At this website by various means we seek to defend life, to encourage Christian faith, to promote Catholic tradition, to edify Marriage in its link to the Creator, to encourage families and individuals, and to support missionary disciples of Jesus. G.S.
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telegraph.co.uk (Filed: 17/08/2003)
Good news for rational, level-headed Virgoans everywhere: just as you might have predicted, scientists have found astrology to be rubbish, writes Science Correspondent Robert Matthews.
Good news for rational, level-headed Virgoans
everywhere: just as you might have predicted, scientists have found astrology
to be rubbish. Its central claim - that
our human characteristics are moulded by the influence of the Sun, Moon and
planets at the time of our birth - appears to have been debunked once and for
all and beyond doubt by the most thorough scientific study ever made into it.
For several decades, researchers
tracked more than 2,000 people - most of them born within minutes of each
other. According to astrology, the subject should have had very similar
traits. The babies were originally
recruited as part of a medical study begun in London in 1958 into how the
circumstances of birth can affect future health. More than 2,000 babies born in early March
that year were registered and their development monitored at regular
intervals. Researchers looked at more
than 100 different characteristics, including occupation, anxiety levels,
marital status, aggressiveness, sociability, IQ levels and ability in art,
sport, mathematics and reading - all of which astrologers claim can be gauged
from birth charts.
The scientists failed to find any
evidence of similarities between the "time twins", however. They
reported in the current issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies:
"The test conditions could hardly have been more conducive to success . .
. but the results are uniformly negative."
Analysis of the research was carried out by Geoffrey Dean, a scientist
and former astrologer based in Perth, Australia, and Ivan Kelly, a psychologist
at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Dr Dean said the results undermined
the claims of astrologers, who typically work with birth data far less precise
than that used in the study. "They sometimes argue that times of birth
just a minute apart can make all the difference by altering what they call the
'house cusps'," he said. "But in their work, they are happy to take
whatever time they can get from a client."
The findings caused alarm and anger in astrological circles yesterday.
Roy Gillett, the president of the Astrological Association of Great Britain,
said the study's findings should be treated "with extreme caution"
and accused Dr Dean of seeking to "discredit astrology".
Frank McGillion, a consultant to the
Southampton-based Research Group for the Critical Study of Astrology, said of
the newly published work: "It is simplistic and highly selective and does
not cover all of the research." He added that he would lodge a complaint
with the editors of the journal.
Astrologers have for centuries claimed to be able to extract deep
insights into the personality and destiny of people using nothing more than the
details of the time and place of birth.
Astrology has been growing in popularity. Surveys suggest that a majority of people in
Britain believe in it, compared with only 13 per cent 50 years ago. The Association
of Professional Astrologers claims that 80 per cent of Britons read star columns,
and psychological studies have found that 60 per cent regularly read their
horoscopes.
Despite the scepticism of
scientists, astrology has grown to be a huge worldwide business, spawning
thousands of telephone lines, internet sites and horoscope columns in
newspapers and magazines. It seems that
no sector of society is immune to its attraction. A recent survey found that a
third of science students subscribed to some aspects of astrology, while some
supposedly hard-headed businessmen now support a thriving market in
"financial astrology" - paying for predictions of trends such as the
rise and fall of the stock market. Astrology supplements have been known to
increase newspaper circulation figures and papers are prepared to pay huge sums
to the most popular stargazers.
Some of the most popular figures in
the field, such as Russell Grant, Mystic Meg and Shelley von Strunckel, can
earn £600,000 or more a year. A single
profitable astrology website can be worth as much as £50 million. When the Daily Mail discovered that its
expert on the zodiac, Jonathan Cainer, was about to leave the newspaper in
1999, it reportedly offered him a £1 million salary and a £1 million bonus to
stay. He still preferred the offer at the Daily Express: no salary but all the
money from his telephone lines.
The time-twins study is only the
start of the bad news for astrologers, however. Dr Dean and Prof Kelly also
sought to determine whether stargazers could match a birth chart to the
personality profile of a person among a random selection. They reviewed the evidence from more than 40
studies involving over 700 astrologers, but found the results turned out no
better than guesswork. The success rate
did not improve even when astrologers were given all the information they asked
for and were confident they had made the right choice.
Dr Dean said the consistency of the findings weighed
heavily against astrology. "It has
no acceptable mechanism, its principles are invalid and it has failed hundreds
of tests," he said. "But no hint of these problems will be found in
astrology books which, in effect, are exercises in deception." Dr Dean is ready for a torrent of criticism.
He said: "I'm probably the most hated person in astrology because I'm
regarded as a turncoat."
© Copyright of Telegraph
Group Limited 2003. Monday »August 18»
2003
At this website by various means we seek to defend life, to encourage Christian faith, to promote Catholic tradition, to edify Marriage in its link to the Creator, to encourage families and individuals, and to support missionary disciples of Jesus. G.S.
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