I asked 3000 People if they Believe in Astrology, Here’s What I found
Why astrology seems to ‘actually’ work
The very notion that the motion and position of planets and the position of the sun during the time of your birth, which respectively are the fundamental ideas in Vedic and western astrology, affect someone’s personality and that one’s future could potentially be predicted based on these ideas isn’t backed up by any empirical evidence. It lacks the mechanism. There have been several studies that disprove this fundamental notion and the so-called predictions made on that basis.
Science doesn’t depend on inductive reasoning, unlike astrology. One of the major reasons why this is pseudoscience is because science is falsifiable and astrology is not. And that distinctly differentiates the latter from the former. Science bases itself upon the falsifiability of scientific methods and findings. The conclusions drawn from astrological predictions aren’t testable. According to research conducted by theorists Ivan Kelly, Geoffrey Dean, and Don Saklofske, here are some of the common biases that people are mostly unaware of and that make it seem like astrology actually works when in fact it doesn’t: Barnum effect, Cognitive dissonance, Confirmation bias, Dr. Fox effect, Illusory correlation, Immunity from disconfirmation, Social desirability.
On July 28th I ran a poll on my Twitter asking people if they think astrology is real science. The poll ran for two days and the results, as you can see, the poll received 3012 votes in total. The results are as follows:
15% of the people voted for Astrology as a scientific discipline or study. That is nearly 452 people out of 3012. These are the people who fall under the category who truly believe that the planets, their positions in space, and the position of the sun during the time of your birth somehow affect an individual’s personality and their lives.
9.9% of people voted for the third option which was “I don’t know but I believe in it”. That is 298 people out of 3012. These are the people who fall under the category of the ones who do not have much concern for understanding the foundation and fundamentals of the things that they believe in. Or for some reason, they don’t want to understand what they believe in.
77.1% of people voted for the “pseudoscience” option. That is nearly 2262 people out of 3012. These are the people who believe that astrology is pseudoscientific. It is unfalsifiable and hence couldn’t be considered a scientific discipline. I fall under this category.
An experiment was conducted by James Randi that debunked astrology in the most subtle and easy way possible. A group of students were given individual horoscopes and were asked to rate them from 1 to 5 in terms of astrological prediction. Most of them rated either 4 or 5, with 5 being the most accurate. He had given all of them the exact same horoscope. Here’s a clip of the experiment you can watch:
Also, here are some of the most fascinating responses I got:
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