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Astrology comprises several systems of divination[1] based on the premise that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world. Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, and Mayans developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. In the West, astrology most often consists of a system of horoscopes that claim to explain aspects of a person's personality and predict future events in their life based on the positions of the sun, moon, and other planetary objects at the time of their birth.
Astrology has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BCE, with roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.[2] A form of astrology was practised in the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950–1651 BCE). Chinese astrology was elaborated in the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE). Hellenistic astrology after 332 BCE mixed Babylonian astrology with Egyptian Decanic astrology in Alexandria, creating horoscopic astrology. Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. In Rome, astrology was associated with 'Chaldean wisdom'. After the collapse of Alexandria in the 7th century, astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian. In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported to Europe and translated into Latin, helping to initiate the European Renaissance, when major astronomers including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo practised as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature in the works of poets such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer, and of playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.
Through most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition. It was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine.[3] At the end of the 17th century, new scientific concepts in astronomy and physics (such as heliocentrism and Newtonian mechanics) called astrology into question. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in astrology has largely declined.[4] Astrology has been rejected by the scientific community as having no validity or explanatory power for describing the universe (a pseudoscience). Among other issues, there is no proposed mechanism of action by which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth that does not contradict well understood basic aspects of biology and physics.[5]:249[6] Scientific testing of astrology has found no evidence to support any of the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions. Where astrology has made falsifiable predictions, it has been proven wrong.[7]:424
The word astrology comes from the early Latin word astrologia,[8] deriving from the Greek noun ἀστρολογία, 'account of the stars'. Astrologia later passed into meaning 'star-divination' with astronomia used for the scientific term.[9]
Principles and practice[edit]
Advocates have defined astrology as a symbolic language, an art form, a science, and a method of divination.[10][11]
Although most cultural systems of astrology share common roots in ancient philosophies that influenced each other, many have unique methodologies which differ from those developed in the West. These include Hindu astrology (also known as "Indian astrology" and in modern times referred to as "Vedic astrology") and Chinese astrology, both of which have influenced the world's cultural history.
Western astrology is a form of divination based on the construction of a horoscope for an exact moment, such as a person's birth.[12] It uses the tropical zodiac, which is aligned to the equinoctial points.[13]
Western astrology is founded on the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies such as the Sun, Moon, planets, which are analyzed by their movement through signs of the zodiac (twelve spatial divisions of the ecliptic) and by their aspects (based on geometric angles) relative to one another. They are also considered by their placement in houses (twelve spatial divisions of the sky).[14] Astrology's modern representation in western popular media is usually reduced to sun sign astrology, which considers only the zodiac sign of the Sun at an individual's date of birth, and represents only 1/12 of the total chart.[15]
The horoscope visually expresses the set of relationships for the time and place of the chosen event. These relationships are between the seven 'planets', signifying tendencies such as war and love; the twelve signs of the zodiac; and the twelve houses. Each planet is in a particular sign and a particular house at the chosen time, when observed from the chosen place, creating two kinds of relationship.[16] A third kind is the aspect of each planet to every other planet, where for example two planets 120° apart (in 'trine') are in a harmonious relationship, but two planets 90° apart ('square') are in a conflicted relationship.[17][18] Together these relationships and their interpretations supposedly form "the language of the heavens speaking to learned men".[16]
Along with tarot divination, astrology is one of the core studies of Western esotericism, and as such has influenced systems of magical belief not only among Western esotericists and Hermeticists, but also belief systems such as Wicca that have borrowed from or been influenced by the Western esoteric tradition. Tanya Luhrmann has said that "all magicians know something about astrology," and refers to a table of correspondences in Starhawk's The Spiral Dance, organized by planet, as an example of the astrological lore studied by magicians.[19]
Indian and South Asian[edit]
Hindu astrology originated with western astrology in ancient times.[20]:361[21] In the earliest Indian astronomy texts, the year was believed to be 360 days long, similar to that of Babylonian astrology, but the rest of the early astrological system bears little resemblance.[22]:229 Later, the Indian techniques were augmented with some of the Babylonian techniques.[22]:231
Chinese and East-Asian[edit]
Chinese astrology has a close relation with Chinese philosophy (theory of the three harmonies: heaven, earth and man) and uses concepts such as yin and yang, the Five phases, the 10 Celestial stems, the 12 Earthly Branches, and shichen (時辰 a form of timekeeping used for religious purposes). The early use of Chinese astrology was mainly confined to political astrology, the observation of unusual phenomena, identification of portents and the selection of auspicious days for events and decisions.[23]:22,85,176
The constellations of the Zodiac of western Asia and Europe were not used; instead the sky is divided into Three Enclosures (三垣 sān yuán), and Twenty-eight Mansions (二十八宿 èrshíbā xiù) in twelve Ci (十二次).[24] The Chinese zodiac of twelve animal signs is said to represent twelve different types of personality. It is based on cycles of years, lunar months, and two-hour periods of the day (the shichen). The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, and the cycle proceeds through 11 other animals signs: the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig.[25] Complex systems of predicting fate and destiny based on one's birthday, birth season, and birth hours, such as ziping and Zi Wei Dou Shu (simplified Chinese: 紫微斗数; traditional Chinese: 紫微斗數; pinyin: zǐwēidǒushù) are still used regularly in modern day Chinese astrology. They do not rely on direct observations of the stars.[26]
The Korean zodiac is identical to the Chinese one. The Vietnamese zodiac is almost identical to Chinese zodiac except the second animal is the Water Buffalo instead of the Ox, and the fourth animal is the Cat instead of the Rabbit. The Japanese have since 1873 celebrated the beginning of the new year on the 1st of January as per the Gregorian Calendar. The Thai zodiac begins, not at Chinese New Year, but either on the first day of fifth month in the Thai lunar calendar, or during the Songkran festival (now celebrated every 13–15 April), depending on the purpose of the use.[27]
Ancient world[edit]
Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky.[28]:2,3 Early evidence for Humans making conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles, appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show that lunar cycles were being noted as early as 25,000 years ago.[29]:81ff This was a first step towards recording the Moon's influence upon tides and rivers, and towards organizing a communal calendar.[29] Agricultural needs were addressed with increasing knowledge of constellations which appear in the different seasons, allowing the rising of particular star-groups to herald annual floods or seasonal activities.[30] By the 3rd millennium BCE, civilizations had sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and may have oriented temples in alignment with heliacal risings of the stars.[31]
There is scattered evidence to suggest that the oldest known astrological references are copies of texts made in the ancient world. Two, from the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa (compiled in Babylon around 1700 BCE) are reported to have been made during the reign of king Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BCE).[32] Another, showing an early use of electional astrology, is ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash (c. 2144 – 2124 BCE). This describes how the gods revealed to him in a dream the constellations that would be most favorable for the planned construction of a temple.[33] However, there is controversy about whether they were genuinely recorded at the time or merely ascribed to ancient rulers by posterity. The oldest undisputed evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated system of knowledge is therefore attributed to the records of the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950–1651 BCE). This astrology had a small number of parallels with Hellenistic Greek (western) astrology, including the zodiac, a norming point near 9 degrees in Aries, the trine aspect, planetary exaltations, and the dodekatemoria (the twelve divisions of 30 degrees each).[34] However, the Babylonians viewed celestial events as possible signs rather than as causes of physical events.[34]
The system of Chinese astrology was elaborated during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) and flourished during the Han Dynasty (2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE), during which all the familiar elements of traditional Chinese culture – the Yin-Yang philosophy, theory of the five elements, Heaven and Earth, Confucian morality – were brought together to formalise the philosophical principles of Chinese medicine and divination, astrology and alchemy.[23]:3,4
Ancient objections[edit]
Cicero stated the twins objection (that with close birth times, personal outcomes can be very different), later developed by Saint Augustine.[35] He argued that since the other planets are much further from the earth than the moon, they could have only very tiny influence compared to the moon's.[36] He also argued that if astrology explains everything about a person's fate, then it wrongly ignores the visible effect of inherited ability and parenting, changes in health worked by medicine, or the effects of the weather on people.[37]
Plotinus argued that since the fixed stars are much further away than the planets, it is laughable to imagine the planets' effect on mankind should depend on their position with respect to the zodiac. He also argues that the interpretion of the moon's conjunction with a planet as good when the moon is full, but bad when the moon is waning, is clearly wrong, as from the moon's point of view, half of her surface is always in sunlight; and from the planet's point of view, waning should be better, as then the planet sees some light from the moon, but when the moon is full to us, it is dark, and therefore bad, on the side facing the planet.[38]
Favorinus argued that it was absurd to imagine that stars and planets would affect human bodies in the same way as they affect the tides,[39] and equally absurd that small motions in the heavens cause large changes in people's fates. Sextus Empiricus argued that it was absurd to link human attributes with myths about the signs of the zodiac.[40] Carneades argued that belief in fate denies free will and morality; that people born at different times can all die in the same accident or battle; and that contrary to uniform influences from the stars, tribes and cultures are all different.[41]
Hellenistic Egypt[edit]
In 525 BC Egypt was conquered by the Persians. The 1st century BC Egyptian Dendera Zodiac shares two signs – the Balance and the Scorpion – with Mesopotamian astrology.[42]
With the occupation by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, Egypt became Hellenistic. The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander after the conquest, becoming the place where Babylonian astrology was mixed with Egyptian Decanic astrology to create Horoscopic astrology. This contained the Babylonian zodiac with its system of planetary exaltations, the triplicities of the signs and the importance of eclipses. It used the Egyptian concept of dividing the zodiac into thirty-six decans of ten degrees each, with an emphasis on the rising decan, and the Greek system of planetary Gods, sign rulership and four elements.[43] 2nd century BC texts predict positions of planets in zodiac signs at the time of the rising of certain decans, particularly Sothis.[44] The astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy lived in Alexandria. Ptolemy's work the Tetrabiblos formed the basis of Western astrology, and "enjoyed almost the authority of a Bible among the astrological writers of a thousand years or more".[45]
Greece and Rome[edit]
The conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great exposed the Greeks to ideas from Syria, Babylon, Persia and central Asia.[46] Around 280 BC, Berossus, a priest of Bel from Babylon, moved to the Greek island of Kos, teaching astrology and Babylonian culture.[47] By the 1st century BC there were two varieties of astrology, one using horoscopes to describe the past, present and future; the other, theurgic, emphasising the soul's ascent to the stars.[48] Greek influence played a crucial role in the transmission of astrological theory to Rome.[49]
The first definite reference to astrology in Rome comes from the orator Cato, who in 160 BC warned farm overseers against consulting with Chaldeans,[50] who were described as Babylonian 'star-gazers'.[51] Among both Greeks and Romans, Babylonia (also known as Chaldea) became so identified with astrology that 'Chaldean wisdom' became synonymous with divination using planets and stars.[52] The 2nd-century Roman poet and satirist Juvenal complains about the pervasive influence of Chaldeans, saying "Still more trusted are the Chaldaeans; every word uttered by the astrologer they will believe has come from Hammon's fountain".[53]
One of the first astrologers to bring Hermetic astrology to Rome was Thrasyllus, astrologer to the emperor Tiberius,[49] the first emperor to have had a court astrologer,[54] though his predecessor Augustus had used astrology to help legitimise his Imperial rights.[55]
Mediaeval world[edit]
Astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars following the collapse of Alexandria to the Arabs in the 7th century, and the founding of the Abbasid empire in the 8th. The second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754–775) founded the city of Baghdad to act as a centre of learning, and included in its design a library-translation centre known as Bayt al-Hikma 'Storehouse of Wisdom', which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. The early translators included Mashallah, who helped to elect the time for the foundation of Baghdad,[56] and Sahl ibn Bishr, (a.k.a. Zael), whose texts were directly influential upon later European astrologers such as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century.[57] Knowledge of Arabic texts started to become imported into Europe during the Latin translations of the 12th century, the effect of which was to help initiate the European Renaissance.
