Talk:Astrology/Archive 1

message: Followers of astrology believe it is a system of understanding. Others claim it understands nothing. It is only appropriate to attribute the claim that it is a system of understanding to those who make it. Wikipedia should not claim that it is a system of understanding, it should tell us who claims this. - Nunh-huh 21:11, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. --Bcrowell 23:59, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attribution is not innuendo 

message: Eclecticology, do you want to go ahead and write the "pro" section first, and then I'll write the "con"?
:I was beginning to think that I probably should.  I'll work on it in the next few days.  It would be hard for you to be "con"trary to something that isn't yet there.  Any comment on the intro paragraph that I put there?  I know that you agree with what User:Nunh-huh is trying to say.  Is there any way to get him to cool his heels while we're sorting this out?  These are the kind of issues that we are trying to deal with comprehensively so that readers won't need to deal with incessant awkward wording. Eclecticology 20:02, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You might try asking him. - Nunh-huh 21:30, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewriting 

message: Followers of astrology believe it is a system of understanding. Others claim it understands nothing. It is only appropriate to attribute the claim that it is a system of understanding to those who make it. Wikipedia should not claim that it is a system of understanding, it should tell us who claims this. - Nunh-huh 21:11, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. --Bcrowell 23:59, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attribution is not innuendo 

message: Eclecticology, do you want to go ahead and write the "pro" section first, and then I'll write the "con"?
:I was beginning to think that I probably should.  I'll work on it in the next few days.  It would be hard for you to be "con"trary to something that isn't yet there.  Any comment on the intro paragraph that I put there?  I know that you agree with what User:Nunh-huh is trying to say.  Is there any way to get him to cool his heels while we're sorting this out?  These are the kind of issues that we are trying to deal with comprehensively so that readers won't need to deal with incessant awkward wording. Eclecticology 20:02, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You might try asking him. - Nunh-huh 21:30, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewriting 

message: *Those of us whom manage the Galileo Galilei entry have not decided whether Galileo should be considered an astrologer in addition to an astronomer. I kindly ask that references to Galileo Galilei as an astrologer be temporarily removed from this entry until we've reached a consensus by popular vote. Thank you. Adraeus 19:19, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Galileo Galilei 

message: Whoever is adding to the list of notable astrologers is also adding astrologer to their individual articles.  Can anyone check the accuracy of this? - Tεxτurε 22:05, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: *Read the Astrology: Between Religion and the Empirical essay I linked to below. There's more to astrology than horoscopes and "practice." There's an entire belief system that is the foundation. Many so-called notable astrologers weren't astrologers through-and-through. In fact, many of them "practiced" astrology as a capitalistic venture. That is, they provided astrological services to survive in a time of primitivity and rejection of scientific thinking. Adraeus 19:21, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notable astrologers 

message: Astrology: Between Religion and the Empirical by Dr. Gustav-Adolf Schoener and translated by Shane Denson. 
This writing is very interesting. I suggest its reading. Adraeus 07:17, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Astrology: Between Religion and the Empirical 

message: I have moved the overview of the separate History of astrology article into this one to provide a brief view of the history of the subject as I feel the article lack a historical context. Itas mostly based on the 1911 Britannica  article.  Lumos3 20:18, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Astrology 

