Here’s a short post for a long podcast episode on astrology. I’ve discussed astrology several times in this blog before, though I’ve never really gone through to talk about the basics of astrology and some of its inconsistencies.
This episode is (I hope) a natural progression from the basics to talking about observational problems with precession and some inherent contradictions with that and different astrological ages, then getting into the whole “there is no mechanism!” that most astronomers use to “debunk” astrology. I wrap it up with the idea of predictions – that astrologers haven’t ever predicted the existence of astronomical objects, and a little about the anatomy of an astrological horoscope and two statistical studies into its predictive power.
I don’t ever explicitly talk about how the entire astrological system is a logical fallacy (correlation does not imply causation, or cum hoc ergo propter hoc for you Latin folks), but with the tone of the episode I didn’t really think it fit in very well. Maybe if someone sends in feedback I’ll address it during feedback of the next episode (hint: next one is based on … or in … Earth).
This episode is my longest so far coming in at about 32.5 minutes. I know in my first episode I said I’d be doing 10-20 minute episodes and my last few have gotten progressively longer. I’m not entirely sure where this is headed (gimme a break, I’m only on episode 6! (no, not 6-factorial for you math people)), so we’ll see if I’ll adjust my aims over the next few episodes.
I should also note that the episode addresses WESTERN astrology only (though a lot of the information will apply to all types). With that said, go listen!
Exposing PseudoAstronomy 