The first astrological book published in Europe was the Liber Planetis et Mundi Climatibus ("Book of the Planets and Regions of the World") which appeared between 1010 and 1027 AD, and may have been authored by Gerbert of Aurillac.[58] Ptolemy's second century AD Tetrabiblos was translated into Latin by Plato of Tivoli in 1138.[58] The Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas attempted to reconcile astrology with Christianity by proposing, following Aristotle, that the stars ruled the imperfect 'sublunary' body, while God ruled the soul.[59] The thirteenth century mathematician Campanus of Novara is said to have devised a system of astrological houses which divides the prime vertical into 'houses' of equal 30° arcs,[60] though the system was used earlier in the East.[61] The thirteenth century astronomer Guido Bonatti wrote a textbook, the Liber Astronomicus, a copy of which was owned at the end of the fifteenth century by king Henry VII of England.[60]
In Paradiso, the final part of the Divine Comedy, the Italian poet Dante Alighieri referred "in countless details"[62] to the astrological planets, though he adapted traditional astrology to suit his Christian viewpoint,[62] for example using astrological thinking in his prophecies of the reform of Christendom.[63]
Mediaeval objections[edit]
In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville argued in his Etymologiae that astronomy described the movements of the heavens, while astrology had two parts: one was scientific, describing the movements of the sun, the moon and the stars, while the other, making predictions, was theologically erroneous.[64][65] In contrast, John Gower in the fourteenth century defined astrology as essentially limited to the making of predictions.[64][66] The influence of the stars was in turn divided into natural astrology, with for example effects on tides and the growth of plants, and judicial astrology, with supposedly predictable effects on people.[67][68] The fourteenth century skeptic Nicole Oresme however included astronomy as a part of astrology in his Livre de divinacions.[69] Oresme argued that current approaches to prediction of events such as plagues, wars, and weather were inappropriate, but that such prediction was a valid field of inquiry. However, he attacked the use of astrology to choose the timing of actions (so-called interrogation and election) as wholly false, and rejected the determination of human action by the stars on grounds of free will.[69][70] The friar Laurens Pignon (c. 1368–1449)[71] similarly rejected all forms of divination and determinism, including by the stars, in his 1411 Contre les Devineurs.[72] This was in opposition to the tradition carried by the Arab astronomer Albumasar (787-886) whose Introductorium in Astronomiam and De Magnis Coniunctionibus argued the view that both individual actions and larger scale history are determined by the stars.[73]
Renaissance and Early Modern[edit]
Renaissance scholars often practised astrology to pay for their research into other subjects.[74] Gerolamo Cardano cast the horoscope of king Edward VI of England, while John Dee was the personal astrologer to queen Elizabeth I of England.[74] Catherine de Medici paid Michael Nostradamus in 1566 to verify the prediction of the death of her husband, king Henry II of France made by her astrologer Lucus Gauricus.[74] Major astronomers who practised as court astrologers included Tycho Brahe in the royal court of Denmark, Johannes Kepler to the Hapsburgs and Galileo Galilei to the Medicis.[74] The astronomer and spiritual astrologer Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for heresy in Rome in 1600.[74]
Ephemerides with complex astrological calculations, and almanacs interpreting celestial events for use in medicine and for choosing times to plant crops, were popular in Elizabethan England.[75] In 1597, he English mathematician and physician Thomas Hood made a set of paper instruments using revolving overlays which enabled students to work out relationships between the fixed stars or constellations, the midheaven, and the twelve astrological houses.[76] Hood's instruments also illustrated for pedagogical purposes the supposed relationships between the signs of the zodiac, the planets, and the parts of the human body which were believed to be governed by the planets and signs.[76][77] While Hood's presentation was innovative, his astrological information was largely standard and was taken from Gerard Mercator's astrological disc made in 1551, or a source used by Mercator.[78][79]
By the 17th century, in England, astrology had reached its zenith.[80] Astrologers were theorists, researchers, and social engineers, as well as providing individual advice to everyone from monarchs downwards. Among other things, astrologers could advise on the best time to take a journey or harvest a crop, diagnose and prescribe for physical or mental illnesses, and predict natural disasters. This underpinned a system in which everything - people, the world, the universe - was understood to be interconnected, and astrology co-existed happily with religion, magic and science.[81]
Enlightenment period and onwards[edit]
During The Enlightenment period, intellectual sympathy for astrology fell away, leaving only a popular following supported by cheap almanacs.[82] One English almanac compiler, Richard Saunders, followed the spirit of the age by printing a derisive Discourse on the Invalidity of Astrology, while in France Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire of 1697 stated without evidence that the subject was puerile.[82] The Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift ridiculed the Whig political astrologer John Partridge.[82]
Astrology saw a popular revival starting in the 19th century as part of a general revival of spiritualism and later New Age philosophy[83]:239–249, and through the influence of mass media such as newspaper horoscopes.[83]:259–263 Early in the 20th century the psychiatrist Carl Jung developed some concepts concerning astrology,[84] which led to the development of psychological astrology.[83]:251–256[85][86]
Astrology has been rejected by the scientific community as having no explanatory power for describing the universe. Scientific testing of astrology has been conducted, and no evidence has been found to support any of the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions.[7]:424 There is no proposed mechanism of action by which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth that does not contradict well understood, basic aspects of biology and physics.[5]:249[6]
The majority of professional astrologers rely on performing astrology-based personality tests and making relevant predictions about the remunerator's future.[87]:83 Those who continue to have faith in astrology have been characterized as doing so "in spite of the fact that there is no verified scientific basis for their beliefs, and indeed that there is strong evidence to the contrary".[88]
It has also been shown that confirmation bias is a psychological factor that contributes to belief in astrology.[89]:344[90]:180–181[91]:42–48 Confirmation bias is a form of cognitive bias.[a][92]:553 From the literature, Astrology believers often tend to selectively remember those predictions which have turned out to be true, and do not remember those predictions which happen to be false. Another, separate, form of confirmation bias also plays a role, where believers often fail to distinguish between messages that demonstrate special ability and those which do not.[90]:180–181 Thus there are two distinct forms of confirmation bias that are under study with respect to astrological belief.[90]:180–181
Astrology has not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity,[7][87]:85 and as such, is regarded as pseudoscience[93][94]:1350. Where astrology has made falsifiable predictions, it has been falsified.[7]:424
Shawn Carlson's double-blind chart matching test, in which 28 astrologers agreed to match over 100 natal charts to psychological profiles generated by the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) test, is one of the most renowned tests of astrology.[95][96] The experimental protocol used in Carlson's study was agreed to by a group of physicists and astrologers prior to the experiment.[7] Astrologers, nominated by the National Council for Geocosmic Research, acted as the astrological advisors, and helped to ensure, and agreed, that the test was fair.[96]:117[97]:420 They also chose 26 of the 28 astrologers for the tests, the other 2 being interested astrologers who volunteered afterwards.[97]:420 The astrologers came from Europe and the United States.[96]:117 The astrologers helped to draw up the central proposition of natal astrology to be tested.[97]:419 Published in Nature in 1985, the study found that predictions based on natal astrology were no better than chance, and that the testing "clearly refutes the astrological hypothesis".[97]
In 1955, astrologer[98] and psychologist Michel Gauquelin stated that although he had failed to find evidence to support such indicators as the zodiacal signs and planetary aspects in astrology, he had found positive correlations between the diurnal positions of some of the planets and success in some professions which astrology traditionally associates with those planets.[99] The best-known of Gauquelin's findings is based on the positions of Mars in the natal charts of successful athletes and became known as the "Mars effect".[100]:213 A study conducted by seven French scientists attempted to replicate the claim, but found no statistical evidence.[100]:213–214 They attributed the effect to selective bias on Gauquelin's part, accusing him of attempting to persuade them to add or delete names from their study.[101]
Geoffrey Dean has suggested that the effect may be caused by self-reporting of birth dates by parents rather than any issue with the study by Gauquelin. The suggestion is that a small subset of the parents may have had changed birth times to be consistent with better astrological charts for a related profession. The sample group was taken from a time where belief in astrology was more common. Gauquelin had failed to find the Mars effect in more recent populations, where a nurse or doctor recorded the birth information. The number of births under astrologically undesirable conditions was also lower, indicating more evidence that parents choose dates and times to suit their beliefs.[96]:116
Dean, a scientist and former astrologer, and psychologist Ivan Kelly,[102] conducted a large scale scientific test, involving more than one hundred cognitive, behavioural, physical and other variables, but found no support for astrology.[103] Furthermore, a meta-analysis was conducted pooling 40 studies consisting of 700 astrologers and over 1,000 birth charts. Ten of the tests, which had a total of 300 participating, involved the astrologers picking the correct chart interpretation out of a number of others which were not the astrologically correct chart interpretation (usually 3 to 5 others). When the date and other obvious clues were removed no significant results were found to suggest there was any preferred chart.[103]:190
Under the criterion of falsifiability, first proposed by philosopher of science Karl Popper, astrology is a pseudoscience.[104] Popper regarded astrology as "pseudo-empirical" in that "it appeals to observation and experiment", but "nevertheless does not come up to scientific standards".[105]:44 In contrast to scientific disciplines, astrology has not responded to falsification through experiment.[106]:206 In contrast to Popper, the philosopher Thomas Kuhn argued that it was not lack of falsifiability that makes astrology unscientific, but rather that the process and concepts of astrology are non-empirical.[107]:401
To Kuhn, although astrologers had, historically, made predictions that "categorically failed", this in itself does not make it unscientific, nor do the attempts by astrologers to explain away the failure by claiming it was due to the creation of a horoscope being very difficult. Rather, in Kuhn's eyes, astrology is not science because it was always more akin to medieval medicine; they followed a sequence of rules and guidelines for a seemingly necessary field with known shortcomings, but they did no research because the fields are not amenable to research,[108]:8 and so "they had no puzzles to solve and therefore no science to practise".[107]:401[108]:8 While an astronomer could correct for failure, an astrologer could not. An astrologer could only explain away failure but could not revise the astrological hypothesis in a meaningful way. As such, to Kuhn, even if the stars could influence the path of humans through life astrology is not scientific.[108]:8
