Is Astrology Real??

Astrology is the belief that the constellations and their stars have a spiritual influence on humans, thus predetermining their personality based on their birthdate, or how their day/month/year is going to go. However, astrology is a well-practiced belief, with many Americans checking their horoscopes daily, is there any actual scientific proof behind it? The short answer is no. There is no mechanism to explain how the placement of the planets or stars predetermines the unique aspects of a person. Astrology also fails the Scientific Method: there is no evaluation of a hypothesis, no testing of a theory, and no evaluation of the theory. Therefore, astrology is not a science. However, astrology does sometimes seem like it works, why is that? Astrologers tend to give out vague, blanket statements such as “You will overcome an important challenge this week,” as their predictions. Our brains are hard-wired to look for patterns, and sometimes when two unrelated events happen our mind will try to see a connection, even if there is none. In relation to astrology, this effect is called “subjective validation” and it occurs when two unrelated events are supposedly related due to a previous belief or expectancy which demands a relationship. Psychologist Bertram Borer illustrated this effect through an experiment in which he gave a “unique” personality analysis to his students and asked them to rank how well it suited them. The analysis was in fact not unique but instead was a series of vague statements which he created from various zodiacs. All of his students believed the analysis suited them, and the average was 4.26/5.   Therefore, although the belief of zodiacs and horoscopes may be comforting, there is no proof that it means anything. In fact, many believe it to be harmful because people tend to judge others based on their zodiac and harbor a dislike for them without even knowing them.