What caused the death of astrology?

[Lionel Mandrake]

The "death of astrology" is discussed in a couple of books I have on the history of astrology. The term is a misnomer, since obviously astrology is still with us. A better term would be the "marginalization of astrology". It happened, arguably, during the second half of the seventeenth century.

Before about 1650, astrology was a respectable pursuit among the educated classes. Kings and emperors supported astrologers, who were expected to cast horoscopes of princes and otherwise deduce influences of celestial phenomena on important people. Students of medicine learned about houses, aspects, etc. along with anatomy. Astronomers like Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo regularly cast horoscopes.

Newton and Leibniz, by contrast, never expressed the slightest interest in astrology.

By the eighteenth century, astrology had been banished from the courts and the universities. It became commercialized and has remained so ever since. Astrologers made their living by casting horoscopes for cash payments. Their customers were the common people. Astrology, in other words, had been relegated to the margins of society. And that is where it remains today.

It is tempting to credit Newton et al. with having driven a stake through the evil heart of astrology. After all, the culmination of the scientific revolution coincided with the "death of astrology".

Historians have long sought a relationship between the scientific revolution and the death of astrology. There appears to be no evidence of such a relationship. The decline of royal patronage, for example, can not be traced to any influence of science on the minds of kings. Nor does the decline on interest in astrology in the universities seem to have been a result of scientific advances.

The real cause of death is unknown.

[hlthe2b]

1. Except for the Reagan administration, of course...

where, it has been documented, that Nancy relied on astrology for scheduling following the assassination attempt on Ronnie. Just sayin... even in the late 20th century, in the supposed most advanced culture, use of/belief in astrology has not totally gone away. :shrug:

[laconicsax]

4. There's a group on DU for it too.

Just because something's been shown to be fiction doesn't mean that people stop believing in it.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. I would have posted in that group, but ...

concerning the DU Astrology, Spirituality & Alternative Healing Group, Skinner has decreed that

"This group is intended as a positive place for those who desire a deeper discussion of these stated topics and is not intended as a place to argue the merits of beliefs or choices."

I don't think this thread meets those criteria.

[laconicsax]

10. Nor do I.

It'd be pretty impolite to post about why astrology is dead in the astrology group.

[Lionel Mandrake]

22. Just as the DU Pets Group is not the place

to discuss Vietnamese roast dog recipes.

[laconicsax]

25. I don't know about that.

The someone in the Pets group might know of someone who breeds feed dogs.

[Lionel Mandrake]

26. Be that as it may, others would be offended. n/t

[lbrtbell]

18. Astrology isn't fiction

Scientists just decided to stop studying it. People like Carl Sagan offered "proof" that astrology was false by saying that twins would have identical destinies. No evidence, just that statement.

The truth is, astrology isn't about "destiny"--it's about understanding yourself and your world, in order to make informed choices. It's about free will, not destiny at all.

Identical twins can have different moon signs or ascendants, which can result in the "different as night and day" types of twins. Then you have those with very similar planetary positions, who are like two peas in a pod.

Astrology is a very useful tool for psychoanalysis, and it's actually used by psychologists a lot more than people realize. Ask any professional astrologer how many clients are psychiatrists and psychologists, and you'd be very surprised.

[WatsonT]

19. No astrology is fiction

it's fun and mostly harmless but at the end of the day it isn't based on any real evidence.

Anything that doesn't follow the scientific method is not science.

[laconicsax]

24. Sorry, but it is.

Astrology isn't based on anything more than ignorant superstition and gives as accurate a picture of reality as a child's finger-painting.

It's based on a geocentric universe, something that's been known to be false for hundreds of years. No horoscopes included Uranus or Neptune (or Pluto for that matter) until after they were discovered, yet if the position of those planets make a difference, astrologers should have been able to figure out that there were more than six planets long before astronomy worked it out.

(Interestingly enough, the discovery of Neptune highlights the difference between valuable knowledge and garbage: When astronomers and physicists looked carefully at the orbit of Uranus, they realized that there must be another large planet beyond Uranus' orbit. They did the math, pointed their telescopes where this new planet was predicted and lo-and-behold, there was Neptune. Apparently the gas giant didn't start affecting peoples' lives until after it was discovered. Why else wouldn't astrologers have known about it?)