Philosopher Paul Thagard believed that astrology can not be regarded as falsified in this sense until it has been replaced with a successor. In the case of predicting behaviour, psychology is the alternative.[109]:228 To Thagard a further criterion of demarcation of science from pseudoscience was that the state of the art must progress and that the community of researchers should be attempting to compare the current theory to alternatives, and not be "selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations".[109]:227–228 Progress is defined here as explaining new phenomena and solving existing problems, yet astrology has failed to progress having only changed little in nearly 2000 years.[109]:228[110]:549 To Thagard, astrologers are acting as though engaged in Normal science believing that the foundations of astrology were well established despite the "many unsolved problems", and in the face of better alternative theories (Psychology). For these reasons Thagard viewed astrology as pseudoscience.[109] [110]:228
For the philosopher Edward W. James, astrology is irrational not because of the numerous problems with mechanisms and falsification due to experiments, but because an analysis of the astrological literature shows that it is infused with fallacious logic and poor reasoning.[111]:34
What if throughout astrological writings we meet little appreciation of coherence, blatant insensitivity to evidence, no sense of a hierachy of reasons, slight command over the contextual force of critieria, stubborn unwillingless to pursue an argument where it leads, stark naivete concerning the effiacacy of explanation and so on? In that case, I think, we are perfectly justified in rejecting astrology as irrational. ... Astrology simply fails to meet the multifarious demands of legitimate reasoning."
—Edward W. James[111]:34
Lack of mechanisms and consistency[edit]
Testing the validity of astrology can be difficult because there is no consensus amongst astrologers as to what astrology is or what it can predict.[87]:83 Most professional astrologers are paid to predict the future or describe a person's personality and life, but most horoscopes only make vague untestable statements that can apply to almost anyone.[87][91]:83
Many astrologers claim that astrology is scientific.[112] Some of these astrologers have proposed conventional causal agents such as electromagnetism and gravity.[112][113] Scientists reject these mechanisms as implausible[112] since, for example, the magnetic field, when measured from earth, of a large but distant planet such as Jupiter is far smaller than that produced by ordinary household appliances.[113][114]
Astrologers usually have only a small knowledge of astronomy and they often do not take into account basic features such as the precession of the equinoxes which would change the position of the sun with time; they commented on the example of Elizabeth Teissier who claimed that "the sun ends up in the same place in the sky on the same date each year" as the basis for claims that two people with the same birthday but a number of years apart should be under the same planetary influence. Charpak and Broch noted that "there is a difference of about twenty-two thousand miles between Earth's location on any specific date in two successive years" and that thus they should not be under the same influence according to astrology. Over a 40 years period there would be a difference greater than 780,000 miles.[115]:6–7
Theological viewpoints[edit]
St. Augustine (354-430) believed that the determinism of astrology conflicted with the Christian doctrines of man's free will and responsibility, and God not being the cause of evil,[116] but he also grounded his opposition philosophically, citing the failure of astrology to explain twins who behave differently although conceived at the same moment and born at approximately the same time.[117]
Some of the practices of astrology were contested on theological grounds by medieval Muslim astronomers such as Al-Farabi (Alpharabius), Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) and Avicenna. They said that the methods of astrologers conflicted with orthodox religious views of Islamic scholars, by suggesting that the Will of God can be known and predicted in advance.[118] For example, Avicenna's 'Refutation against astrology', Risāla fī ibṭāl aḥkām al-nojūm, argues against the practice of astrology while supporting the principle that planets may act as agents of divine causation. Avicenna considered that the movement of the planets influenced life on earth in a deterministic way, but argued against the possibility of determining the exact influence of the stars.[119] In essence, Avicenna did not deny the essential dogma of astrology, but denied our ability to understand it to the extent that precise and fatalistic predictions could be made from it.[120] Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292–1350), in his Miftah Dar al-SaCadah, also used physical arguments in astronomy to question the practice of judicial astrology.[121] He recognized that the stars are much larger than the planets, and argued:
And if you astrologers answer that it is precisely because of this distance and smallness that their influences are negligible, then why is it that you claim a great influence for the smallest heavenly body, Mercury? Why is it that you have given an influence to al-Ra's and al-Dhanab, which are two imaginary points [ascending and descending nodes]?
—Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya[121]
Divination, including predictive astrology, is stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church to be incompatible with modern Catholic beliefs[122] such as free will:[117]
All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.[123]
—Catechism of the Catholic Church
Cultural impact[edit]
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Western politics and society[edit]
In the West, political leaders have sometimes consulted astrologers. Louis de Wohl worked as an astrologer for the British intelligence agency MI5, after it was claimed that Hitler used astrology to time his actions. The War Office was "interested to know what Hitler's own astrologers would be telling him from week to week".[124] In fact de Wohl's predictions were so inaccurate that he was soon labelled a "complete charlatan" and it was later shown that Hitler considered astrology to be "complete nonsense".[125] After John Hinckley's attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, first lady Nancy Reagan commissioned astrologer Joan Quigley to act as the secret White House astrologer. However, Quigley's role ended in 1988 when it became public through the memoirs of former chief of staff, Donald Regan.[126]
There was a boom in interest in astrology in the late 1960s. The sociologist Marcello Truzzi described three levels of involvement of "Astrology-believers" to account for its revived popularity in the face of scientific discrediting. He found that most astrology-believers did not claim it was a scientific explanation with predictive power. Instead, those superficially involved, knowing "next to nothing" about astrology's 'mechanics', read newspaper astrology columns, and could benefit from "tension-management of anxieties" and "a cognitive belief-system that transcends science".[127] Those at the second level usually had their horoscopes cast and sought advice and predictions. They were much younger than those at the first level, and could benefit from knowledge of the language of astrology and the resulting ability to belong to a coherent and exclusive group. Those at the third level were highly involved and usually cast horoscopes for themselves. Astrology provided this small minority of astrology-believers with a "meaningful view of their universe and [gave] them an understanding of their place in it."[b] This third group took astrology seriously, possibly as a "sacred canopy", whereas the other two groups took it playfully and irreverently.[127]
In 1953, sociologist Theodor W. Adorno conducted a study of the astrology column of a Los Angeles newspaper as part of a project examining mass culture in capitalist society.[128]:326 Adorno believed that popular astrology, as a device, invariably led to statements which encouraged conformity, and that astrologers who went against conformity with statement discouraging performance at work etc. would risk losing their jobs.[128]:327 Adorno concluded that astrology was a large-scale manifestation of systematic irrationalism, where individuals were subtly being led to believe that the author of the column was addressing them directly through the use of flattery and vague generalisations.[129] Adorno drew a parallel with the phrase opium of the people, by Karl Marx, by commenting "occultism is the metaphysic of the dopes".[128]:329
A 2005 Gallup poll and a 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center reported that 25% of U.S. adults believe in astrology.[130][131]
India and Japan[edit]
In India, there is a long-established and widespread belief in astrology. It is commonly used for daily life, particularly in matters concerning marriage and career, and makes extensive use of electional, horary and karmic astrology.[132][133] Indian politics has also been influenced by astrology.[134] It remains considered a branch of the Vedanga.[135][136] In 2001, Indian scientists and politicians debated and critiqued a proposal to use state money to fund research into astrology,[137] resulting in permission for Indian universities to offer courses in Vedic astrology.[138] In February 2011, the Bombay High Court reaffirmed astrology's standing in India when it dismissed a case which had challenged its status as a science.[139]
In Japan, a strong belief in astrology has led to dramatic changes in the fertility rate and the number of abortions in the years of "Fire Horse". Women born in hinoeuma years are believed to be unmarriageable and to bring bad luck to their father or husband. In 1966, the number of babies born in Japan dropped by over 25% as parents tried to avoid the stigma of having a daughter born in the hinoeuma year.[140][141]
Literature and music[edit]
The fourteenth-century English poets John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer both referred to astrology in their works, including Gower's Confessio Amantis and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.[142] Chaucer commented explicitly on astrology in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, demonstrating personal knowledge of one area, judicial astrology, with an account of how to find the ascendant or rising sign.[143]
In the fifteenth century, references to astrology, such as with similes, became "a matter of course" in English literature.[142]
John Lyly's 1597 play, The Woman in the Moon, is wholly motivated by astrology.[144] Christopher Marlowe makes astrological references in his plays Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine (both c. 1590).[144] Sir Philip Sidney refers to astrology at least four times in his romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (c. 1580).[144] Edmund Spenser uses astrology both decoratively and causally in his poetry, revealing "unmistakably an abiding interest in the art, an interest shared by a large number of his contemporaries."[144] George Chapman's play Byron's Conspiracy (1608) similarly uses astrology as a causal mechanism in the drama.[145] The physician and mystic Robert Fludd practised astrology, as did the quack doctor Simon Forman.[145] In Elizabethan England, "the usual feeling about astrology ... [was] that it is the most useful of the sciences".[145] William Shakespeare's attitude towards astrology is unclear, with contradictory references in plays including King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and Richard II.[145] Shakespeare was familiar with astrology and made use of his knowledge of astrology "in nearly every play he wrote",[145] assuming a basic familiarity with the subject in his commercial audience.[145]
The most famous piece of music to be influenced by astrology is the orchestral suite The Planets. Written by the British composer Gustav Holst (1874–1934), and first performed in 1918, the framework of The Planets is based upon the astrological symbolism of the planets.[146] Each of the seven movements of the suite is based upon a different planet, though the movements are not in the order of the planets from the Sun. The composer Colin Matthews wrote an eighth movement entitled "Pluto, the Renewer", first performed in 2000.[147] In 1937, another British composer, Constant Lambert, wrote a ballet on astrological themes, called Horoscope.[148] In 1974, the New Zealand composer Edwin Carr wrote The Twelve Signs: An Astrological Entertainment for orchestra without strings.[149]
See also[edit]
- ^ Astrology. Encyclopedia Britannica.
