Independent Eats the Stars

On the way home I saw a horse that was coloured like a cow. That farmer must be a millionaire. I bought the Indie today, to learn such wondrous news stories as:

• George Clooney (and some other guys I don't care about) reminded us that things are still happening in Darfur.


• A non-partisan report tells us that the Iraqi war is likely to cost more than the Vietnam war.


• The staff at Guantanamo wonder why a guy keeps trying to kill himself even though he can "communicate with other prisoners through the feeding tray hole in his cell door".

But then they went and ruined it all with this article on astrology.

It's not rocket science, in fact, it's not science at all. Whether you are an Aries or a Pisces, it is ultimately about people and what makes us what we are.

That's kind of like saying "phrenology is not a science at all but it is ultimately about people and what makes us what we are." How do we know it is about what makes us what we are? There is no evidence that the bumps on your head determine your personality. Nor is there any that the position of the planets and stars does either.

The quote above actually gets at what really bothers me about astrology. The stars and planets have taught us an awful lot about what makes us what we are - not our personalities, but the environment that gave rise to us. As my idol Carl Sagan once wrote, there cannot be a bigger cosmic connection than the fact that all the elements in our bodies were forged in the hearts of stars. But I doubt many astrology fanatics know that. They are taught to think of the stars as a two-dimensional image above us. How many even realise that the constellations are arbitrary groupings of stars that are often very far away from one another - some distant and bright, others close and dim?

Astrology bugs me because astronomy, cosmology and space exploration have taught us so much, have both exalted and humbled us, have made us at once tiny and insignificant and also unspeakably precious. There are plenty of people out there looking to feel a connection with the Universe. Astrology is a trap that they fall into and which prevents them from ever seeing the stars above as anything other than symbols in the sky.