Skyscript Astrology Forum

To perpetuate ancient superstitions doesn't help to build an accurate and modern understanding of Astrology, instead it keeps it in the darkness of the middle ages.

I wrote an answer to this and then erased. Maybe someone with more patience or sense of amusement will answer to the smugness but I don?t have the energy.

Hi Sonia,

I agree that whilst chronobiology studies uniform and recurring cycles, astrology specializes more in irrepetible and unique cycles (ie. the birth chart), this is very true, however astrology is much more than that, it also studies recurring cycles and its correlations with human and social developments

For me there is a difference between observing correlations of physical celestial cycles with terrestrial rhythms in Nature, and correlating symbolic cycles with rhythmic cultural shifts in order to interpret meaning and significance in relation to cultural dynamics. On the other hand, I would see the correlations between physical celestial cycles and terrestrial rhythms or human experience as a source for a metaphorical extension to the target domain of astrological symbolism. Thus there is no physical correlation between Mars and violent events, but there is an imaginal one.

Chronobiology is not concerned with meaning at all, and neither is any other scientific discipline. The sun or the moon don?t mean anything to a chronobiologist, and have no symbolic significance. I tend to set the boundaries of what constitutes ?the astrological? in these terms. For me it is a symbol system first and foremost. Of course, others may see it differently.

Once biological clocks are synchronized to extraterrestrial environment this is astrology in whatever specialization of study or branch of astrology whatever they can call it for to properly analyze it.

Well OK, if that?s how you choose to define astrology. If that is the case, then the synchronization of the lunar and tidal cycles is astrology too. The implication here is that planetary influences are in fact a central feature of astrology, as you define it.

As for myself, I draw a line between celestial influences on human behaviour, which are a real subject for objective study by science, and correlations made between astrological symbols and worldly contexts with the view to illuminating meaning, which is something that happens outside of scientific ways of conceptualising reality.

I consider Astrology to be a science because it is based in real and measurable facts, not only in anecdotal experience. Gauquelin et al. demonstrated it.

If you restrict the definition of astrology to what has been demonstrated by the Gauquelin results, you will have a very impoverished astrology indeed. Out goes the whole of Chinese astrology, and most of western and Indian astrology. In my opinion, astrology is entirely about the anecdotal, which is why it is so refractory to statistical validation.

When taking a look at any astrology text book, or observing how an astrologer works with astrological tools, the only thing that vaguely approaches scientific status is the information in the ephemeris, and even that is idealised. The given planet positions are projected onto the ecliptic, and do not for the most part represent where the planets are in objective terms. The rest of astrology ? zodiac signs, houses, aspects, and all the rest constitute a conceptual system which has no scientific basis in reality.

Astrology and science are categorically separate in my opinion (one which all scientists would agree with).

Astrology is scientifically untrue, as scientists keep telling us, but it isn?t astrologically untrue. Astrological facts, such as the observed retrograde movements of planets which have had significance projected onto them, do not actually happen in objective reality, and yet form the basis for true astrological interpretations.

In other words, astrology makes use of phenomenologically true, but scientifically untrue facts. These phenomenologically based observations then acquire symbolic meanings which form part of astrology?s conceptual system. Another example is the phenomenological fact that Mars has a reddish colour for humans. Scientifically, there is no intrinsic colour to Mars, only reflected electromagnetic radiation which our visual system renders as the qualitative experience of redness. Mars is a shade of grey for dogs. However, it is not unreasonable to suggest that much of the prototypical meanings imaginally projected onto Mars and used in astrology have a basis in the observed red colour of the planet.

At the very least, this implies that astrological symbolism and concepts have a strong subjective human dimension, which again tends to rule it out of the science frame (as it is ideally defined).

For many, the epistemological version of ?the gospel truth? is scientific in character. However, scientific truths only refer to what can be investigated scientifically. There are no scientifically true moral outlooks, for example, nor are there any scientifically true definitions of what constitutes a powerful art work or piece of music. These all have a subjective aspect to them, and the best that can be expected is some sort of general inter-subjective consensus one way or another. In essence, modern science has nothing much to say about qualities. This was not the case for the scientific thinking which characterised the period during which western astrology developed. In those days, the four elements for example were scientifically true, and heaviness (a quality) was due to an excess of the earth element. An astrologer might also have said that the redness of a tomato indicated the fruit was governed by Mars. This is no longer true scientifically, but remains true astrologically.

