What’s this going to do to my horoscope? That’s what I want to know!

Once again the ‘scientists’ have gone and spoiled it all by finding not just one, but three possible planets. That could mean that modern science has added six new planets to the original seven (in astrology the Sun and Moon are planets). There’s now 2003EL61/K40506A, 2003UB313 and now 2005FY9. The last might be a Kuiper Belt Object rather than a proper planet. Are these planets going to have an astrological effect? Checking my astrology poll the answer appears to be 100% clear. They might do they might not.

There’s been a question on Sedna running for a while: In March 2004 a new planetoid, Sedna, was discovered. Since then do you think…

For a supposedly ‘scientific’ period that’s quite a surprise. 30% of people think Sedna will have a positive effect on astrology and 40% think it shows astrology is a load of rubbish. It’s a small sample, but I won’t let that stop me from galloping to conclusions. What’s going on? In the same poll I asked a question to find out how accurate people think their horoscope is. It was badly worded. I think if I was doing it again I’d simply ask people to rate their horoscope out of ten. The results surprised me.

Only 29% thought their horoscope was quite accurate or better. That’s an astonishing failure rate. No surprise if you’re an astronomer perhaps, but a bit shock if you’re a psychologist. Using a technique known as Cold Reading it should be possible to produce a fairly convincing horoscope for anyone. Cold Reading is often misrepresented as a string of Barnum Statements, bland phrases which apply to anyone. There are Barnum statements in Cold Reading but there’s also a lot more. Cold Reading does really work well with stupid people. Rather it uses people’s imagination to create a psychological mirror of themselves and their desires. There’s more on cold reading in Ian Rowland’s book on the subject.

How do you reconcile this poor success rate with the value people place on Astrology? One answer is that perhaps people aren’t looking for absolute accuracy? How scientific is astrology?

Ok, so 44% of people are sceptics when it comes to astrology, but one of the other points is that 37% of people thought there was a large element of personal interpretation while 0% (I counted twice), think it’s as accurate as any other science. Flipping back up to the top, 30% dismissed Sedna as being important to Astrology. If accuracy doesn’t matter then what is it used for? I asked a question about love life, seeing as so many books are above ‘love stars’. Does astrology guide your lovelife?

0% said that astrology could rule out someone from a date. It would appear in the celestial sphere that Venus always beats Uranus. 15% would tell their chosen one about their astrological compatibility, but only if they knew they were astrologically compatible. It would appear that the primary use of astrology is telling us that we’re right. If that’s the job then do we really need to be told how accurately we’re right?

This is why one or a thousand new planets will have no effect on the acceptance of astrology. The argument isn’t over the accuracy of astrology, but whether or not ignorance is bliss. —–