message: Press CONTROL + F and search for "Seville"
* Though Seville eventually came to reject natal astrology, he was always a major proponent of medical astrology/mundane astrology as is laid out in these pages:
* 
* 
* 
* 
"The "De natura rerum" a manual of elementary physics, was composed at the request of King Sisebut, to whom it is dedicated. It treats of astronomy*, geography, and miscellanea. It is one of Isidore's best known books and enjoyed a wide popularity during the Middle Ages." -- previous page newadvent.org
* As any educated person knows there was no distinction between astrology and astronomy in those days -- it just does not list it as astrolomy, that is the mixture of astronomy/astrology.
* 
"In his later life, Pierre d'Ailly was much concerned with defending astrology/astronomy from charges that it was inconsistent with Christianity.  As a basis, he took the attitude endorsed long before by Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) that one can distinguish between natural astrology* and superstitious astrology, and that it is the former which is consistent with Christianity, while the latter is not."
* Natural astrology being medical astrology and mundane astrology which was used and written about widely during his time, not the use of astrology for personal/predictive reasons, which many of the relgious believed would be somehow tampering with God's will.
* 
::I see no proof in any of this, nor do CAPITAL LETTERS make it one....
::Your main thesis is flawed: "any educated person" — thank you — and see my transcription of Isidore — knows no such thing. The line was vague and lots of people crossed over it in one direction or the other; but in general, "natural astrology" refers to what we call astronomy, "superstitious astrology" to predictive astrology. I'll concede to you the very grey area of what we now call meteorology and where it impinges on physiology: the ancients, almost uniformly, did view the weather as having something to do with the farther heavens, and there was general agreement that weather affected physiology (see for example Vitruvius on the siting of towns — where clicking on the section numbers sends you to the Latin if you need it).
::And before we go any further, in case you were tempted, it is pointless dismissing me as personally against astrology in any way. I've spent a good deal of time studying it, learned how to cast a chart 30 years ago, for a while even making some money casting charts, have a fair library of astrological material, and view astrology as valuable both in itself as a psychological descriptor and as part of the arsenal of "any educated person" in the fields of literary criticism or Antiquity. I've done statistical studies on some facets of astrology (one of them coming up in favor of a correlation between being an organist and having Mars conjunct Uranus: at 3σ level of significance!) I am still — as you can see — fascinated by the subject; see for example my chart of Nero.
::Now that we've got that out of the way.... Of your 6 refs, two are quite irrelevant: #4 is the Catholic Encyclopedia on Isidore, breathing not a word about astrology (which I'm perfectly willing to admit means nothing, given the recent opposition of the church to astrology: 19th-century and very straight-laced; but still, there is nothing about astrology there, for whatever reason). #6 is merely the astrology section of Tim Spaulding's site, which he named "Isidore-of-Seville" in honor of the great man because he was a polymath or an encyclopedist. Nowhere there is Isidore brought up in connection with astrology.
::#1, #2, and #5 are very tertiary sources, all probably paraphrasing the same secondary source, notice the very similar turns of phrase; none of them states unambiguously that Isidore was an astrologer. #1 views Isidore — again, for what that's worth, these are people like you and me writing modern opinions — as against astrology, not for it. #2 mentions Isidore incidentally except for repeating that he was in favor of medical astrology. #5 is the most incidental repeat of the same thing.
::#3 is better, since it actually quotes Isidore, even kindly footnoting the reference, although not linking it: IV.13.4 is here — on my own site, natch; if Isidore's astrologer-ness boils down to that, it's very weak indeed.
::What is needed is some kind of proof that Isidore wrote about astrology per se, or practiced it. Again, this has nothing to do with being for or against astrology, or for or against Isidore, or Roman Catholicism: just a concern for facts. We wouldn't call Vanna White an "American politician" because she must surely have made some loose political statement like the rest of us all — nor even more politically active actors; we shouldn't call Isidore an astrologer if he wasn't one. — Bill 11:47, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. The issue is whether or not he was an "astrologer", did he do astrology-predictions or alchemy and all the rest of it. Educated people do not know that astronomy and astrology were one in the same. Humanity has been looking up at and studying the stars from the very beginning: astronomy is our oldest science. Many Middle Ages astronomer's were definately not astrologers, they considered astrology to be not in keeping with their Christian/Islamic/Jewish teachings. They were studing "the heavens" as a way to understand the universe of their God. Isidore wrote an encyclopedia, and in that encyclopedia, he tried to list all the endevors's of humanity, just like Wikipedia does today. What one may find in the Etymologiae concerning astrology is not proof that he was an astrologer: it simply does not fit his job description: it isn't what he did, (at least, not so far as history has recorded). func(talk) 20:35, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  PROOF for [[Isidore of Seville]] 

message: I noticed this page is getting big; it will surely expand — it needs to be reworked from top to bottom, a lot of things haven't been said, don't know if I have the energy for it, but together I'm sure we will — so I've moved the list (which should also be expanded) to List of astrologers. I'm not very fond of lists, since Categories are a much more organized way of presenting the same skeleton, but they have the advantage of serving as a checklist for articles that need to be written, whereas Categories only include articles that have already been written. Ideally, though, the better list will be :Category:Astrologers. At any rate, this sets "Astrology" on the same footing as "Physics" or "Medicine", which don't list every doctor or physicist on the article page; it does astrology no service to look like we're saying "See, look how many people were astrologers." — Bill 12:36, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Section moved to correct place chronologically - was originally placed above section about Isidore of Seville. Graham87 13:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: List of Astrologers

message: It is very easy to see how Astrology and Alchemy stem from this view. It would be only rational to try and consult the heavenly bodies - concerning almost everything – from the conception of babies to the signing of political and commercial treaties – hy and astrology were one in the same. Humanity has been looking up at and studying the stars from the very beginning: astronomy is our oldest science. Many Middle Ages astronomer's were definately not astrologers, they considered astrology to be not in keeping with their Christian/Islamic/Jewish teachings. They were studing "the heavens" as a way to understand the universe of their God. Isidore wrote an encyclopedia, and in that encyclopedia, he tried to list all the endevors's of humanity, just like Wikipedia does today. What one may find in the Etymologiae concerning astrology is not proof that he was an astrologer: it simply does not fit his job description: it isn't what he did, (at least, not so far as history has recorded). func(talk) 20:35, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Remarks in the last paragraph