It's because this high complexity of chart factors interconnected ones to others that current scientific methods fails to measure astrological facts.

One problem is that specific meanings are not intrinsic to symbols. On the other hand, Pi is specifically 3.142 ? and NaCl is sodium chloride; always, not sometimes. One can have identical horoscopes for several events occurring at the same time and place ? a wedding, a horse race, a business opening, and a person being born. The context, as understood by the astrologer, determines how one approaches the interpretation. What does Uranus square the Moon in Cancer mean for a horse race, and is this the same as for another context such as the birth of a person? Well, as far as astrological practice is concerned, the answer to this question is no, the symbolism does not mean the same thing in the two cases.

The meaning of the horoscope is emergent. In other words, it arises as the astrologer interprets the information astrologically in relation to the context. Prior to the astrologer engaging in the interpretation process, the horoscope actually has no intrinsic meaning. This is a different situation from science, in which data is considered to hold within itself the conclusions to be drawn. The scientist plays no role in the emergence of the conclusion, other than being the detached observer who rationally draws out the conclusion embedded in the data. In contrast, astrologers are totally involved in the interpretation of a horoscope, and are very much engaged participants in the astrological process.

Much of the complexity experienced in astrology has to do with the nature of the contexts which provide the subject matter for astrological investigation. The structural form of western astrology is actually quite simple, essentially a schematic geometrical format containing highly regular dynamic elements (e.g. the planets). This is completely linear in character. On the other hand, the contexts to which astrology is applied are highly complex, non-linear, and have their own internal dynamics, as would be the case of an individual?s life, whether or not there will be a famine in the Sudan, and so on. Astrology illuminates these contexts, or so I believe. Famines are usually caused by wars or extreme meteorological scenarios, not by Saturn transits to a nation state?s Moon position in the horoscope. In order for an astrologer to do good work, there has to be a good understanding of the context.

I am of the opinion that astrology is a natural science, a rich and highly sophisticaded one outside the mechanical model of the Universe.

Astrology was a scientific subject in the pre-modern era, but it simply is not a scientific subject in the modern era, and will never be while the definition of science revolves around the quest for an objective, mind-independent modelling of external reality dedicated to generating absolute truths which mirror a god?s-eye view of things. In my opinion, astrology is part of the humanities, not the sciences. Its functional value is not dependent on establishing objective or absolute truths; that?s not what astrology is for. It is a mistake to judge astrology according to scientific criteria.

I agree that astrology lies outside the mechanical model of the universe, but in that case how can it be equated with chronobiology, which lies inside the mechanistic conceptual field?

While I do not agree that astrology is a science, I do believe that it can be illuminated in terms of scientific understanding. I?m particularly interested in what the cognitive sciences have to say in this regard, as this is the branch of science which, among other things, studies conceptual systems, how they are generated, and how they are used. As I said above, I see astrology as a conceptual system. The kind of issues which interest myself include such questions as why astrologers think it makes sense that the meaning of a symbol changes when it moves from one zodiac sign to another, given that zodiac signs have no objective reality.

Cognitive science provides answers to these kinds of questions. However, it means that one first has to see astrology as a human affair, rather than something which is objectively embedded in Nature and which operates as part of its universal laws.

Not many astrologers seem to look at it that way; their eyes are more focused on the heavens, metaphorically speaking. For me though, astrology is very much to do with illuminating what is happening here on Earth. The heavens are used as a device, a partial source of symbolism (the rest being supplied by the human imagination) drawn from features in the environment used to calibrate or structure time, and then applied to illuminating patterns associated with the experience of change (patterns in the sequence of events which have move to the foreground of attention) ? i.e. the subjective experience of time.

Obviously there are many different ways of conceiving what astrology is. One just has to look at history to see this is the case, never mind listening to what individual astrologers? opinions on the matter are. It is not uncommon to try to weave astrology into the world views which dominate a culture at any particular time. Astrology seems to be very flexible in that regard, as it has survived several major ?paradigm shifts? in its time. However, I think that efforts to integrate astrology into science have minimal chances of success, if for no other reason than modern science evolved in ways which were almost specifically designed to exclude the essence of what astrology is largely all about. In other words, the exploration of patterns and rhythms in the subjective, qualitative experience of events and event processes in life, using a purposefully motivated conceptual system which provides additional information that can be used to complement analytical reasoning and common sense in relation to a given context.

