Astrology is a pseudoscience
The Commission on Combating Pseudoscience of the Russian Academy of Sciences has issued a memorandum "On the pseudoscience of astrology," about this "Newspaper.Ru" was reported by the drafters of the document.
In the memorandum, the commission summarizes the main arguments against astrology, as well as analyzes scientific data on the reasons for trust in it, despite its long-proven inconsistency.
Thus, astrology does not meet the methodological requirements for a scientific discipline. The popularity of astrology is explained by the mass of errors in human thinking, and experimental checks of astrologers' statements give negative results.
"By this memorandum, the Commission states that the claims of astrologers about the connection between the position of the heavenly bodies and the characteristics of a person's personality and fate have no scientific basis. Astrology can serve as entertainment, but if astrological statements and methods are presented as objective or scientific, they should be characterized as pseudoscientific," the document says.
The Commission recommends that citizens do not use the services of astrologers when making important life decisions, as this may have negative consequences, and the media should refuse to advertise and popularize astrological services, astrological institutes, and courses.
The drafters of the memorandum note that they have been working on the project for several years. Experts from various scientific fields took part in the work on the memorandum: astronomy, physics, biology, medicine and statistics.
From the book by Tikhomirov A.E. Magic of numbers and astrology. LitRes, Moscow, 2023, pp. 6-7, 10: "Astrology is completely devoid of any scientific basis, it is nothing more than a superstition of pure water. However, this warning was a voice crying out in the desert. Instead of trusting their reason and being guided by it, the general stupefied public, no matter what, continues to slide into the abyss of the irrational. For many years, the book market has been literally flooded with occult and astrological literature, the benefit of which lies only in one thing – it is a source of income for its authors and publishers. … Our time has inherited superstitions from the distant past, and the degree of their survivability and prevalence depends on factors such as the social structure of society, the worldview prevailing in it. Astrology has now been significantly modernized, uses electronic equipment, and has brought the language of horoscopes in line with the level and needs of the century. The women's magazine, which demonstrates fashion and gives useful advice to housewives, publishes horoscopes in each issue. They can be used to judge how the language of modern predictors has changed. For example, the "star talk" in May: "All women born under the sign of Aries between the 20th of this month and the 20th of the next month should take care to get out of the way of superiors. Taurus recommends to his wards at the beginning of the month not to undertake any important business at all, so as not to inadvertently harm his cordial friend… "Our modern bourgeois society is built on the principles of purity and profit in any way. Astrology is beneficial to the ruling classes for instilling obscurantism and leading people away from the truth, creating money from fooling gullible people."