- ^ Koch-Westenholz, Ulla (1995). Mesopotamian astrology : an introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian celestial divination. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. pp. Foreword, 11. ISBN 978-87-7289-287-0.
- ^ Kassell, Lauren (5 May 2010). "Stars, spirits, signs: towards a history of astrology 1100–1800". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (2): 67–69. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.04.001.
- ^ "Astrology - Astrology in modern times". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
- ^ a b Vishveshwara, edited by S.K. Biswas, D.C.V. Mallik, C.V. (1989). Cosmic Perspectives: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of M.K.V. Bappu (1. publ. ed.). Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-34354-2.
- ^ a b Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, vol. 1. Dordrecht u.a.: Reidel u.a. 1978. ISBN 978-0-917586-05-7.
- "Chapter 7: Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding". science and engineering indicators 2006. National Science Foundation. Retrieved 28 July 2012. "About three-fourths of Americans hold at least one pseudoscientific belief; i.e., they believed in at least 1 of the 10 survey items[29]"... " Those 10 items were extrasensory perception (ESP), that houses can be haunted, ghosts/that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places/situations, telepathy/communication between minds without using traditional senses, clairvoyance/the power of the mind to know the past and predict the future, astrology/that the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives, that people can communicate mentally with someone who has died, witches, reincarnation/the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death, and channeling/allowing a "spirit-being" to temporarily assume control of a body."
- ^ a b c d e Zarka, Philippe (2011). "Astronomy and astrology". Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 5 (S260): 420–425. doi:10.1017/S1743921311002602.
- ^ Harper, Douglas. "astrology". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2011-12-06. "Differentiation between astrology and astronomy began late 1400s and by 17c. this word was limited to "reading influences of the stars and their effects on human destiny.""
- ^ "astrology, n.". Oxford English Dictionary (Second ed.). Oxford University Press. 1989; online version September 2011. "In Old French and Middle English astronomie seems to be the earlier and general word, astrologie having been subseq. introduced for the 'art' or practical application of astronomy to mundane affairs, and thus gradually limited by 17th cent. to the reputed influences of the stars, unknown to science. Not in Shakespeare."
- ^ The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica,' v.5, 1974, p. 916
- ^ Dietrich, Thomas: 'The Origin of Culture and Civilization, Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists, 2005, p. 305
- ^ Dictionary of the history of ideas. New York: Scribner. 1974. ISBN 0-684-13293-1.
- ^ James R. Lewis, 2003. The Astrology Book: the Encyclopedia of Heavenly Influences. Visible Ink Press. Online at Google Books.
- ^ Hone, Margaret (1978). The Modern Text-Book of Astrology. Romford: L. N. Fowler. pp. 21–89. ISBN 0-85243-357-3.
- ^ Riske, Kris (2007). Llewellyn's Complete Book of Astrology. Minnesota, USA: Llewellyn Publications. pp. 5–6; 27. ISBN 978-0-7387-1071-6.
- ^ a b Kremer, Richard (1990). "Horoscopes and History. by J. D. North; A History of Western Astrology. by S. J. Tester". Speculum 65 (1): 206–209.
- ^ Pelletier, Robert; Cataldo, Leonard (1984). Be Your Own Astrologer. Pan. pp. 57–60.
- ^ Fenton, Sasha (1991). Rising Signs. Aquarian Press. pp. 137–9.
- ^ Luhrmann, Tanya (1991). Persuasions of the witch's craft: ritual magic in contemporary England. Harvard University Press. pp. 147–151. ISBN 0-674-66324-1.
- ^ Pingree, David (18 December 1978). "Indian Astronomy". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. American Philosophical Society 122 (6): 361–364. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
- ^ Pingree, David (2001). "From Alexandria to Baghdād to Byzantium. The Transmission of Astrology". International Journal of the Classical Tradition 8 (1): 3–37.
- ^ a b Pingree, David (June 1963). "Astronomy and Astrology in India and Iran". Isis. The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society 54 (2): 229–246.
- ^ a b Kistemaker, Jacob, Sun, Xiaochun (1997). The Chinese sky during the Han : constellating stars and society. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-10737-3.
- ^ F. Richard Stephenson, "Chinese Roots of Modern Astronomy", New Scientist, 26 June 1980. See also 二十八宿的形成与演变
- ^ Theodora Lau, The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes, pp 2–8, 30–5, 60–4, 88–94, 118–24, 148–53, 178–84, 208–13, 238–44, 270–78, 306–12, 338–44, Souvenir Press, New York, 2005
- ^ Selin, Helaine, ed. (1997). "Astrology in China". Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer. Retrieved July 22, 2012.
- ^ "การเปลี่ยนวันใหม่ การนับวัน ทางโหราศาสตร์ไทย การเปลี่ยนปีนักษัตร โหราศาสตร์ ดูดวง ทำนายทายทัก".
- ^ Campion, Nicholas (2009). History of western astrology. Volume II, The medieval and modern worlds. (first ed.). Continuum. ISBN 978-1-4411-8129-9.
- ^ a b Marshack, Alexander (1991). The roots of civilization : the cognitive beginnings of man's first art, symbol and notation (Rev. and expanded. ed.). Moyer Bell. ISBN 978-1-55921-041-6.
- ^ Evelyn-White, Hesiod ; with an English translation by Hugh G. (1977). The Homeric hymns and Homerica (Reprinted. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 663–677. ISBN 978-0-674-99063-0. "Fifty days after the solstice, when the season of wearisome heat is come to an end, is the right time to go sailing. Then you will not wreck your ship, nor will the sea destroy the sailors, unless Poseidon the Earth-Shaker be set upon it, or Zeus, the king of the deathless gods"
- ^ Aveni, David H. Kelley, Eugene F. Milone (2005). Exploring ancient skies an encyclopedic survey of archaeoastronomy (Online ed.). New York: Springer. p. 268. ISBN 978-0-387-95310-6.
- ^ Two texts which refer to the 'omens of Sargon' are reported in E. F. Weidner, 'Historiches Material in der Babyonischen Omina-Literatur' Altorientalische Studien, ed. Bruno Meissner, (Leipzig, 1928-9), v. 231 and 236.
- ^ From scroll A of the ruler Gudea of Lagash, I 17 – VI 13. O. Kaiser, Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, Bd. 2, 1–3. Gütersloh, 1986–1991. Also quoted in A. Falkenstein, 'Wahrsagung in der sumerischen Überlieferung', La divination en Mésopotamie ancienne et dans les régions voisines. Paris, 1966.
- ^ a b Rochberg-Halton, F. (1988). "Elements of the Babylonian Contribution to Hellenistic Astrology". Journal of the American Oriental Society 108 (1): 51–62.
- ^ Long, 2005. p. 173.
- ^ Long, 2005. pp. 173–174.
- ^ Long, 2005. p. 177.
- ^ Long, 2005. p. 174.
- ^ Long, 2005. p. 184.
- ^ Long, 2005. p. 186.
- ^ Hughes, Richard (2004). Lament, Death, and Destiny. Peter Lang. p. 87.