There's frequently mention of a planet being in retrograde in horoscopes, but the reality is that planetary retrograde motion is just an optical illusion resulting from Earth orbiting the sun. The whole idea of planetary retrograde motion came about back when the Earth was the static center of the universe. Why should an optical illusion affect the lives of people on Earth?

Astrology also fails to take into account the actual position of the sun! If I were to go to an astrologer for a horoscope reading, they'd tell me that I'm a Libra, even though the sun was in Virgo when I was born.

Here's a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDhxcIaC23k">video of a professional astrologer giving Hugh Laurie a 'full' horoscope reading and being nearly 100% wrong about everything. There is zero correlation between the position of astronomical objects relative to the Earth and a person's personality. You even admitted this without realizing it--identical twins born minutes apart can have radically different personalities. You attributed it to "moon signs" or "ascendants." A person's horoscope can drastically change because the moon has traveled less than a foot in its orbit?

Oh, and what's the process by which the position of astronomical objects relative to the Earth affects people? It must be simultaneously super and sub-luminal since everything we see in the night sky has moved in the time it took the light to reach us, but the slightest change in a position somehow has instantaneous effects. Not only that, but the stars in a constellation aren't equidistant from the Earth. For a constellation to have any effect, the astrological force (kinda catchy, isn't it?) needs to act independently of the vast distances between neighboring stars.

Here're some images from an astronomical simulation program (you can get it free at http://www.shatters.net/celestia/):

Here, you see Virgo, with Saturn as seen from Earth.


Here's the same view 7 light years closer to Theta Virginis (the star in the middle of the image). Note how things already appear distorted.


Here we are another 8 light years on.


...and another 5 light years. You may have noticed that the star that if we keep going, we'll pass Gamma Virginis (AKA: Porrina, Postvarta, or Arich).


Now, let's turn back and look at our solar system from a distance of 20 light-years. Notice how distorted the constellations appear?


A great example is if we turn and look at Ursa Minor (Polaris is highlighted). Looks a bit different, doesn't it?


Would you like to explain how these stars work together across enormous distances to affect things on Earth based on where they were in the past?

[Lionel Mandrake]

12. Poor Nancy.

Once a successful actress, she became a laughing stock when (according to wikipedia) she

<begin quote> stated in her memoirs, "I felt panicky every time (Ronald) left the White House" following the assassination attempt, and made it her concern to know her husband's schedule: the events he would be attending, and with whom. Eventually, this protectiveness led to her consulting an astrologer, Joan Quigley, who offered insight on which days were "good", "neutral", or should be avoided, which influenced her husband's White House schedule. Days were color-coded according to the astrologer's advice to discern precisely which days and times would be optimal for the president's safety and success. <end quote>

read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Reagan

[laconicsax]

2. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

As our understanding of reality increases, the fictions invented by ignorant superstition die a slow death.

[sakabatou]

3. Science killed astrology

[Boojatta]

16. Did you read the Original Post of this thread?

It is tempting to credit Newton et al. with having driven a stake through the evil heart of astrology. After all, the culmination of the scientific revolution coincided with the "death of astrology".

Historians have long sought a relationship between the scientific revolution and the death of astrology. There appears to be no evidence of such a relationship. The decline of royal patronage, for example, can not be traced to any influence of science on the minds of kings. Nor does the decline on interest in astrology in the universities seem to have been a result of scientific advances.

[WatsonT]

20. Increasing literacy rates and public education

probably helped as well.

[Lionel Mandrake]

27. Educated people are, by definition, literate.

How can increased literacy rates possibly explain anything about them, other than their numbers?

[WatsonT]

28. But literate people are not necessarily educated

increasing the population of literates increases the population of educated people which in turn decreases the population of those willing to believe nonsense like astrology.

[Lionel Mandrake]

29. Let's talk about dates.

I claimed previously that astrology "died" (or was marginalized) during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Do you agree?