I think it is very important that astrologers engage in dialogue about these things. Not because I believe that there is a right way to conceive astrology ? to me that makes no more sense than to say there is a right way to conceive art - but because I believe that the diversity of opinions both mirrors and reveals something about the nature of astrology itself. I have my opinions, for sure, and they reflect who I am and my experience both as a scientist and an astrologer. I don?t expect anyone else?s to overlap with them to any great extent, and I also don?t think one?s opinions on the nature of astrology reveal much, if anything, about one?s ability as a practitioner. In the end, that is the most important factor.

All the best
.

I often wonder what's so objectionable about any possible causal/physical relationship between the planets as material things and humans? It seems that this objection has a rather 'religious' origin.

Hi Eddy,
There?s nothing objectionable about that per se ? it?s a subject of scientific enquiry.

What I often wonder is how anyone who practices astrology could possibly think that what they are doing is based on the physical mechanics of the solar system. It seems that this is most likely a side effect of the repression of the natural human religious instinct, and is about as likely in reality as a virgin birth.

Hi Bill
I just wanted to thank you for the time you put into expressing these complex points. It is always refreshing to read your thoughts and I think you manage to find a very balanced and elegant way to summarise the problems we face in our attempts to define what astrology is.

Deb

Hi again Bill,

Thank you for replying in a so detailed way once again, as you say this is an important matter of discussion in astrology today.

I agree with you that chronobiology is not concerned with meaning at all, and from this standpoint it is true that is not the same as astrological study, however basically they are related in my opinion, as they both are concerned with the study of parallel cycles in time, whatever the interpretation of these given by each discipline, and by the way chronobiology is a scientific recognized area, is a specialty of Biology.

In no way I am reducing astrology to the Gauquelin sectors, what I meant to say is that the fundamentals of astrological correlations has been scientifically proven by Gauquelin, et al., among other positive empirical studies, this is a rock-solid evidence even if not recognised at it is by the mainstream scientific community, so we cannot say that astrology is not related to science anymore.

There are very powerful reasons for to reject Gauquelin's findings, they challenge the current view of the universe, the "rational" mind, many pre-established concepts, they challenge all the existent religions, the current order and model of thought, they challenge politics and almost everything in the current society's established order. But these reasons doesn't mean that Gauquelin's findings aren't real, in fact the "problem" is that they are very Real and scientists (including many astrologers too) don't know how to deal with these.

Nevertheless I agree that not all in astrology makes scientific sense and many is needed to be recycled, many old concepts and techniques that simply are outdated, as ancient house division systems or some predictive techniques as example. Because they were used in the past it doesn't mean that they were perfect or don't need refinement. I don't support the notion that "ALL It's Okay" in astrology without critical thinking.

All the best for you too,

Sonia

I am sorry if I sounded too straightforward or abrupt when expressing my opinions in my posts but really exasperates me the lack of a common theory into the community, the recent news about the closing of Kepler College it was too much, as said by Zip Dobyns some decades ago is very disapointing the internal chaos and lack of agreement in so many matters into the community, it doesn't help at all the profession and the future of it, astrology is old enough to achieve some common ground in the XXI century, I can't believe how it is portrayed by many astrologers and astrological major sites and some institutions nowadays.

I hope it can improve with time.

Sonia

Hi Soniah ? it is nice to ?see? you here

Soniah wrote:the fundamentals of astrological correlations has been scientifically proven by Gauquelin, et al., among other positive empirical studies, this is a rock-solid evidence even if not recognised at it is by the mainstream scientific community, so we cannot say that astrology is not related to science anymore.

Unfortunately, I think that comment completely defines the problem. What you see as ?scientifically proven?, based upon empirical studies which give ?rock-solid evidence?, the mainstream scientific community rejects. Someone obviously needs to redefine something! I don?t think it should be astrologers redefining their traditional techniques, however. In my experience the majority of practicing astrologers do not consider house systems or predictive techniques to be outdated or redundant. As philosophical constructs they are as vibrant and useful in astrological practice as they ever were.

Nevertheless I agree that not all in astrology makes scientific sense and many is needed to be recycled, many old concepts and techniques that simply are outdated, as ancient house division systems or some predictive techniques as example. Because they were used in the past it doesn't mean that they were perfect or don't need refinement. I don't support the notion that "ALL It's Okay" in astrology without critical thinking.