- ^ Barton, 1994. p. 24.
- ^ Holden, 1996. pp. 11–13.
- ^ Barton, 1994. p. 20.
- ^ Robbins, 1940. 'Introduction' p. xii.
- ^ Campion, 2008. p. 173.
- ^ Campion, 2008. p. 84.
- ^ Campion, 2008. pp. 173–174.
- ^ a b Barton, 1994. p. 32.
- ^ Barton, 1994. p. 32–33.
- ^ Campion, 2008. pp. 227–228.
- ^ Parker, 1983. p. 16.
- ^ Juvenal, Satire 6: The Ways of Women (translated by G. G. Ramsay, 1918, retrieved 5 July 2012).
- ^ Barton, 1994. p. 43.
- ^ Barton, 1994. p. 63.
- ^ Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad (1879.). "VIII". The chronology of ancient nations. London, Pub. for the Oriental translations fund of Great Britain & Ireland by W. H. Allen and co. LCCN 01006783.
- ^ Houlding, Deborah (2010). "6: Historical sources and traditional approaches". Essays on the History of Western Astrology. STA. pp. 2–7.
- ^ a b Campion, 1982. p. 44.
- ^ Campion, 1982. p. 45.
- ^ a b Campion, 1982. p. 46.
- ^ North, John David (1986). "The eastern origins of the Campanus (Prime Vertical) method. Evidence from al-Bīrūnī". Horoscopes and history. Warburg Institute. pp. 175–176.
- ^ a b Durling, Robert M. (January 1997). "Dante's Christian Astrology. by Richard Kay. Review". Speculum 72 (1): 185–187. "Dante's interest in astrology has only slowly been gaining the attention it deserves. In 1940 Rudolf Palgen published his pioneering eighty-page Dantes Sternglaube: Beiträge zur Erklärung des Paradiso, which concisely surveyed Dante's treatment of the planets and of the sphere of fixed stars; he demonstrated that it is governed by the astrological concept of the "children of the planets" (in each sphere the pilgrim meets souls whose lives reflected the dominant influence of that planet) and that in countless details the imagery of the Paradiso is derived from the astrological tradition. ... Like Palgen, he [Kay] argues (again, in more detail) that Dante adapted traditional astrological views to his own Christian ones; he finds this process intensified in the upper heavens."
- ^ Woody, Kennerly M. (1977). "Dante and the Doctrine of the Great Conjunctions". Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society 95: 119–134. "It can hardly be doubted, I think, that Dante was thinking in astrological terms when he made his prophecies. [The attached footnote cites Inferno. I, lOOff.; Purgatorio. xx, 13-15 and xxxiii, 41; Paradiso. xxii, 13-15 and xxvii, 142-148.]"
- ^ a b Wood, 1970. p. 5
- ^ Isidore of Seville (c. 600). Etymologiae. pp. L, 82, col. 170.
- ^ Gower, John (1390). Confessio Amantis. pp. VII, 670–84. "Assembled with Astronomie / Is ek that ilke Astrologie / The which in juggementz acompteth / Theffect, what every sterre amonteth, / And hou thei causen many a wonder / To tho climatz that stonde hem under."
- ^ Wood, 1970. p. 6
- ^ Allen, Don Cameron (1941). Star-crossed Renaissance. Duke University Press. p. 148.
- ^ a b Wood, 1970. pp. 8–11
- ^ Coopland, G. W. (1952). Nicole Oresme and the Astrologers: A Study of his Livre de Divinacions. Harvard University Press; Liverpool University Press.
- ^ Vanderjagt, A.J. (1985). Laurens Pignon, O.P.: Confessor of Philip the Good. Venlo, The Netherlands: Jean Mielot.
- ^ Veenstra, 1997. pp. 5, 32, passim
- ^ Veenstra, 1997. p. 184
- ^ a b c d e Campion, 1982. p. 47.
- ^ Harkness, Deborah E. (2007). The Jewel House. Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution. Yale University Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-300-14316-4.
- ^ a b Harkness, Deborah E. (2007). The Jewel House. Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution. Yale University Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-300-14316-4.
- ^ Astronomical diagrams by Thomas Hood, Mathematician (Vellum, in oaken cases). British Library (Add. MSS. 71494, 71495): British Library. c. 1597.
- ^ Johnston, Stephen (July 1998). "The astrological instruments of Thomas Hood". XVII International Scientific Instrument Symposium. Soro. Retrieved 2013-06-12.
- ^ Vanden Broeke, Steven (2001). "Dee, Mercator, and Louvain Instrument Making: An Undescribed Astrological Disc by Gerard Mercator (1551)". Annals of Science 58: 219–240.
- ^ Cummins A (2012) The Starry Rubric: Seventeenth-Century English Astrology and Magic, p. 3. France:Hadean Press
- ^ Cummins A (2012) The Starry Rubric: Seventeenth-Century English Astrology and Magic, p. 43–45. France:Hadean Press
- ^ a b c Porter, Roy (2001). Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World. Penguin. pp. 151–152. ISBN 0-14-025028-X.
- ^ a b c Campion, Nicholas (2009). History of western astrology. Volume II, The medieval and modern worlds. (first ed.). London: Continuum. ISBN 978-1-4411-8129-9. "At the same time, in Switzerland, the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was developing sophisticated theories concerning astrology ..."
- ^ Jung, C.G.; Hull, edited by Gerhard Adler, in collaboration with Aniela Jaffé ; translations from the German by R.F.C. (19uu). C.G. Jung Letters : 1906–1950. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-09895-1. "Letter from Jung to Freud, 12 June 1911 "I made horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth.""
- ^ Gieser, Suzanne. The Innermost Kernel, Depth Psychology and Quantum Physics. Wolfgang Pauli's Dialogue with C.G.Jung, (Springer, Berlin, 2005) p. 21 ISBN 3-540-20856-9
- ^ Campion, Nicholas. "Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Movement. The Extent and Nature of Contemporary Belief in Astrology."( Bath Spa University College, 2003) via Campion, Nicholas, History of Western Astrology, (Continuum Books, London & New York, 2009) pp. 248, 256, ISBN 978-1-84725-224-1
- ^ a b c d The cosmic perspective (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pearson/Addison-Wesley. 2007. pp. 82–84. ISBN 0-8053-9283-1.
- ^ "Objections to Astrology: A Statement by 186 Leading Scientists". The Humanist, September/October 1975. Archived from the original on 18 March 2009.
- The Humanist, volume 36, no.5 (1976).
- Bok, Bart J.; Lawrence E. Jerome, Paul Kurtz (1982). "Objections to Astrology: A Statement by 186 Leading Scientists". In Patrick Grim. Philosophy of Science and the Occult. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 14–18. ISBN 0-87395-572-2.
- ^ Allum, Nick (13 December 2010). "What Makes Some People Think Astrology Is Scientific?". Science Communication 33 (3): 341–366. doi:10.1177/1075547010389819. "This underlies the "Barnum effect". Named after the 19th-century showman Phileas T. Barnum, whose circus act provided "a little something for everyone", it refers to the idea that people will believe a statement about their personality that is vague or trivial if they think that it derives from some systematic procedure tailored especially for them (Dickson & Kelly, 1985; Furnham & Schofield, 1987; Rogers & Soule, 2009; Wyman & Vyse, 2008). For example, the more birth detail is used in an astrological prediction or horoscope, the more credulous people tend to be (Furnham, 1991). However, confirmation bias means that people do not tend to pay attention to other information that might disconfirm the credibility of the predictions."
- ^ a b c Nickerson, Raymond S. Nickerson (1998). "Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises". Review of General Psychology. 2 2 (2): 175–220. doi:10.1037/1089-2618.104.22.168.
- ^ a b Eysenck, H.J.; Nias, D.K.B. (1984). Astrology: Science or Superstition?. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-022397-5.
- ^ Gonzalez, edited by Jean-Paul Caverni, Jean-Marc Fabre, Michel (1990). Cognitive biases. Amsterdam: North-Holland. ISBN 0-444-88413-0.
- ^ "Science and Pseudo-Science". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- "Astronomical Pseudo-Science: A Skeptic's Resource List". Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
- ^ Hartmann, P; Reuter, M., Nyborga, H. (May 2006). "The relationship between date of birth and individual differences in personality and general intelligence: A large-scale study". Personality and Individual Differences 40 (7): 1349–1362. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.11.017. "To optimise the chances of finding even remote relationships between date of birth and individual differences in personality and intelligence we further applied two different strategies. The first one was based on the common chronological concept of time (e.g. month of birth and season of birth). The second strategy was based on the (pseudo-scientific) concept of astrology (e.g. Sun Signs, The Elements, and astrological gender), as discussed in the book Astrology: Science or superstition? by Eysenck and Nias (1982)."
- ^ Muller, Richard (2010). "Web site of Richard A. Muller, Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of California at Berkeley,". Retrieved 2011-08-02.My former student Shawn Carlson published in Nature magazine the definitive scientific test of Astrology.
Maddox, Sir John (1995). "John Maddox, editor of the science journal Nature, commenting on Carlson's test". Retrieved 2011-08-02. "... a perfectly convincing and lasting demonstration." - ^ a b c d Smith, Jonathan C. (2010). Pseudoscience and Extraordinary Claims of the Paranormal: A Critical Thinker's Toolkit. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-8123-5.
- ^ a b c d Carlson, Shawn (1985). "A double-blind test of astrology". Nature 318 (6045): 419–425. Bibcode:1985Natur.318..419C. doi:10.1038/318419a0.
- ^ Pont, Graham (2004). "Philosophy and Science of Music in Ancient Greece". Nexus Network Journal 6 (1): 17–29. doi:10.1007/s00004-004-0003-x.