The section on "Literacy in Europe" in the wikipedia article on "Literacy"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#Literacy_in_Europe
includes the following statement:

"Although the present-day concepts of literacy have much to do with the 15th century invention of the movable type printing press, it was not until the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century that paper and books became financially affordable to all classes of industrialized society. Until then, only a small percentage of the population were literate as only wealthy individuals and institutions could afford the prohibitively expensive materials."

Do you agree with this statement?

If your answer to both questions above is "yes", then your argument falls apart. Even if you would date the death of astrology somewhat later (say, the eighteenth century), the decline in illiteracy rates was still negligible when astrology died.

[WatsonT]

46. "astrology "died" (or was marginalized) during the latter half of the seventeenth century"

Disagree.

Astrology held out in to the 1900s, it's still pretty popular today just not as popular as it used to be.

[Lionel Mandrake]

49. When and why do you think that happened?

This thread is all about what historians call the "death" of astrology. I would prefer to call it marginalization, and you would prefer to call it a loss of popularity.

My questions can be rephrased in your terms:

When, in your view, did astrology become "not as popular as it used to be"? (Was this some time in the 20th century, as your previous statement seems to suggest?)

Do you maintain that a decline in illiteracy rates contributed to the loss of popularity? (If so, when did that decline occur? Do you agree with the previously cited wikipedia article about this?)

[lillypaddle]

5. Personally, I think it's an interesting topic

Like all things, it should be taken with a grain of salt, but I don't know that I'd call it "ignorant superstition." More liberal intolerance?

[hlthe2b]

9. the ancient Egyptians were advanced beyond nearly all cultures...

and we still do not understand everything that they did and accomplished. However, while they were believers in astrology and mystic "forces" in general, I think it is their advanced understanding of astronomy and mathematics that allowed them to excel, rather than their interest in astrology--as well as poly deism.

That said, a lot of people enjoy studying astrology for the same reasons they might study ancient religions, ancient mythology or similar. One need not be a true believer to find the subject interesting. :shrug:

[jberryhill]

32. Because keeping slaves and hereditary rule is so advanced...

[hlthe2b]

33. How does that negate their advances in science, construction..

astronomy? Snarky straw man arguments do nothing to advance discussion.

Quite frankly your slavery comment would apply to England, the US and much of the western world until the mid-late 1800s-- with the hierarchy still applying from a corporatist POV in many, including the US.

[jberryhill]

34. The thread is about astrology

Not all of the cultural products of the ancient Egyptians are comparable to what they were able to accomplish in the area of "piling large rocks".

If the suggestion is "they were really good at piling up large rocks, ergo astrology is worthwhile", it is broken reasoning.

The Germans built the first jet aircraft. I'm still not buying their other ideas.

[hlthe2b]

37. Yes... it is about astrology... not about slavery & whatever other

tangent you chose to bring up.

[jberryhill]

39. Mysticism has always been a tool for hierarchical control

...which is what the Egyptians had nailed down.

[Odin2005]

67. Egypt was a fairly simple society, they just had a lot of manpower,

Their math was actually fairly primitive.

[Riftaxe]

6. The introduction of soft sciences

which are more "reputable" then the old ones.

[Lionel Mandrake]

14. The soft sciences like psychology, sociology, ...

which are now reputable, can not have caused the "death of astrology", because they were introduced more recently than the 17th century.

[Boojatta]

17. You might be taking Riftaxe too literally.

Being very literal about the concept "astrology" (and not completely literal about the concept "dead"), astrology might be dead.

However, if astrology in the wider sense includes soft sciences, then maybe astrology isn't dead yet. Maybe in an ideal world it would be dead, but in the actual world it isn't dead.

[Riftaxe]

52. there is a reason reputable is in quotes

since at best they fill the niche between statistical certainty and reading animal entrails.

[Lionel Mandrake]

54. Some sciences are more reputable than others.

In other words, there is an academic pecking order (which you won't find in a college catalog).

Nobody doubts that physics, chemistry, and biology are reputable.

Medicine and mathematics may or may not be sciences, but they are certainly reputable.

