Astrology snakeoil

Many people believe that astrology is nonsense. Since there are many people who believe in astrology and read their daily horoscope greedy. What is truth? Let us with some new ideas - so please be patient with me when I would start a few parts and then moving up in the end.

I have a bachelor's degree in physics and for many years, I was reluctant (to astrology, although I sometimes look at my horoscope). In fact, I do not buy the argument, there are 12 basic characters are defined by a star symbol.

We all accept that the tides are mainly driven by the sun and the moon (though several hundred of the equation, which is used for tidal prediction). It should be noted that not only the sea's ebb and flow - the earth itself, and the atmosphere also experience tides, but there are not noticeable in everyday life. The strand1's.

Over the past 20 years I have become aware that I suffer with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This is due to the seasonal variations in the intensity of the sun and the people who live outside the tropics. There is a depression, and by definition, seasonal.

The mechanism is thought to be related to the body's production of serotonin and melatonin. So this leads to the idea that human behavior () is governed by the mood can be affected by seasonal sunlight levels. The beach is 2 in the discussion.

I recently read a book called "outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. It is a fascinating work, but I just published a position. He analyzes the NFL teams and the stars (American football). It turns out that star players tend to have a birthday at a particular time of year. Astrology, you say!

No, it's just that the players were born at the beginning of the year tend to be the oldest in their school / college peer groups. For this reason, they are more mature than other students in the school year later was born that year. So if it's 11 months birthdays difference between the oldest and youngest in a given school year, then 12 years, we say it is about 7-8% difference in physical maturity. The more (older) students then tend to excel in their school years and will have more encouragement and support, and so on. The 3-strand is.

So let us try to gather these elements:

- We can see that the physical elements of earth and the biosphere is the subject of astronomical forces (tidal).

- There are (outside the tropics) tends to a portion of the population (ED suffer ~ 17%), affected by seasonal sunlight levels (which is actually just a result of its orbit around the sun), by a mechanism, the change in body chemistry. By the way, is the human female menstrual cycle, usually tied to the moon orbit (though obviously not all women) are in phase.

There are parts of the population, their physical performance and success at the time of the year in which they were born, is determined. You could be studied in the countries where the academic year (Malcolm Gladwell different test, but only as part of the summer long, east-west).

One can reasonably assume that the effects of confinement at the time of year can be "in the academic knowledge visible (as opposed to sporting success over), although this would ensure the education profession is now recognized.

We could see at least one first-order effects at the population level and individual personality, from the earth motion around the sun and the moon around the earth? I am sure that we are.

So what about astrology and star signs? Astrology can be an indicator for this group of effects, although I can not believe that second-order effects (like the sun in Uranus) would be significant. However, it is better in that kind of people, ideas and systems.

2009 Pete Marsh