Nothing is perfect, of course, but I have followed my impulse to explore this subject over many years, and I can tell you that my relationship with astrology has never been free of critical thinking. But your idea of critical thinking seems to require the remodelling of astrology into something that suits modern science, and mine doesn't. My critical reasoning has followed the question of where those old rules came from, and why; trying to discover what the philosophy or natural cycle was that gave meaning to the symbolic expression. I work as a horary astrologer and I have a saying about how easy it is to learn horary: it is simple, if you know the basic astrological principles, you can learn it in a day? and then you spend the rest of your life discovering it, and learning to understand it.

Through my own experience, and the experiences of my close astrological friends, I have seen how astrological ?belief? gets secured through waves of revelations and realisations, which come as a kind of pay back for the necessary effort of mind and will that is put into understanding some of the principles that don?t initially make sense. So from my perspective, the astrologers who lack critical reasoning are not just those who take up a principle because someone else told them to, without thinking it through for themselves, but also astrologers who want to cast out old thinking because they haven?t bothered to understand the astrological reasoning behind it.

I think my final summary will be that astrology is simply a mirror. The only way to improve astrology, is to elevate the mind and deepen the understanding of the astrologer. Personally, I have no concern about what science or scientists think about astrology. In my opinion most of them lack the necessary understanding to be entitled to an opinion. Contemporary scientists get exasperated that astrology survives in spite of their condemnation, but we have some strength in the fact that most of us have made significant and thought-provoking discoveries for ourselves, as individuals, in contradiction to what society has taught us to think, and not because of it. So as a group we are not nearly as superfical in our thinking as those scientists assme we are - especially when they assume we are all con-artitists or doing it 'just for fun'. But the negative aspect is that whenever we make a collective, it will be a community built of free-thinking, strongly opinionated individiuals; so I guess its rather inevitable that we become self-defeating through our own "internal chaos and lack of agreement". Sad, but inevitable...

With regards
Deb

Soniah wrote:It's standard astronomy knowledge that planets aren't source of energy.

Before Newton came up with gravity theory, Galileo dismissed the idea of the Moon causing the tides as occult superstition. Science will never be completed. So perhaps a similar thing would count for astrology.

yuzuru wrote:

To perpetuate ancient superstitions doesn't help to build an accurate and modern understanding of Astrology, instead it keeps it in the darkness of the middle ages.

I wrote an answer to this and then erased. Maybe someone with more patience or sense of amusement will answer to the smugness but I don?t have the energy.

I tried it several years ago, I can say that it got bogged down into a sort of Monthy Python sketch.

PFN wrote:Speaking for myself, I find a middle ground to be healthier. Without the scientific drive, we could not hope to see reliable researches on the subject, and even with inconclusive results, I tend to think these help us gather knowledge about astrology. It does take a leap of faith to believe in a art that does not have any way to be proved that we could envision any time soon (and likely, ever). But it would be arrogant to state it is this or that, as of now there is no theory attaching it to empirical finds and vice versa, but that could be just a 'yet'.

The middle way is a good one. Nobody really knows how astrology works, whether we look for some physical theory or a synchronistic one they still are (unproved) theories. The difficulty is the intangibility and untestability of astrology, which sometimes makes me think that it's all senseless. However the subject always seem to draw me back again.

Bill wrote:At the very least, this implies that astrological symbolism and concepts have a strong subjective human dimension, which again tends to rule it out of the science frame (as it is ideally defined).

In my opinion this reflects the subjective-objective issue. I surely acknowledge the human dimension, hence the differences and the intangibility. However an astrology totally disconnected from the planets 'out there' would make them redundant and astrology likewise. That's why I want to retain a spark of a causal/objective factor related to the planets as physical objects. An entirely subjective approach first needs a 'conditioning' of the mind to astrology. Someone with a certain problem needs to be told that this is related to a certain planet/sign/house/aspect and a combination of these. Rather than 'indicating' the problem we would speak of 'initiating' the client .

A very useful approach and when applied properly of great help to the client but it would also mean that we wouldn't need an exactly calculated chart anymore. A wrongly dated chart or even an impossible chart (e.g. with a Mercury square Sun aspect) would suffice to name and treat a problem.

Bill wrote:What I often wonder is how anyone who practices astrology could possibly think that what they are doing is based on the physical mechanics of the solar system. It seems that this is most likely a side effect of the repression of the natural human religious instinct, and is about as likely in reality as a virgin birth.