The social sciences are less secure about this. A textbook in one of these sciences often doth protest too much about what is or isn't a science. I once heard an MD express the opinion that psychologists shouldn't be allowed to experiment on human subjects, since (in his opinion) academic psychology departments were completely worthless. How's that for a vicious peck?

The peculiar example of Kepler College (formerly Kepler College of Astrological Arts and Sciences) shows clearly where astrology lies in the academic pecking order. For the history of this school, browse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_College

[ChrisBorg]

7. Real hard science killed it and the alchemists.

[Lionel Mandrake]

15. Alchemy is different.

What happened to alchemy was that it slowly transformed itself into modern chemistry. There is no such continuity for astrology. In the early seventeenth century, there was general dissatisfaction with astrology and an attempt to purify it, i.e., to extract what was worthwhile and throw away the rest. Such attempts failed.

Isaac Newton wore many hats. He was an alchemist, a unitarian interested in biblical chronology, and master of the London Mint, as well as what we would now call a mathematician and physicist. But he had the good sense to avoid astrology.

[Warren Stupidity]

21. but there is nothing worthwhile in it

astrology fell out of favor with the elite because it was bunk and useless bunk. They kept religion around because it was and is useful for manipulating and controlling the peasants.

[Lionel Mandrake]

23. The loss of confidence in astrology among the elite

did not happen all at once. It was a slow process. Starting around 1600, I think, astronomers and astrologers (who were mostly the same people) began to be dissatisfied with their own predictions.

This happened somewhat earlier for Tycho Brahe, the great observational astronomer who died in 1601. Being a Danish nobleman, Tycho certainly qualifies as part of the elite. There is an extended discussion of Tycho's changing attitude toward astrology in Victor Thoren's 1990 biography, The Lord of Uraniborg. Thoren writes (page 216):

"In contrast with his abiding interest in the rest of what would now be termed the occult sciences, Tycho experienced during his lifetime a steady loss of confidence in horoscope astrology. ... Tycho became progressively disillusioned so that in the end he was casting horoscopes purely out of duty as the king's astronomer and disliking even that."

Tycho complained that different astrologers would come to different conclusions, both because they used different methods and because they used different ephemerides (tables of planetary positions), none of which were sufficiently accurate. Tycho devoted his life to making observations of unprecedented accuracy, which would lead to improved ephemerides and thereby improve the practice of astrology (if, in fact, it could be improved). Tycho did not jump to the conclusion that all astrology is bunk.

[Recursion]

31. The distinction between "astronomy" and "astrology" is an anachronism before about 1700

Just like between chemistry and alchemy. (Or medicine and philosophy.) But alchemy wouldn't exist without astrology, and a book by Richard Saunders on "astrology" was what got Newton interested in planetary motions.

[Lionel Mandrake]

38. Yes and no.

If you had said "before about 1650", I would agree with you, but I would continue to use this distinction in discussing the work of astronomers such as Kepler, Galileo, and Tycho Brahe.

By 1700 the science of astronomy had pretty well extricated itself from astrology. The modern distinction had begun to take hold, although some writers still used the terms "astrology" and "astronomy" interchangeably.

The distinction between chemistry and alchemy is different. Alchemy employed terms and symbols that certainly appear astrological. This is mainly because planets had been identified not only with gods, but also with metals. (Mercury is the obvious example.) Newton's alchemical notebooks appear astrological, but this appearance is deceptive. Newton's experiments and writings on alchemy really had nothing to do with what we now call astrology.

In his biography of Newton, Richard Westfall writes that (circa 1670) Newton "did not stumble into alchemy, discover its absurdity, and make his way to sober, "rational" chemistry. Rather he started with sober chemistry and gave it up rather quickly for what he took to be the greater profundity of alchemy."

Note that Westfall does not hesitate to distinguish between chemistry and alchemy. If this is an anachronism, it is a useful anachronism.

[Recursion]

40. Thinking back, I agree with you, Group Captain

1650 is a better year for that line.