- ^ Gauquelin, Michel (1955). L'influence des astres: étude critique et expérimentale. Paris: Éditions du Dauphin.
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- ^ Popper, Karl (2004). Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Reprinted. ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28594-1.
- The relevant piece is also published in Schick Jr, Theodore (2000). Readings in the Philosophy of Science: From Positivism to Postmodernism. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub. pp. 33–39. ISBN 0-7674-0277-4.
- ^ Cogan, Robert (1998). Critical Thinking: Step by Step. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-1067-6.
- ^ a b Wright, Peter (1975). "Astrology and Science in Seventeenth-Century England". Social Studies of Science: 399–422.
- ^ a b c Kuhn, Thomas (1970). Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave, ed. Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science [held at Bedford College, Regent's Park, London, from July 11th to 17th 1965] (Reprint ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-09623-5.
- ^ a b c d Thagard, Paul R. (1978). "Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience". Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (The University of Chicago Press) 1: 223–234.
- ^ a b Hurley, Patrick (2005). A concise introduction to logic (9th ed. ed.). Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-58505-1.
- ^ a b James, Edward W. (1982). Patrick Grim, ed. Philosophy of science and the occult. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-87395-572-2.
- ^ a b c Chris, French. "Astrologers and other inhabitants of parallel universes". 7 February 2012. The Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
- ^ a b Randi, James. "UK MEDIA NONSENSE — AGAIN". 21 May 2004. Swift, Online newspaper of the JREF. Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
- ^ editor, Michael Shermer, (2002). The Skeptic encyclopedia of pseudoscience. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO. p. 241. ISBN 1-57607-653-9.
- ^ Charpak, Georges; Holland, Henri Broch; translated by Bart K. (2004). Debunked!: ESP, telekinesis, and other pseudoscience. Baltimore u.a.9: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. pp. 6, 7. ISBN 0-8018-7867-5.
- ^ Veenstra, J.R. (1997). Magic and Divination at the Courts of Burgundy and France: Text and Context of Laurens Pignon's "Contre les Devineurs" (1411). Brill. pp. 184–185. ISBN 978-90-04-10925-4.
- ^ a b Hess, Peter M.J.; Allen, Paul L. (2007). Catholicism and science (1st ed.). Westport: Greenwood. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-313-33190-9.
- ^ Saliba, George (1994b). A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam. New York University Press. pp. 60, 67–69. ISBN 0-8147-8023-7.
- ^ Catarina Belo, Catarina Carriço Marques de Moura Belo, Chance and determinism in Avicenna and Averroës, p. 228. Brill, 2007. ISBN 90-04-15587-2.
- ^ George Saliba, Avicenna: 'viii. Mathematics and Physical Sciences'. Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 2011, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/avicenna-viii
- ^ a b Livingston, John W. (1971). "Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah: A Fourteenth Century Defense against Astrological Divination and Alchemical Transmutation". Journal of the American Oriental Society 91 (1): 96–103. doi:10.2307/600445. JSTOR 600445.
- ^ editor, Peter M.J. Stravinskas, (1998). Our Sunday visitor's Catholic encyclopedia (Rev. ed. ed.). Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor Pub. p. 111. ISBN 0-87973-669-0.
- ^ "Catechism of the Catholic Church - Part 3". Retrieved 8 July 2012.
- ^ "The Strange Story Of Britain's "State Seer"". The Sydney Morning Herald. August 30, 1952. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
- ^ "Star turn: astrologer who became SOE's secret weapon against Hitler". The Guardian. March 4, 2008. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
- ^ Regan, Donald T. (1988). For the record : from Wall Street to Washington (first ed.). San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-163966-3.
- Quigley, Joan (1990). What does Joan say? : my seven years as White House astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan. Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press. ISBN 1-55972-032-8.
- Gorney, Cynthia. "The Reagan Chart Watch; Astrologer Joan Quigley, Eye on the Cosmos". The Washington Post (The Washington Post). Retrieved 17 July 2012.
- ^ a b Truzzi, Marcello (1972). "The Occult Revival as Popular Culture: Some Random Observations on the Old and the Nouveau Witch". The Sociological Quarterly 13 (1): 16–36.
- ^ a b c Cary J. Nederman and James Wray Goulding (Winter, 1981). "Popular Occultism and Critical Social Theory: Exploring Some Themes in Adorno's Critique of Astrology and the Occult". Sociological Analysis 42.
- ^ Theodor W. Adorno (Spring 1974). "The Stars Down to Earth: The Los Angeles Times Astrology Column". Telos 1974 (19): 13–90. doi:10.3817/0374019013.
- ^ Moore, David W. (June 16, 2005). "Three in Four Americans Believe in Paranormal". Gallup.
- ^ "Eastern or New Age Beliefs, 'Evil Eye'". Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths. Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. December 9, 2009.
- ^ Kaufman, Michael T. (23 December 1998). "BV Raman Dies". New York Times, 23 December 1998. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
- ^ Dipankar Das, May 1996. "Fame and Fortune". Retrieved 2009-05-12.
- ^ "Soothsayers offer heavenly help". BBC News. Retrieved July 21, 2012.
- ^ "In countries such as India, where only a small intellectual elite has been trained in Western physics, astrology manages to retain here and there its position among the sciences." David Pingree and Robert Gilbert, "Astrology; Astrology In India; Astrology in modern times". Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008
- ^ Mohan Rao, Female foeticide: where do we go? Indian Journal of Medical Ethics Oct-Dec 2001 9(4) [1]
- ^ "Indian Astrology vs Indian Science". BBC. 31 May 2001.
- ^ "Guidelines for Setting up Departments of Vedic Astrology in Universities Under the Purview of University Grants Commission". Government of India, Department of Education. Archived from the original on 2011-05-12. Retrieved 26 March 2011. "There is an urgent need to rejuvenate the science of Vedic Astrology in India, to allow this scientific knowledge to reach to the society at large and to provide opportunities to get this important science even exported to the world,"
- ^ 'Astrology is a science: Bombay HC', The Times of India, 3 February 2011
- ^ Japanese childrearing: two generations of scholarship. 1996. Retrieved July 22, 2012.
- ^ The Political Economy of Japan: Cultural and social dynamics. 1992. Retrieved July 22, 2012.
- ^ a b Wedel, Theodore Otto (2003. First published 1920). "9: Astrology in Gower and Chaucer". Medieval Attitude Toward Astrology, Particularly in England. Kessinger. pp. 131–156. "The literary interest in astrology, which had been on the increase in England throughout the fourteenth century, culminated in the works of Gower and Chaucer. Although references to astrology were already frequent in the romances of the fourteenth century, these still retained the signs of being foreign importations. It was only in the fifteenth century that astrological similes and embellishments became a matter of course in the literature of England.
Such innovations, one must confess, were due far more to Chaucer than to Gower. Although Gower, too, saw artistic possibilities in the new astrological learning, and made prompt use of these in his retelling of the Alexander legend, he confined himself, for the most part, to a bald rehearsal of facts and theories. It is accordingly, as a part of the long encyclopaedia of natural science which he inserted into his Confessio Amantis, and in certain didactic passages of the Vox Clamantis and the Mirour de l'Omme, that Astrology figures most largely in his works ... Gower's sources on the subject of astrology ... were Albumasar's Introductorium in Astronomiam, the Pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum, Brunetto Latini's Trésor, and the Speculum Astronomiae ascribed to Albert the Great." - ^ Wood, 1970. pp.12–21
- ^ a b c d De Lacy, Hugh (October 1934). "Astrology in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 33 (4): 520–543.
- ^ a b c d e f Camden, Carroll, Jr. (April 1933). "Astrology in Shakespeare's Day". Isis 19 (1): 26–73.
- ^ Campion, Nicholas.:A History of Western Astrology: Volume II: The Medieval and Modern Worlds. (Continuum Books, 2009) pp. 244–245 ISBN 978-1-84725-224-1
- ^ Adams, Noah (2006-09-10). "'Pluto the Renewer' is no swan song". National Public Radio (NPR). Retrieved 2013-06-13.
- ^ Vaughan, David (2004). "Frederick Ashton and His Ballets 1938". Ashton Archive. Retrieved 2013-06-13.
- ^ "The Twelve Signs: An Astrological Entertainment". Centre for New Zealand Music. Retrieved 2013-06-13.
- ^ see Heuristics in judgement and decision making
- ^ Italics in original.
- Barton, Tamsyn (1994). Ancient Astrology. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-11029-7.
- Kay, Richard (1994). Dante's Christian Astrology. Middle Ages Series. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Campion, Nicholas (1982). An Introduction to the History of Astrology. ISCWA.
- Holden, James Herschel (2006). A History of Horoscopic Astrology (2nd ed.). AFA. ISBN 0-86690-463-8.
- Long, A.A. (2005). "6: Astrology: arguments pro and contra". In Barnes, Jonathan; Brunschwig, J. Science and Speculation. Cambridge University Press. pp. 165–191.
- Parker, Derek; Parker, Julia (1983). A history of astrology. Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-97576-4.
- Robbins, Frank E., ed. (1940). Ptolemy Tetrabiblos. Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library). ISBN 0-674-99479-5.
- Veenstra, J.R. (1997). Magic and Divination at the Courts of Burgundy and France: Text and Context of Laurens Pignon's "Contre les Devineurs" (1411). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-10925-4.
- Wedel, Theodore Otto (1920). The Mediæval Attitude Toward Astrology: Particularly in England. Yale University Press.
- Wood, Chauncey (1970). Chaucer and the Country of the Stars: Poetical Uses of Astrological Imagery. Princeton University Press.
Further reading[edit]
- Forer, Bertram R. (January 1949). "The Fallacy of Personal Validation: A Classroom Demonstration of Gullibility". The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 44 (1).
- Osborn, M. (2002). Time and the Astrolabe in The Canterbury Tales. University of Oklahoma Press.