Although any influence of planets is simply to weak to exert any possible influence on humans according to the physical knowledge we have today, I don't want to exclude that one day something measurable will be found one day. Or not but I wouldn't be bothered, just like clairvoyance and telepathy can't be measured I still believe it to be real. Please don't think I imagine influences as in Chris Brennan's humorous illustration in that link, Bill, but I'd rather see influence in the light of the effect that music has on people and the feeling one gets when stepping into a rowdy bar. It's more subtle.

Soniah wrote:I consider Astrology to be a science because it is based in real and measurable facts, not only in anecdotal experience. Gauquelin et al. demonstrated it. Another completely different issue is the challenge that astrology represents to ortodox science as it is a too sophisticated, complex, individualized and subtle science that is almost impossible to measure and replicate astrological facts in a systematized way.

Now Gauquelin has been mentioned I think some remarks would be appropriate. On the one side one often can read that astrology is said to be unmeasurable in a scientific way, i.e. with statistics. One of the reasons is that research often is focussed on some isolated factor, which clashes with the whole approach in astrology. On the other side when it comes to one of the researches of Gauquelin (the only one with positive results and all the others giving insignificant results), this is hailed as the evidence of astrology, even though the results are completely contradictory with usual astrology. This is a bit inconsistent, one should either follow the one or the other way.

There is some "hope" though. Not for the view wich desires to prove astrology in a scientific way but rather for the view that considers the impossibility of forcing astrology in a straightjacket of statistics. There are strong signs that planetary effects like Mars for sports champions etc. might be due to 'social artifacts' found in avoidance-times and -dates of birth. This would make the planetary effects a non-existing issue in statistics and therefore enhance the view that astrology is intangible for scientific research http://rudolfhsmit.nl/g-arti2.htm Please note that the writer of the article (Geoffrey Dean) although a non-believer always speaks respectfully of astrology and is not to be classified under the typical debunkers who indiscriminately dismiss astrology.

Deb wrote:But the negative aspect is that whenever we make a collective, it will be a community built of free-thinking, strongly opinionated individiuals; so I guess its rather inevitable that we become self-defeating through our own "internal chaos and lack of agreement". Sad, but inevitable...

The silver lining of this is that it gives us enough food for discussion .

Hi Deb, thank you for your warm welcome

I agree with you that we have a problem with the mainstream scientific community, they seem not to want to open their eyes to the now well-based evidence of the astrological phenomena, Gauquelin's studies had been replicated by many others many times and they are rock-solid scientific evidence of the existence of an astrological phenomena in nature, whether they like to accept it or not. This is why I say that Astrology is scientifically true today - it wasn't scientifically true one century ago, but today it is.

When I was referring to ancient astrological techniques I said that some of them needs to be recycled (in my opinion) or just simply discarded because there are tons of alternative ways to proceed in astrological technique accumulated from many centuries ago which doesn't mean that all of them are right but that they were needed for to develop more precise techniques in astrological practice. Imagine if in Medicine today they would continue bleeding (purging) patients just because it is an ancient healing technique with a philosophical background behind it. The same could apply to the more than 20 existing different types of progressions, through time it was needed to develop the system of progressions, and they developed and experienced it thoroughly but do we use or need all these historical variety of progressions types on current practice? I only use secondary progressions and I think that more than the half of other types of progressions can be simply discarded in modern practice.

Always speaking from my personal standpoint, I have a similiar view of ancient house division systems. When a doctor makes a X-ray medical exam he or she cames with ONE result, not with 10 different results to examine (that would be crazy and very confusing in order to establish an accurate diagnosis). Many astrologers think that different house divisions provide different and valid views of the chart, depending on each house division sytem's purpose. But I don't see this to be coherent, I myself use the Placidus system only because is the only one widely and consistently used with good results in modern practice and the only one that gives me consistent good results too. I would use Regiomontanus for Horary and try Koch at times for to analyze a chart from another view or sharpen transits more accurately maybe, of course I would not say not to these if in practice they consistently work, or I will use the Equal system in order to simplify issues for students, but in standard occidental astrological practice we need to have established a standard model of division at least for natal astrology, just as in occidental Medicine they have a standard model of diagnosis too.

It's not my aim to remodel all entire astrology to suit modern science because science has not the last word in everything, it changes and improves everyday, but I would be more selective with the vast array of traditional techniques used today, and moreover to try to reach a common ground in the profession about what is useful and tested enough to be used today and what is just part of the history of astrology.