This is mainly because planets had been identified not only with gods, but also with metals. (Mercury is the obvious example.) Newton's alchemical notebooks appear astrological, but this appearance is deceptive. Newton's experiments and writings on alchemy really had nothing to do with what we now call astrology.

Functionally, maybe (I've never actually read Newton's alchemical works firsthand), but the "principles" (sic) of alchemy were derived in equal parts from astrological "knowledge" (sic) and experiment. And I think Westfall's point is well-taken; after the Principia and System, Newton basically became irrelevant to science because of it. (Though not to trade and industry; his reforms at the mint were groundbreaking.)

I also just like Leibniz's notation better.

[Lionel Mandrake]

42. The notation we now use in differential calculus

is mostly due to Leibniz, but we are following Newton when we place a dot over a letter to indicate differentiation with respect to time.

[Recursion]

44. I have, however, read the Principia

And it seems important that Newton learned modern notation as a student and specifically taught himself proportional notation to write the Principia.

Stokes' Theorem on a Manifold is misleading in Newton's notation and incredibly intuitive in Leibniz's.

[laconicsax]

43. "I also just like Leibniz's notation better."

I'll second that, and always smile a bit when I think about how his notation largely eclipsed Newton's.

[Recursion]

45. specifically, the fact that it lets you treat dx as something is important

Even if it is more "proper" to write it as (dx / dy) * dy, and then only in an integral, it's conceptually very powerful to just treat dx as a variable in itself.

[Lionel Mandrake]

50. The naive concept of a differential is indispensable.

Physicists know it's not rigorous, but we can't live without our differentials, some of which are vectors, elements of area or volume, changes in thermodynamic quantities, etc.

Thanks to the Newton/Leibniz controversy, the Brits were slow to adopt Leibniz's notation. Continental mathematicians such as Euler and the Bernoullis left the Brits far behind in the 18th century.

[izquierdista]

11. It don't work

Keep spouting bullshit long enough, someone will notice that "it don't work", and people will move on to some other hypothesis. For those hypotheses that actually have science behind them, people notice that "hey, this DOES work" in which case even people whose other beliefs contradict the underlying hypothesis will hypocritically accept it. You don't see too many Christian fundamentalists refusing to fill up their gas tank because the oil was found using evolution and geology. And the sects that have some quibble with modern (scientific) medicine get into legal trouble for denying treatments.

How long the bullshit will keep suckering people in is harder to predict. Phrenology had a short run of about 30 years, but homeopathy, a contemporaneous quackery of a different sort is still going strong.

The reason historians haven't found a relationship between the scientific revolution and the death of astrology is because the revolution has only begun. Only the historians of 3000 or 4000AD are going to be able to answer this one in full. The percentage of the population that have truly accepted the scientific way of thinking is still in the single digits.

[lillypaddle]

13. Well shit,

apparently you haven't read Linda Goodman's "Love Signs." :rofl:

However, I must admit that that book provided me lots of hours of entertainment and fantasy!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

35. "Sexual Astrology" is even better..

http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Astrology-Sign-Sign-Sensual/dp/0440180201

[jberryhill]

36. Hey... If by "works", someone means "you can get laid"

Then, yes, astrology occasionally works.

[Recursion]

30. Eh? Newton was an occultist

Newton and Leibniz, by contrast, never expressed the slightest interest in astrology.

Leibniz, maybe, but Newton's work in alchemy went pretty deep into astrology.

[Lionel Mandrake]

41. Newton's theory of gravity involved occult forces,

according to Leibniz and others. The idea of action at a distance was thought to be occult. Newton, of course, denied this.

Source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-philosophy

The issue was more philosophical than scientific.

[GeorgeGist]

47. Just guessing but it might have been ...

common sense that killed astrology.

[laconicsax]

48. Nope, because it was "common sense" that started it.

You must remember, common sense is often wrong.

It's common sense that the world is flat.
It's common sense that the sun goes around the the Earth.
It's common sense that correlation equals causation.
It's common sense that the moon gives off its own light.
It's common sense that you can cut something in half forever.
It's common sense that a clock will tick at the same rate on top of a mountain as at the base of a mountain.
It's common sense that speed doesn't affect mass.
It's common sense that solid objects aren't mostly empty space.
It's common sense that heavy objects fall faster than light ones.
Etc.