- Thorndike, Lynn (1955). "The True Place of Astrology in the History of Science". Isis 46 (3).
External links[edit]
Find more about Astrology at Wikipedia's sister projects | |
Definitions and translations from Wiktionary | |
Media from Commons | |
Learning resources from Wikiversity | |
Quotations from Wikiquote | |
Source texts from Wikisource | |
Textbooks from Wikibooks |
- Astrology on the Open Directory Project
- Digital International Astrology Library at International Astrology Research Center


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Q: How is rainwater captured? A: Rainwater can be directed by gutters and downspouts to cisterns to store water or more simply by earthworks. Creating earthworks is the practice of building berms or contouring slopes on a site to guide rainwater to trees and shrubs.
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Lincoln as Commander in Chief
A self-taught strategist with no combat experience, Abraham Lincoln saw the path to victory more clearly than his generals
- By James M. McPherson
- Smithsonian magazine, January 2009, Subscribe
When the American Civil War began, president Abraham Lincoln was far less prepared for the task of commander in chief than his Southern adversary. Jefferson Davis had graduated from West Point (in the lowest third of his class, to be sure), commanded a regiment that fought intrepidly at Buena Vista in the Mexican War and served as secretary of war in the Franklin Pierce administration from 1853 to 1857. Lincoln's only military experience had come in 1832, when he was captain of a militia unit that saw no action in the Black Hawk War, which began when Sac and Fox Indians (led by the war chief Black Hawk) tried to return from Iowa to their ancestral homeland in Illinois in alleged violation of a treaty of removal they had signed. During Lincoln's one term in Congress, he mocked his military career in an 1848 speech. "Did you know I am a military hero?" he said. "I fought, bled and came away" after "charges upon the wild onions" and "a good many bloody struggles with the Musquetoes."
When he called state militia into federal service on April 15, 1861—following the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter—Lincoln therefore faced a steep learning curve as commander in chief. He was a quick study, however; his experience as a largely self-taught lawyer with a keen analytical mind who had mastered Euclidean geometry for mental exercise enabled him to learn quickly on the job. He read and absorbed works on military history and strategy; he observed the successes and failures of his own and the enemy's military commanders and drew apt conclusions; he made mistakes and learned from them; he applied his large quotient of common sense to slice through the obfuscations and excuses of military subordinates. By 1862 his grasp of strategy and operations was firm enough almost to justify the overstated but not entirely wrong conclusion of historian T. Harry Williams: "Lincoln stands out as a great war president, probably the greatest in our history, and a great natural strategist, a better one than any of his generals."
As president of the nation and leader of his party as well as commander in chief, Lincoln was principally responsible for shaping and defining national policy. From first to last, that policy was the preservation of the United States as one nation, indivisible, and as a republic based on majority rule. Although Lincoln never read Karl von Clausewitz's famous treatise On War, his actions were a consummate expression of Clausewitz's central argument: "The political objective is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose. Therefore, it is clear that war should never be thought of as something autonomous but always as an instrument of policy."
Some professional military commanders tended to think of war as "something autonomous" and deplored the intrusion of political considerations into military matters. Take the notable example of "political generals." Lincoln appointed many prominent politicians with little or no military training or experience to the rank of brigadier or major general. Some of them received these appointments so early in the war that they subsequently outranked professional, West Point–educated officers. Lincoln also commissioned important ethnic leaders as generals with little regard to their military merits.
Historians who deplore the abundance of political generals sometimes cite an anecdote to mock the process. One day in 1862, the story goes, Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton were going over a list of colonels for promotion to brigadier general. Coming to the name of Alexander Schimmelfennig, the president said that "there has got to be something done unquestionably in the interest of the Dutch, and to that end I want Schimmelfennig appointed." Stanton protested that there were better-qualified German-Americans. "No matter about that," Lincoln supposedly said, "his name will make up for any difference there may be."
General Schimmelfennig is remembered today mainly for hiding for three days in a woodshed next to a pigpen to escape capture at Gettysburg. Other political generals are also remembered more for their military defeats or blunders than for any positive achievements. Often forgotten are the excellent military records of some political generals like John A. Logan and Francis P. Blair (among others). And some West Pointers, notably Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, might have languished in obscurity had it not been for the initial sponsorship of Grant by Congressman Elihu B. Washburne and of Sherman by his brother John, a U.S. senator.
Even if all political generals, or generals in whose appointments politics played a part, turned out to have mediocre military records, however, the process would have had a positive impact on national strategy by mobilizing their constituencies for the war effort. On the eve of the war, the U.S. Army consisted of approximately 16,400 men, of whom about 1,100 were commissioned officers. Of these, some 25 percent resigned to join the Confederate army. By April 1862, when the war was a year old, the volunteer Union army had grown to 637,000 men. This mass mobilization could not have taken place without an enormous effort by local and state politicians as well as by prominent ethnic leaders.
Another important issue that began as a question of national strategy eventually crossed the boundary to become policy as well. That was the issue of slavery and emancipation. During the war's first year, one of Lincoln's top priorities was to keep border state Unionists and Northern antiabolitionist Democrats in his war coalition. He feared, with good reason, that the balance in three border slave states might tip to the Confederacy if his administration stepped prematurely toward emancipation. When Gen. John C. Frémont issued a military order freeing the slaves of Confederate supporters in Missouri, Lincoln revoked it in order to quell an outcry from the border states and Northern Democrats. To sustain Frémont's order, Lincoln believed, "would alarm our Southern Union friends, and turn them against us—perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky....I think that to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we can not hold Missouri, nor as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capitol."
During the next nine months, however, the thrust of national strategy shifted away from conciliating the border states and anti-emancipation Democrats. The antislavery Republican constituency grew louder and more demanding. The argument that slavery had brought on the war and that reunion with slavery would only sow the seeds of another war became more insistent. The evidence that slave labor sustained the Confederate economy and the logistics of Confederate armies grew stronger. Counteroffensives by Southern armies in the summer of 1862 wiped out many of the Union gains of the winter and spring. Many northerners, including Lincoln, became convinced that bolder steps were necessary. To win the war over an enemy fighting for and sustained by slavery, the North must strike at slavery.
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Comments (8) |
Posted by Lexie on November 6,2013 | 02:36 PM
Abraham Lincoln was the master of the American Civil War. James McPherson is right: Lincoln had a clearer vision than his generals about how to win the war.
He initially wanted Robert E. Lee to be the commanding general of all Union forces, and offered this position to Lee, who declined because he wanted to go with his "country", i. e., Virginia.
Whether Lincoln appointed West Pointers or "political generals", he did so with calculated purpose, but always with the goal of winning the war.
While he appointed the blundersome generals, such as Burnside, Pope,Banks, or Schimmilfennig he also appointed and approved of Grant, Sherman, and "Blackjack" John A. Logan.
Taking the good with the bad, the successes with the failures, Lincoln saw the war through to its successful conclusion, going to the telegraph office daily for news from the front, and calmly steering the country to a common unity of purpose and cause. He thus really did usher in a "new era of freedom" for the United States of America.
Posted by James Zaworski on April 20,2010 | 04:44 AM
this website so cool.this has so much facts.abe fights with justice.he never gives up.i liked him as a president.i wish he was still alive.
Posted by haley smith on May 1,2009 | 11:15 AM
When compared to the instant short term and fast paced memories of the present 21st century era, pondering past era history is actually a very useful pastime for today's leaders. Comparing the epic Abraham Lincoln Era to that of the present President, also eerily a former Senator from Illinois, relating to the current threat to the future existence of the United States of America, one is struck by the doppelganger facial similarities of General George B. McClellan with that of current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. My fear is that like McClellan, Geithner is so paralyzed by convention and senior advisors, that his actions are also merely attempts to buy time, rather than to take decisive actions. Like McClellan he seems intimidated by the very Adversaries who started the economic mess, in this case the Barron's of Wall Street.
Posted by Marshall Houston on February 21,2009 | 09:44 PM
Thank you, Duzzle, for spelling that out. Of course, that was from Lincoln`s point of view. As a Southerner, it has been drilled down our collective throats for the last century that slavery was the reason. While a disgraceful practice, it was not just a Southern one, as slavery was also in the North at the start of the War. Much of the start of the War dealt with overtaxation and a lack of freedom for Southern ports to do their own trading with Europe without first going through Northern ports. Another little forgotten part of all this was that prior to the War, secession was legal under the constitution, made so in an effort to get some of the original colonies to sign in the first place. Lincoln rightfully did not want the Union divided, and once in office, had the Congress declare it illegal, but at the time South Carolina left, it was legal for her to do so. This should have also been brought out in the article to show on what limb Lincoln put himself in order to keep the Union together. After an incident on the high seas when British ambassadors were taken off a Confederate vessel by a Union warship, Britain could have then sided with the Confederacy. With the right of secession legal at the time, it could have been the Revolution in reverse. Lincoln took a huge chance and was successful.
Posted by John E. Truitt on February 3,2009 | 08:27 PM
In this time period why do men have their right hand under their jacket flap?Is it some sort of symbolism? Thank You
Posted by J.W. Lewellen on January 28,2009 | 02:19 PM
The Gardner photo (p.40), of Lincoln with McClellan, apparently shows two flags. The Confederate flag is on the ground and the US flag on the table. The US flag seems to be in use as a table covering. Was that normal at that time?
Posted by John Mark on December 31,2008 | 10:23 AM
Very good informative interpretation. I'd gathered before that Lincoln had to chivvy his generals, but I hadn't realized to what extent. I was struck by this quote too: "Will our Generals never get that idea out of their heads? The whole country is our soil." That, after all, was the point of the war. Very true.
