyone wants to work on improving this article, I can help with the historical side of things.

Thanks, Brian P. Long 18:29, 15 September 2008 (CDT)

Workgroups

I really did not know where to put this, as it's one of those articles that don't really fit into existing workgroup categories. I could not support it being categorised solely under Astronomy though, as the scientific study of other bodies is worlds away from these kinds of belief systems. So, I added it to 'Religion' as an interim measure, although this doesn't really fit well either. John Stephenson 14:23, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Psychology also? Hayford Peirce 17:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Pseudoscience

A fictional astrologer in Mostly Harmless says it isn't a science. She doesn't explicitly say what it is instead, but the idea seems to be that it's a way of connecting with the un/subconscious mind. It seems a reasonable guess that this represents the position of some real astrologers, in which case it isn't, in their case, a pseudoscience as it doesn't claim to be science. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:46, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

  1. Dr. Dean, Geoffrey, & Arthur Mather BSc, Recent Advances in Natal Astrology, A Critical Review, 1900-1976,
  2. Dr. Ertel, Suibert, & Kenneth Irving, The tenacious Mars Effect, Urania Trust, 1996
  3. Dr Burns, John T., Cosmic Influences on Humans, Animals, and Plants, An Annotated Bibliography, Scarecrow Press, Inc. 1997