Every one of these cases, it had to be discovered that common sense was wrong.

[Lionel Mandrake]

51. Some of this "common sense" is still with us.

http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms

Moon landings? Just a hoax perpetrated by Hollywood. ;-)

"Common sense" thrives on the World Wide Web .

[Recursion]

53. Well, nobody ever really thought the world is flat

Certainly no culture with maritime experience; the roundness of the world is evident when you sail.

It's common sense that the moon gives off its own light.

The Greeks, Babylonians, and Egyptians all correctly determined that the moon reflects the sun's light -- when you don't have electric lighting, you're much more aware of where heavenly bodies are in the sky, and it doesn't take much thought to see that the moon is being lit from the direction the sun is in.

It's common sense that you can cut something in half forever.

As Kant points out in his amphiboly, along with most of the rest of your statements, both the statement and its opposite appeal to common sense.

The basic argument back then for astrology does make certain sense: you know that at least on earth, the only things that move without being pushed somehow are alive. Stars and planets move without being pushed, so they must be alive, and since one of them (the Sun) clearly keeps the rest of us alive it's not a huge stretch to think they would all have some sort of power over us.

[Lionel Mandrake]

55. Some did, and some still do think the Earth is flat.

On the other hand, it is a myth that Columbus had to argue the sphericity of the Earth.

To sort this all out, browse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

Ancient astronomers observing lunar eclipses certainly knew that the moon shines only by reflected sunlight. They could also see that the shadow cast by the Earth is round, which strongly suggests (but doesn't quite prove) that the Earth is spherical. The strongest ancient evidence of sphericity was undoubtedly the dependence of declination of celestial bodies on the geographic latitude of the observer; this is what sailors must have noticed and what Eratosthenes used to estimate the size of the Earth.

It's fun to speculate on how astrology did or did not appeal to common sense at various times in the past. The argument you mentioned, that things that move without being pushed are alive, was snuffed out by Newton's first law of motion, which was actually not original with Newton but was presented most forcefully by him. (Precursors are Descartes and Galileo.)

Another factor that may have weakened astrology was the changing conception of "planet". After Copernicus, the Earth became a planet, while the sun and moon became non-planets (if they ever had been planets). Galileo and Kepler gave strong support to the Copernican world-view. Under these circumstances, the idea of planetary influences may not have seemed as natural as it had in a Ptolemaic universe.

[Recursion]

58. Sailing

The strongest ancient evidence of sphericity was undoubtedly the dependence of declination of celestial bodies on the geographic latitude of the observer; this is what sailors must have noticed and what Eratosthenes used to estimate the size of the Earth.

What sailors noticed is that other ships turn as they come approach from the horizon, hence the difference between a ship being "hull up" or "hull down".

[Lionel Mandrake]

61. You're right.

I hadn't thought of that. If the other ship has sails (rather than oars), sailors would notice that only the sails are visible at large distance.

The effect I mentioned would become obvious only for a relatively long north-south voyage. For example, if you sail past the equator from north to south, the star Polaris will disappear from view.

Other examples would apply to voyages within the Mediterranean. The latitudes within the Mediterranean vary by about 15 degrees, which is plenty for an ancient mariner to notice, e.g., that stars near the northern horizon in the Adriatic may not be visible from the Gulf of Sidra.

[Lionel Mandrake]

62. Oops - I forgot about the precession of the equinoxes.

What I said about Polaris was not exactly true in ancient times. The northern pole star in 3000 BCE, for example, was Thuban (in the constellation Draco), not Polaris. Other stars would fulfill this role at other times. Vega was the pole star in 12,000 BCE and will be the pole star again in 14,000 CE.

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_star

[Recursion]

65. Yes, I did a paper on that

(I'm actually kind of an ancient math/astronomy nut; not to steal your thunder.)

Currently we have a pretty lame North Star as things go; Polaris wobbles by almost 30 seconds. Still, I wouldn't give up my ability to navigate by stars for anything.