Posted by Duzzle on December 20,2008 | 02:13 PM


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Elias stars as host Slovakia loses fierce rivaly 3-2
BRATISLAVA Slovakia is now in a bit of a pickle. The hosts' chances of advancing to the playoff stage got a little worse after their 3-2 loss to the Czech Republic who haven't lost a point in the tournament.Patrik Elias scored one and added two assists, linemate Martin Havlat had a two-point game for the Czechs. Jaroslav Halak made 34 saves in Slovakia's goal.Czech Republic - Slovakia 3-2 (1-0, 0-1, 2-1) Game Sheet PhotosThe Czech Republic (and Germany, as well) secured a quarter-final berth while Slovakia now has its back against the wall. It has to win its games against Finland and Denmark, and Finland shouldn't take points in its last game against Russia."That's all that matters now: we'll have to win those two games. Let's see what happens," said defenceman Milan Jurcina.It was the twelfth time that Slovakia and the Czech Republic met in a World Championship game. Of the past 11 games, Slovakia had won two, the Czechs eight, and one had ended in tie. The record gets only worse for Slovakia, if you consider the three Olympic games between the countries: all three have ended in a Czech win.But that was history. Tonight was the first time they played a World Championship game in Slovakia. That alone would have been enough to motivate the Slovaks, but they were also in dire need of three points, having entered the Qualification Round with zero.The Czech Republic got another power play opportunity, and while the Slovakian penalty killers worked hard and managed to keep the Czechs on the outside for most of the two minutes, the Czechs found a way to beat Halak for the first time. Jan Marek played the puck Patrik Elias on the blueline. Elias took a slap shot, and just before it had made its way to the net, Marek Zidlicky deflected the puck past Halak at 17:48."We just switched positions. I tried to be at the front of the net, and I just touched the puck. Im so happy it went in," Zidlicky said.The Slovaks came back from the dressing room poised to fight their way back into the game.And then, 2:56 into the second period: KA-BOOM!!! The Orange Arena was shaken to its foundations as the capacity Slovak crowd screamed their joy.Jozef Stümpel won a faceoff in the Czech zone. The puck was played to defenceman Lubomir Visnovsky whose slapshot was blocked, but the puck bounced to Ladislav Nagy who fired a wrist shot that found its way to the back of the net through a lot of traffic. The goal was Nagys team-leading third in the tournament.The teams went back and forth in the second period, both teams creating several excellent scoring chances, in a game that was one of the best in the tournament.In the third, it was the Czechs who started the strongest. They won the faceoff in the Slovak zone, Elias dropped it back to Martin Havlat who just sent it to the front of the net, and it caught Halak by surprise. The puck hit his glove and bounced into the net at 1:06.The same line scored in their next shift again. This time Havlat took a wrist shot from the blueline. Halak made a save but the rebound ended up in Elias's blade and he jammed it in to give the Czechs a two-goal lead with 15:32 remaining in the period. The point was Eliass third of the game."I think we've played pretty well in the four games weve played so far. [Elias and Michalek] are both great players and theyre both different. Thats very important for our line. They both are having great tournaments so far. The whole team is playing very well. Thats the most important thing battling hard to the last second," said Havlat.Slovakia was on the ropes but not out. With 2:32 remaining in the third period. Tomas Surovy made it a one-goal game again when he grabbed a loose puck in front of Pavelec's net, and slammed it in, to make it 3-2.Zidlicky didn't have trouble feeling sympathetic to the Slovaks. A little."Its very tough (for them). The whole building is sold out, and its tough on guys, especially when they have to win, and they lost 3-2," he said.The Czechs will play against Russia on Sunday, while the Slovaks have to regroup overnight, so that they'll be ready for their game against Finland. A game they must win to keep alive even a theoretical chance to make the playoff stage."We have a lot of experience and strong characters in the dressing room. We started out on a mission, and that's not over. We won't stop until the finish line. We owe it to our fans," said coach Glen Hanlon.RISTO PAKARINEN


text: We were at the Jacksonville National Show last weekend and forgot to check on this. We would like to contact the vendor that has the MCA shirts and pins, etc. that is at these shows. We want to purchase a pin from the show held last year at the Biltmore in Asheville, NC if they are still available (we failed to get ours back then). Can you provide us with his email or forward my email to this vendor. In talking to him at this recent show, he indicated he travels to most of the MCA shows and that he is based out of Georgia. Thanks for your help!


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Phosphorus mining has a beneficial side and a disturbing side. It gives us ammonium phosphate, a key ingredient in the fertilizer used to grow abundant food. It also produces massive amounts of waste, depicted here.
The phosphorus comes from calcium phosphate rock that is strip-mined across several U.S. states and pulverized. Producers add sulfuric acid to form phosphoric acid, which is later converted to ammonium phosphate. Every ton of phosphoric acid generated creates five tons of a soil-like by-product, phosphogypsum. The white or gray substance emits radon gas and is therefore used in only a few applications, such as peanut farming. Most of the phosphogypsum is bulldozed for permanent storage into giant stacks that can reach 200 feet high and cover 400 acres or more. A gypstack contains one billion to three billion gallons of wastewater that gradually diffuses out, creating small lakes that shimmer blue or green as light bounces off bottom sediment. The water's pH is between 1 and 2, corrosively acidic. The photograph shows the corner of one such stack in Florida and the lake beside it.
This article was originally published with the title Phosphorus Lake.
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"Gavin Bryars' music, post "The Sinking of the Titanic" and "Jesus' Blood...", is well known and often performed today. Less known are the earlier works featured on this CD, created during the years 1969-71. At that time, Bryars became associated with Michael Nyman, John Tilbury and Brian Eno - marrying ideas from Cage, Fluxus, free improvisation and experimentalism.
Some of the works recorded here appeared on Eno's avant-garde Obscure label in the mid-1970s.
In "1, 2, 1-2-3-4," the musicians listen to the same music on individual cassette tapes through headphones, playing along with what they hear rather than responding to each other. Bryars was curious about the "new" cassette technology, how the various tape decks would never be properly synced to each other; and so the musicians would drift further apart from each other over the performance's 30-minute plus duration - with amazing results. The audience hears the collective product of this private listening. In this realization, the performers respond to a collection of songs by The Beatles (Help; Helter Skelter; Glass Onion; Fixing a Hole; I Want You; A Day in a Life; Dear Prudence; and Good Night).
The notation of "Pre-Mediaeval Metrics" consists of pairs of phrases arranged in four columns on eight pages. Each phrase is made up of four symbols, either dashes ('an appreciable duration (at least one second)', instructs the score) or dots ('as short as possible'). Instrumentation is free but all instruments use only one sound throughout.
"Made in Hong Kong" is scored for "...toys, mechanically operated, manually operated, toy sustaining instruments and any other considered usable." Its humorous and cacophonous sound is an homage to the countless toys for children, commonly made at that time in Hong Kong.
"The Squirrel and The Ricketty Racketty Bridge" was written for guitarist Derek Bailey. The guitarist has to play two guitars simultaneously, placed flat on their backs, using a hammer technique which produces a pair of notes with the side of the finger. One hand plays constant quavers, like a bassist in conventional jazz, with two fingers across pairs of frets while the other plays isolated notes and phrases, like a lazy soloist."-Mode Records


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I nearly wrote "One of our favorite charitable organizations …", but that thought goes through my head nearly every week. We haven't yet supported an organization or a cause that didn't become a favorite in some way.
So, to be more precise, this week we've decided to continue support of our favorite adopted child. (more…)


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Additional info about Deb Rho | |
Full Name: | Debbie rhodes |
" Greeting from Anne How are you today? i hope you are fine my name is Miss Anne i saw your lovely profile today on (propertytribes.com) and i really love it that is why i am writing this message to you. please can you kindly write and tell me more about yourself, here is my email ID (email@example.com) as soon as i receive from you i will be happy to reply back with my picture,please do not write back to me on this site here is my email Address (firstname.lastname@example.com) "


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Juhi Chawla's parents were Dr S Chawla and Mona. She has a brother named Sanjeev. She married industrialist Jai Mehta in 1998 and they have two kids, Jhanvi and Arjun. Juhi did her schooling in Ludhiana and completed her graduation from Sydenham College. She won the Miss India title in 1984. In 1986, she made her debut in the film Sultanat. Juhi's first big hit in Bollywood was Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak.In 1993, she won the Filmfare Best Actress Award for Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke.Juhi later turned producer and became the co-owner of a production company called Dreamz Unlimited with Shah Rukh Khan and director Aziz Mirza.
Basin Reserve, Wellington ,12/11/2013, 03:00 (IST)
Kingsmead, Durban ,12/8/2013, 13:30 (IST)
South Africa beat India by 134 runs
Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium, Sharjah ,12/8/2013, 21:30 (IST)
Pakistan beat Afghanistan by 6 wickets
SuperSport Park, Centurion ,12/11/2013, 17:00 (IST)


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In the Driver's Seat
Posted Wed, 12/04/2013 - 3:22pm by tommoloughney
Be prepared if you live in a cold weather region and drive an EV. The cold weather brings challenges, most notably a reduction in the range you'll get, but by following some simple tips you should have no problem beating the effects of the winter. Continue reading...
Posted Mon, 10/07/2013 - 11:28am by Tom
New battery study results: The first generation RAV4 EV shows the incredible durability of those early EVs. Updated Roadster data shows a 100,000-mile vehicle right at the capacity level expected from results released in July. Tesla Model S data shows solid early battery performance and enthusiastic owners. Continue reading...
Posted Thu, 05/30/2013 - 9:48am by Tom
People frequently ask about charging infrastructure and what they can do to help increase the availability of charging. Here's an overview of what charging electric vehicle drivers value the most and what cities and companies interested in electric vehicle adoption can do to help. Continue reading...
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