Is there a battle between astrology and science?
The law of gravity is readily recognized and easily
tested. The force that gave rise to the
expression, "whatever goes up must come down" has indeed undergone
extensive scientific testing and is largely considered to be one of the most
fundamental forces in all of nature. The
very pull of it can be felt as you read these words as you are held to your
chair or the floor rather than floating around like a helium balloon. Given this, is it possible for the gravitational
forces from the planets to give rise to meaningful predictions from astrology?
The gravitational force of the sun and moon are what gives
rise to tides. It is the gravitational
pull of the sun which keeps the earth in orbit preventing our planet from
sailing off into empty space. It is gravity
that keeps ours and other solar systems in the galaxy bound together which in
turn provides us with all the stars that we can see with our naked eye.
Although the planets are also bound to the sun, they have a
gravitational effect on us that is so small, it is too small to even
measure. To put this in some
perspective, a few comparisons might be useful. Because the earth is not perfectly spherical
but rather flattened at the poles (due to the earth's rotation), gravity gets a
little stronger as you get closer to the north or south poles. The difference in gravitational strength from
the poles to the equator varies by as much as 0.5%. Climbing a tall mountain can give more than a
0.1% difference in gravitational strength.
When it comes to the planets, the situation becomes very
different and much, very much smaller. Standing
next to a 5,000 lb pickup truck will provide a gravitational force more than
100 times stronger than that from Pluto on you.
Standing next to another person would give a similar gravitational force
as the planet Mars at its closest location to us.
The largest effect from any planet on us at its closest
position to the earth would be Jupiter, and even that would be around a
millionth of a single percent difference.
This would not be quantifiable with any accelerometer on earth by a very
long shot. Saturn would be 10 times weaker than Jupiter and Venus even ten
times weaker than that. All of the other
planets have much smaller effects and even that is when they are at their very
closest to the earth, completely aligned with us and the sun.
Appealing to gravity to attribute cause and effect on people
could work from a placebo effect. In
this sense, if you are told you will make important decisions and you believe
it, you might see all your decisions as important (or vice versa). If you are told you will be making changes or
staying the same or whatever and you emphasize those aspects in your day or
choose to see them that way, you can convince yourself of their validity. If one chooses to ascribe a spiritual
significance to these things, then the options just expand from there.
This is not to say that there is no spiritual significance
one could obtain from evaluating the heavens, even the bible says that,
"God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to
divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for
days and for years;"" (Gen. 1:14).
As a scientist, I generally only quantify what is predictable,
observable or reproducible. The
gravitational effects from the planets are in a very real sense, a negligibly
small contribution from the vast array of larger gravitational effects in our
every day environment.
One might try to argue that the planets can affect us
through the magnetosphere or some other undiscovered mechanism. Obviously I could not assess an undiscovered
mechanism, only those properties that are understood and characterized. So whether the Christmas star was a comet, a
planet, a star or something else altogether, the effects of gravity are on the
other hand, very well known. If anyone were to make a prediction that the
gravitational force from any of the planets have a noticeable effect on us is
not something any modern scientific community would consider, "scientific".
Care must always be utilized in a belief system to avoid seeing what you want to see or convincing yourself that how you want things to be is really the way they are.