Also, I have to make one point about your other post: it's not simply about rigging. It's more obvious with tall ships, since you can see the sails first, but the terminology "hull-down" and "hull-up" dates back at least to ancient Egypt (that is to say, there are hieroglyphs for them) which never progressed past low-masted lateens. The attitude of the hull is enough to determine if a vessel is hull-down or hull-up, particularly if it is painted (which early Mediterranean vessels seem to have been).

[laconicsax]

66. That just makes things exciting.

Worrying about polar alignment on long-exposure film astrophotography makes for real excitement when the film gets developed and you learn that you got it right...before noticing that the frame is to washed out from sky fog to be usable.

[laconicsax]

56. You're kidding, right?

A flat Earth under a dome or "firmament" is an extremely common view among primitive cultures.

The discovery that the moon reflects light from the sun shows that it isn't common sense. If it was common sense, no one would have needed to work out that the moon was reflecting light rather than producing it. They would have simply looked up at the moon and said, "That's reflected light from the sun." Instead, there are primitive societies calling the moon the source of it's own light.

Everything I listed goes against common sense, regardless of what Kant believed. Kant had the handicap of not knowing about the fundamental counterintuitiveness of reality. Just go out and ask people on the street if heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. (Be warned, the answers may make you weep.) Ask them if a clock on Mt. Everest will tick faster than a clock at sea level, or if given the right tools, you can always cut something in half. Ask if a car going 100mph is shorter than it is when stopped. I guarantee the responses won't be 50% yes and 50% no.

[Recursion]

57. It's found in poetic language even today

A flat Earth under a dome or "firmament" is an extremely common view among primitive cultures.

If you can find an example of someone in the ancient world saying that the earth is literally physically flat, I'd love to see that. The Hebrews had sailboats, so they knew its shape, too; the firmament poetry is just that, poetry.

The discovery that the moon reflects light from the sun shows that it isn't common sense. If it was common sense, no one would have needed to work out that the moon was reflecting light rather than producing it.

I don't know that it was "worked out"; light sources don't have phases and illuminated objects do. Sort of like the flat earth idea, if you can find someone arguing in the past that the moon makes its own light I'd love to see it (the only thing I can think of is Ptolemy's mentioning that Hipparchus had heard dismissed that idea on its face).

Kant had the handicap of not knowing about the fundamental counterintuitiveness of reality.

Kant, whose seminal work is a meticulous outline of the counterintuitiveness of reality? That's the whole point of the amphiboly and antinomy, isn't it?

Just go out and ask people on the street if heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones.

Hell, it makes me weep that people think a falling object has any weight to begin with...

[Orsino]

59. Irreproducible results.

If astrology worked well enough to make predictions, if would have become a technology and a science.

[laconicsax]

60. Here's a reproducible result:

Tell a gullible person that the stars guide their lives and you can read the signs. They will give you their money.

See: Published horoscopes.

[muriel_volestrangler]

63. Some suggestions:

During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the clergy were far more united in their opposition to astrology than scientists were. Nevertheless, science probably played a far larger role in the decline of astrological belief. In particular, the insistence on systematic empirical investigation established standards that astrology could not meet.

The invention of the telescope and the observations of astronomers undermined the whole Aristotelian view of the universe, and many of the premises of astrology. The Aristotelian theory of a perfect, unchanging superlunary sphere, for example, was destroyed by the observation that the planets did not move in perfect circles, that the surface of the moon was pocked and scarred, that the sun had spots, and that comets moved far beyond (not below) the orbit of the moon.

After the publication of Newton's Principia, it was clear that the stars and planets acted in accordance with the same physical laws as bodies on earth.

The theory of "humors" was also losing credibility amongst physicians, and so the links between astrology and medicine were also abandoned.

http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367-121.htm

And that site points out that the attention paid by European monarchs to astrology (and we are talking just about European culture, aren't we?) may have been a fad in the first place - that it became more popular in the 16th century, and declined after that.

