Astrology: True or False?

For the most part, people have always been doubtful of astrology, even scientists refer to it as a pseudoscience. However, some people are very fond of the study of celestial bodies’ movements that predicts your major life-events in the forwarded future. In this article, I'm going to look at astrology in a scientific way, and give as much information as possible so you, as the reader can make decisions for your own and not get tricked by mediums, psychics and such.

It was dated back to about 2000 BC when several tribes and cultures began to observe the planetary motions in the universe. In modern astrology, you've probably heard of the zodiac wheel, a collection of 12 constellations with different names: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. Astrology is closely linked to astronomy (the study of celestial objects) and surprisingly, medicine.

Nowadays, statistics reveal that your birthday (horoscope) do in fact, affect your health. For example, individuals whose birthdays are in January, February and March (Aquarius/Pisces) are more likely to have schizophrenia. Or the majority of psychopathic patients are born in November (Scorpio/Sagittarius) but are more immune to other health conditions. There are a variety of theories surrounding this subject explaining these problems like seasonal changes, development in the mother’s womb or how a kid is raised, psychologically.

But it isn't only your health that your horoscope can tell you. In fact, it is more linked to your personality than you think. If you look up astrological websites, you'll find out that different zodiac signs are assigned with different traits, characteristics. Such as, Aries is usually the leader, being enthusiastic and determined. Or Libra can be materialistic sometimes. Of course, this isn't always true for everyone but perhaps you can read about it once in a while and some very interesting facts about yourself you didn't know of will come to you.

But enough about that, why is it listed in the category of pseudoscience? It's notoriety mostly owes to something called the Barnum effect. If you really spend time to notice, your daily horoscope would probably say something incredibly vague about your future, most likely something everyone can relate to. I signed up a few different websites to investigate and this is what I found in my horoscope reading today: "In 2020, you're going to expect hardships, love, and luck" and "This message has been exclusively delivered to you". You can see, they are listing all of the things you can say every person will go through ("hardships", "luck", "love"). Besides that, there are also statements that use word phrases like "exclusively", "intimately" or "for you". As a result, the reader is tricked into believing that they're the only one who's getting this special message. Moreover, the same principle can even apply to psychics and mediums.

Another thing is that scientists have conducted experiments with astrology, their results were not the most positive, to say the least. It's proven to not have any valid scientific answers or explanatory power.

Additionally, according to a poll/survey, the number of people who don't believe astrology can predict the future completely outnumbered those who are supporters of it. However, when asked if they believe astrology can tell you something about yourself, the number of head-shakers went down, this is why it could be amusing to do some research about your horoscope.

In conclusion, we would be just fine without something so hypothetical like this, though some folks would disagree. If this can be a success, I would like to write another story covering my opinion on this matter as well. Thus, you can check that out for further information, I will also give more specific examples and talk about compatibility between the signs.

Have a nice day!