message: A warning has appeared when the edit box is opened that this article is now nearly 32K bytes long and needs to be split up into smaller articles.
I suggest that the Cases for and against sections plus the Astrology and science section be moved into a new article called something like - The validity of astrology . A short summary of this would remain in the main astrology article.  Any comments Lumos3 17:13, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Make sub-articles. ConfessedSockPuppetJunior 06:29, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Observing that many sections were exact duplicates of things in other articles, I deleted a lot of sections and made them into links saying "See (such-and-such)".  That takes care of the 32 KB warning.  Hope these edits aren't too drastic.  I just thought it would be better not to have the exact same information duplicated in more than one article. --Slartibartfast 01:05, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article is nearly 32K 

message: what does this mean? I cant make sense out of it. do they influence or not?
:Many of those who practice astrology believe that the positions of certain celestial bodies either influence, or correlate with but do not influence, people's personality traits, important events in their lives, and even physical characteristics.
Knightt 21:46, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Opinions differ. Most reasonable people believe heavenly bodies neither influence nor correlate with mundane events. Some astrologers believe they correlate with human activities because they influence them; some other astrologers believe they correlate with human activiities for some other reason. - Nunh-huh 01:55, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  unclear text 

message: I notice there are no pages giving the astrological meanings of the planets. Something I hope to remedy, calling them Sun (astrology) etc, and them linking them to this article.Squiquifox 00:36, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Planets

message: Image
 & Discussion
Click on the image to the right to see a full size version. Then click on the discussion page of the image to discuss its interpretation.
Lumos3 23:14, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia's Horoscope is here:

message: This is because the signs in astrology are associated with so many tons of other things besides body parts - for instance, gemstones, metals, animals, plants, etc., etc., etc. - that I don't see any reason why the associations with body parts need to be singled out and spotlighted in the main article. --Slartibartfast 01:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Why I removed the "constellations of the zodiac and the parts of the body" section

message: I discovered templates, and made a few, so that now, people viewing (for instance) the astrological sign keywords text will all see the same text - whether they're viewing it from zodiac, astrology, or astrological sign - and any improvements/edits to that text will affect all pages which contain it.  More details, if desired, are on my Talk page.
:--Slartibartfast 11:56, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Explanation of restored sections

message: I see that over time many proponents of astrology have added their views here, but I am truly puzzled by the section on the Case for astrology.  It contains absolutely zero data for astrology, in any shape or form.  The fact that tides affect many living organisms has nothing to do with astrology, stars, or anything supernatural.  If there are actually people who use this as evidence for astrology, then they are using the word "astrology" in a way that has nothing to do with the contents of this article.  The only "evidence" I have even heard of for astrology isn't even discussed in this article; that evidence is the first report on the so-called Mars effect, which has since been discredited. RK 20:41, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
:I'm not the right person add a pro-astrology section. There used to be a longer section, but it contained incoherent rambling, strange accusations and outright misrepresentations. It has been pruned down a bit since then, I'm glad to say. --Spazzm 23:47, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
::The section needs a better topic sentence to the effect that the gravitational influence of celestial bodies on the Earth may affect our perception of tides and theoretically our character. This is quite tenuous obviously. The only bodies that produce a tidal effect on the Earth are the Moon and Sun and of course astrology isn't limited to these two. Even if we accept tidal influence from other bodies you still have to make the leap and accept that this correlates to personality and life probabilities. I have read that statistically significant differences in life outcomes occur in people born at different times of year (likelihood of being in accident, obesity etc.) but this is much better explained by seasonal variation than astrology. Marskell 14:15, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Case for astrology?  Text is very off-topic

message: This small section includes a link to the "Jewish views" article, but I don't think that it's particuarlly noteworthy for this small section.  I don't think that a significant percentage of people reading that section are interested in what Jewish people happen to think about astrology.  Nor would that be an appropriate place to link to "Muslim views on astrology," or Hindu, Christian, Peruvian, etc.  For now I'm moving the link to the "see also" section.  At some point, someone may want to make a section, and possibly an article, on various culture's views on astrology, which could then link to all those sorts of articles.  But at any rate, that sort of thing is only tangentally related to the history of astrolgy, so I'm moving it.
--Blackcats 22:11, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: History mini-section