[Lionel Mandrake]

64. Very interesting. Thank you.

To Professor Johann P. Sommerville's many quotations from Shakespeare, I will add one from Julius Caesar:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, ... .

Yes, we are talking about astrology in Europe. Professor Sommerville's classes focus on 16th and 17the century Europe, on Great Britain in particular, and on Shakespeare. I suspect that what he has to say is more relevant to England than to Europe as a whole. But it is certainly interesting and provocative.

[Lionel Mandrake]

68. About that web site

where Johann P. Sommerville discusses astrology: Professor Sommerville's home page is:

http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/

From there, you can first click on "367" or "Shakespeare's England", then on "course schedule", to reach this page:

http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367%20Schedule.htm

From there, you can jump to "astrology" or any number of other lecture topics. For example, there are couple of lectures on witchcraft, which, like astrology, was in decline in the late seventeenth century. But that would be a topic for another thread.

[Lionel Mandrake]

69. Where does that site point out that

"the attention paid by European monarchs to astrology ... may have been a fad in the first place - that it became more popular in the 16th century, and declined after that"?

[Lionel Mandrake]

71. Was royal patronage of astrology a 16th century fad?

Is it true that "attention paid by European monarchs to astrology ... became more popular in the 16th century, and declined after that"?

The decline in the 17th century is well documented, but to the best of my knowledge the popularity of astrology in European courts was no greater in the 16th century than it had been earlier. In The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology (New York, 1995), which was originally published in the UK as The Fontana History of Astronomy and Cosmology, John North writes:

"Babylonian kings, medieval Christian kings, bishops and popes, Renaissance generals, Wallenstein, ... regularly took astrological advice."

North goes on to discuss astrology in the courts of Alfonso I of Aragon, Henry I of England, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250), Louis IX of France, and others.

Royal patronage of astrology appears constant over several centuries.

[struggle4progress]

70. There might have been plausible reasons for early people to believe in some crude astrology

Of things in the sky, the sun is clearly important. I suspect the influence of the moon on the tides was probably known, at various times, by various people in different places, too, but it may not be entirely obvious -- so, for example, Galileo explicitly lamented the fact that Kepler listened to folk about that. And star positions may correlate with seasons, for example -- a matter that may have some general bearing on the weather. It is not so great a leap of imagination to wonder, then, whether the visible planets have any impact

The pragmatist C. S. Peirce once said that science only appeared in civilizations that had a history of magical thought -- the point being that the effort to understand the world will necessarily pass through phases, but that one cannot gain real knowledge with first having a belief that some arcane secrets can be obtained that will give us greater control

The ancient astrologies may not have had much in common with each other or what some people today call astrology. Opinions were mixed, even in antiquity: it's possible, for example, to find early Christian era writings ridiculing astrology, and Constantine banned it outright. Before the time of inexpensive published ephemera, getting somebody to accurately calculate the positions, of the planets at your birth, would have been a very expensive proposition, though charlatans have always been available. But after Newton, people would be able say "The midwife has a greater gravitational influence on the newborn than any of the planets." So one might expect astrology to have had a limited heyday between the time Ptolemaic astronomy was introduced to medieval Europe and the Newtonian revolution -- that is, between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries -- and the invention of the printing press led promptly to broadside news sheets, which included all manner of material, including astrological predictions, and so perhaps astrology's real resurgence is post-Gutenberg

[Lionel Mandrake]

72. Recursion made a similar point in post #53

"The basic argument back then for astrology does make certain sense: you know that at least on earth, the only things that move without being pushed somehow are alive. Stars and planets move without being pushed, so they must be alive, and since one of them (the Sun) clearly keeps the rest of us alive it's not a huge stretch to think they would all have some sort of power over us."

Astrology became less and less plausible with the overthrow of ancient ideas about the universe, the four elements, and the supposed relation of microcosm to macrocosm. Newton's theory of gravity was perhaps the nail in astrology's coffin. In the Age of Enlightenment, rationalism may have supplanted superstition, or so the optimists believed.

But Voltaire demolished philosophical optimism, and the forces of darkness struck back in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Maybe we are not as rational as we like to think we are.