5 ms·

I see astrology as basically "folk data science". You make observations and try to find correlations (not causation, though some ancient literature does attempt

I see astrology as basically "folk data science". You make observations and try to find correlations (not causation, though some ancient literature does attempt to explain it). One simple one is Mercury goes into retrograde motion and takes down Meta with it. You can model intrapersonal dynamics (basically found by looking at findings between positions of transiting bodies and those of the natal chart, namely the positions calculated at the time/place of the individual's birth). For example the current position of Jupiter (which symbolizes growth/expansion) is now conjunct an individual's natal midheaven (represents career/how you are seen in society) and all of a sudden this person is being recognized in a very positive way by their community or workplace. You can also model the interpersonal dynamics, found by looking at the effects of just the transiting planets alone, say transiting Mars conjuncts the North Lunar Node or Pluto and all of a sudden you have these really violent transformational events that erupt. Maybe mass shootings, natural disasters etc. The other interesting thing about astrology is it stands to unify many disparate concepts together. For example Jupiter is at the same time connected to the liver, to growth, to happiness, to biology, etc. if I recall correctly. Where else could you find this idea of unifying together seemingly unrelated things into the notion of a planetary symbol. One thing I find sorely lacking is the complete lack of any statistical rigor applied to the predictions/indications given by astrological readings. I do find it fascinating that co-star is throwing technology and data science to the problem. It may not be far off to see them publishing findings that actually meet the level of rigor to at least show statistically significant correlations. I don't practice or believe these things personally, but my ancestors used to try to help their communities understand their problems better using tools like ancient Indian astrology.

brokencode 5y ago
Personally, I think astrology today is just an easy way to make money off of folks who don’t know any better. While it would surely be one of the most incredible scientific discoveries in human history to prove that the normal motion of objects in the solar system can somehow affect people’s lives through some unknown force, it is incredibly unlikely. To claim otherwise and sell some kind of product or predictions based on astrology is dishonest.
- amznbyebyebye 5y ago
  On average literacy as to what astrology is in fact growing not shrinking. This is in particular due to social media and YouTubers who get into the nitty gritty details of birth time based astrology. You don’t need to prove the causative relationship in many cases. Look at modern ML where “why does this model predict the outcome so well” is generally an open research question.
  - brokencode 5y ago
    Astrology proponents on social media and YouTube are also taking advantage of people who don’t know better. You are not going to learn that astrology is baseless from its proponents, especially not from proponents who make money off of astrology content. Even if we don’t know exactly why an ML model works well for a specific problem, we at least can verify that it does in fact work. And we do at least understand the mathematical principles behind the model. But we have no credible evidence for astrology, even after thousands of years of claims and predictions. And there is no theory for how it could work other than basically magic. Again, it would be incredible to find such evidence, but I don’t think that will ever happen.
  - wespiser_2018 5y ago
    You don't need to prove statistical properties in deep learning models, but if that was something important, that's something you'd be able to do for any classifier that has positive predictive ability. If a classifier is good, then there is an underlying association in the data. With astrology, there's no association in the data, unless you do something weird like constrain the size of your sample, systematically exclude people, or are measuring a different effect. It's really totally absurd to use the methods of science on astrology. Just think about it, you have some data, and there's an effect you'd like to figure out. For whatever is going on in your sample, your explanation is "because the position of X on the day you were born?". It's a huge violation of occam's razor, and skips every plausible explanation for the most impossible. No one that seriously does "data science" could approach a question, and come up with astrological answers, unless it was purely an exercise in B.S., with the express goal of creating content for people interested in astrology to consume. "Data scientists" spend years honing and refining their skills asking and answering questions, it's just incongruent with that set of skills and methodology.
wespiser_2018 5y ago
Science is inconsistent with astrology: the former is the systematic study of phenomena using reproducible and logical methods, and the later is basically sophistry with no practical value (or hypothetical mechanism) sold to people who either don't know better, or simply choose to believe.

brokencode 5y ago

Personally, I think astrology today is just an easy way to make money off of folks who don’t know any better. While it would surely be one of the most incredible scientific discoveries in human history to prove that the normal motion of objects in the solar system can somehow affect people’s lives through some unknown force, it is incredibly unlikely. To claim otherwise and sell some kind of product or predictions based on astrology is dishonest.

amznbyebyebye 5y ago
On average literacy as to what astrology is in fact growing not shrinking. This is in particular due to social media and YouTubers who get into the nitty gritty details of birth time based astrology. You don’t need to prove the causative relationship in many cases. Look at modern ML where “why does this model predict the outcome so well” is generally an open research question.
- brokencode 5y ago
  Astrology proponents on social media and YouTube are also taking advantage of people who don’t know better. You are not going to learn that astrology is baseless from its proponents, especially not from proponents who make money off of astrology content. Even if we don’t know exactly why an ML model works well for a specific problem, we at least can verify that it does in fact work. And we do at least understand the mathematical principles behind the model. But we have no credible evidence for astrology, even after thousands of years of claims and predictions. And there is no theory for how it could work other than basically magic. Again, it would be incredible to find such evidence, but I don’t think that will ever happen.
- wespiser_2018 5y ago
  You don't need to prove statistical properties in deep learning models, but if that was something important, that's something you'd be able to do for any classifier that has positive predictive ability. If a classifier is good, then there is an underlying association in the data. With astrology, there's no association in the data, unless you do something weird like constrain the size of your sample, systematically exclude people, or are measuring a different effect. It's really totally absurd to use the methods of science on astrology. Just think about it, you have some data, and there's an effect you'd like to figure out. For whatever is going on in your sample, your explanation is "because the position of X on the day you were born?". It's a huge violation of occam's razor, and skips every plausible explanation for the most impossible. No one that seriously does "data science" could approach a question, and come up with astrological answers, unless it was purely an exercise in B.S., with the express goal of creating content for people interested in astrology to consume. "Data scientists" spend years honing and refining their skills asking and answering questions, it's just incongruent with that set of skills and methodology.

wespiser_2018 5y ago

Science is inconsistent with astrology: the former is the systematic study of phenomena using reproducible and logical methods, and the later is basically sophistry with no practical value (or hypothetical mechanism) sold to people who either don't know better, or simply choose to believe.