message: I looked at this page two months ago and in stopping by it today I notice the bulk of material has been re-directed (history of astrology and validity of astrology). The page as it stands looks bad and reads bad. After the intro there is a series of series of choppy, meandering level 2 headlines. "Validity of astrology" particularly has little logical basis as an outside article and should be re-included here. I will re-merge this in a day or two unless someone has a good argument why not. Marskell 23:35, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See the discussion on splitting off the Validity of Astrology section to another page above (Combining "Sceptics View..."/"Case Against..." Sections). The article was over large and growing and was getting the 35K warning mesage. The idea was to keep the arguments in the Validity article and a concise description of Astrology in the main one and I think this is basically sound. I agree both articles still need a lot of work to improve them. Wikipedia's structure allows subordinate articles to be spun off in this way without loosing coherence. Lumos3 14:02, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-directs 

message: There seems to be a serious disagreement (a.k.a. edit war) over categorisation of this article. The categorisations proposed range between two extremes:
* Astrology
* Astrology; Abstraction; Astrologers; Astrological factors; Belief; Divination; Mysticism; New Age; Occult; Occultists; Philosophy; Prediction; Prophecy; Protoscience; Pseudoscience; Religion; Religious behaviour and experience; Solar system; Spirituality
The relevant parts of the Wikipedia:Manual of style appear under Wikipedia:Categorization, from which I'll quote here. First off, one should decide whether or not an article belong under a given category:
: * Is it possible to write a few paragraphs or more on the subject of a category, explaining it?
: * If you go to the article from the category, will it be obvious why it's there? Is the category subject prominently discussed in the article?
: If the answer to either of these questions is no, then a category is probably inappropriate.
: Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category.
Second, the issue of multiple categorisation (emphasis mine):
: An article will often be in several categories. Restraint should be used, however —categories become less effective the more there are on a given article.
: An article should not be in both a category and its subcategory, for example Microsoft Office is in Category:Microsoft software, so should not also be in Category:Software. An article with the same name as a category should usually belong only to that category, for instance, Deism belongs only in Category:Deism.
Applying the multiple sub-classing rule (an article should not be in both a category and its subcategory), we note that:
* Category:Astrology is itself categorized under Divination, Solar system, New Age, Protoscience, and Pseudoscience
* Category:Astrology is also categorized under Occult and Prediction by way of Divination
* Category:Mysticism is itself categorized under Religious behaviour and experience, and Spirituality
* Category:Philosophy is itself categorized under Abstraction, Belief, Culture, and Science
* Category:Prophecy is itself categorized under Prediction, and Religious behaviour and experience
* Category:Religion is itself categorized under Culture, Belief, and Human societies
Applying this to the long list of categories, it shrinks thus:
* Astrology; Abstraction; Astrologers; Astrological factors; Belief; Divination; Mysticism; New Age; Occult; Occultists; Philosophy; Prediction; Prophecy; Protoscience; Pseudoscience; Religion; Religious behaviour and experience; Solar system; Spirituality
Note also that Astrological factors is itself categorised under Astrology, so one could drop Astrology in its favour. However, since « an article with the same name as a category should usually belong only to that category », that seems silly (to me, anyway). Second, the category Astrologers seems destined to collect articles on people who practiced astrology (like the Astronomers category groups articles on people who practice astronomy), so it seems irrelevant to categorise Astrology under it. A link to the Astrology article could easily be added in the Astrologers category page's comment line (something like « This category concerns practitioners of Astrology »). The same argument applies to the Occultists category, which Astrologers are categorised under in any case. Hence:
* Astrology; Abstraction; Astrologers; Astrological factors; Belief; Divination; Mysticism; New Age; Occult; Occultists; Philosophy; Prediction; Prophecy; Protoscience; Pseudoscience; Religion; Religious behaviour and experience; Solar system; Spirituality
This leaves the question as to whether Astrology (the article) belongs under Mysticism, Philosophy, and Religion. I do not think anyone really believes Astrology to be a religion --there is no worship involved. Is it a form of mysticism? I'm not so sure, since the only "mystery" involved is the purported mechanism of action. The movement of celestial bodies and their assignations in the zodiac houses (and so on) is not mysterious, but rather mechanical. Finally, I also find the Philosophy connection rather weak. Philosophy is « the critical study of the most fundamental questions that humankind has been able to ask ». Which of those questions (listed under :Category:Philosophy) does Astrology critically study? I could not identify a single one.
It seems clear, in light of the foregoing, that the Astrology article belongs in the Astrology category and only in that category, as per the Manual of style. Disagreements should be voiced here.
Urhixidur 15:23, 2005 July 15 (UTC)
*This article is needed to be under "Esotericism" new re-categorization (which contains "Occult" and "Mysticism" articles, among others) since Astrology always had a key role in majority of systems based on esoteric knowledge (of past civilizations and of the current-day global society). Please give your feedback. --GalaazV 18:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization 

message: I removed the astrofaces advertisement from the article.  It is inappropriate to hijack this article to promote that site.  The link is more appropriate where it belongs in the external links. - Tεxτurε 18:24, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Astrofaces advertisement