Replying to Eddy:

Gauquelin's findings for planetary positions at birth related with vocation are coherent with astrological principles, the right planets are linked to the right traits. If you mean that they aren't coherent because of the house placements I don't think so, I think that they add further light and information about the importance of the rising or culminating planets as example, without they have to clash or restrain astrological traditional theory but to expand it -astrology is expanding continually, look at the many developments made in the last century as example, they don't trash the ancient astrological structure, they gives us more tools to work with.

The importance of Gauquelin's scientific evidence is not that however, but the fact that this scientific evidence demonstrates once and forever the scientific validity of Astrology. But if we say that this evidence shows that "planets has effects on us" then we cannot hope that the mainstream scientific community will take seriously this evidence and logically they will atribute it to artifacts or errors, as it makes not sense at all.

Kind regards,

Sonia

soniah wrote:... the now well-based evidence of the astrological phenomena, Gauquelin's studies had been replicated by many others many times and they are rock-solid scientific evidence of the existence of an astrological phenomena in nature, whether they like to accept it or not.

Gauquelin's results involve some discrete house positions of the planets at the moment of birth --we may consider these discrete positions a phenomenon of nature.

This natural phenomenon is found to be statistically correlated to profession and/or vocation, and we may call this correlation "an astrological phenomenon".

Up to this point, all we can say is that there is statistical evidence of something that can be called "an astrological phenomenon", but:

1) there is no "scientific" evidence because no scientific model or explanation has been tested, let alone proved, by means of this correlation.

2) there is nothing that warrants the assertion that this correlation is a phenomenon of nature, except a simple hypothesis for which no physical or biological testable model exists.

Gauquelin proposed a simple "planetary heredity" biological explanation to account for the correlation, but never went beyond that point. There is no model or experiment to prove or disprove this explanation, i.e., he never operationalized the hypothesis or put it to test.

So Gauquelin's statistical results are not scientific evidence of anything, because no scientific model existed in the first place, and they are not evidence that astrological phenomena "exist in nature", as long as nobody knows what these "phenomena" could be, i.e., there is no physical or biological tested model or theory that shows how the planet's position is related to vocation or profession.

Juan

As in Medicine, there is not a need of a causal or biological explanation for how medicine works (ie. Psychiatry) in order to accept scientific evidence (Psychiatry is a science) and you clearly confuse Gauquelin's research on planetary heredity (independent and not related to the correlations birth/vocation he found) with his final rock-solid scientific evidence on astrological phenomena. Please, take a further study of the entire Michel Gauquelin papers, studies, books and work.

This is about scientifically proven astrological correlations, it has nothing to do with the old superstition of causality (planetary influences and biology testing) and are rock-solid scientific FACTS, whether you like these or not.

BTW I don't understand why people tries and insists in keep astrology in the dark realm of superstition while ignoring science and facts. It's absolutely backward!

This makes me think that many people cames to astrology without the remote idea of what astrology truly is, and this seems to be in circle, they came to astrology with their old superstitions and they spread them back again widely outside astrology -this kind of people frankly doesn't help the profession at all.

Patience...

Soniah wrote:Gauquelin's findings for planetary positions at birth related with vocation are coherent with astrological principles, the right planets are linked to the right traits. If you mean that they aren't coherent because of the house placements I don't think so,...

No I meant it differently. Perhaps I was a bit vague. To say it in a somewhat direct way I don't understand why statistics are dismissed when they give negative results but are welcomed when they give positive results. Non-traditional results wouldn't really bother me by the way. It stimulates to look at it differently.

If you attentively read that link I mentioned monday http://rudolfhsmit.nl/g-arti2.htm then you will see that there are some convincing issues that illustrate that the planetary effects are not real but "artifacts of social behaviour" as the author calls it. But the article explains all that in detail.

This article is the second of three. The first article is also interesting and explains about statistics. http://rudolfhsmit.nl/g-hist2.htm Especially the subject of effect size is interesting. It shows that:"Planetary effects are tinier than they might seem", and for astrology this still means that it would be difficult to fix the results in strict rules.

Perhaps it's a pity but it doesn't need to stop investigating the effects of astrology. I even considered it for a moment, but the subject is too attractive . Several issues still convince me of the effectiveness of astrology.