Astrology's (lack of) Provenance

Back to this again.

I’ve written before about Provenance – how most scientific discoveries didn’t just appear fully formed, but were derived from earlier experimentation.  As an example, I described how the discovery of radio waves by Heinrich Hertz was based on earlier discoveries of electricity and magnetism, made by Newton, Young, Huygens, Faraday, Maxwell and others.  The fact that the discovery of radio waves was based on other discoveries, each backed by substantial amounts of evidence, meant that the discovery of radio waves was not such an extraordinary claim when it was first made. 

In a similar vein, nearly four years ago I issued The Astrology Challenge – I asked proponents of astrology to tell me how the rules of astrology were derived.  As examples, I described how  Galileo knew that the planets orbit the Sun and not the Earth, and how we first calculated the speed of light.  As I wrote then, if no one can say how the rules of astrology were derived, in the same way we can describe how the speed of light was derived, then the rules of astrology were probably just made up.  And any hypothesis that was just made up, is unlikely to be true.  No one has yet been able to tell me (showing their work) how the rules of astrology were derived.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a reader, purporting to tell me just that.  Unfortunately he did no such thing.  Instead it was just 1,200 words consisting of the usual logical fallacies we’ve all heard and refuted many times before.  I won’t bother to repeat them.  He did have one thing I hadn’t heard before though.  It was this:

… on the night of February 17, 1869, the Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleyev went to bed frustrated by a puzzle he had been playing with for years; how the atomic weights of the chemical elements could be grouped in some meaningful way and one that, with any luck, would open a window onto the hidden structure of nature. He dreamed, as he later recalled, of "a table where all the elements fell into place as required." His intuition that when the elements were listed in order of weight, their properties repeated in regular intervals, gave rise to the Periodic Table of the Elements which, though much revised since, underlies modern chemistry.

If Dmitri Mendeleyev were an astrologer instead of a chemist trying to figure out the meaning of heavenly movements and had a dream about the meanings of the zodiac and the planets along with their meanings could you accept that, like you accept his dream about the periodic table of elements?

My emailer was likening the discovery of the periodic table to the discovery of the rules of astrology.  If Mendeleyev could literally dream up the periodic table, then why couldn’t ancient man have dreamed up astrology?

There are a couple of fundamental problems with this interpretation.  Firstly, the emailer’s (copy and pasted) paragraph actually debunks the argument he is trying to make.  The important wording, that he didn’t notice, is that Dmitri Mendeleyev went to bed:

…frustrated by a puzzle he had been playing with for years…

He didn’t just dream up the periodic table out of whole cloth.  There was already a problem he was trying to solve, namely to classify the elements according to their chemical properties.  And he finally solved the problem.  Most likely after a good night's sleep, rather than in a dream.  But whether he literally dreamed it, or whether he just had the answer in the morning, is immaterial.  He had been puzzling over a problem, and eventually found a solution.  Where is the original problem the inventors of astrology were trying to solve?  And where can I read about it?

Secondly, Mendeleyev’s periodic table made several predictions that later proved to be true.  For example:

…not only did he leave spaces for elements that were not yet discovered but he predicted properties of five of these elements and their compounds.

The missing elements were later proven to exist, exactly as Mendeleyev had predicted.  Contrast that with astrology where not only was there was no problem to be solved, but the predictions of astrology proved false when tested.  It’s great to “dream up” wild ideas, but unless they can be confirmed by testing, they will should remain just dreams.  Where can I read of how the early astrologers’ predictions came true?

One more thing - the “dream” story is probably a myth anyway.  From the same source I cited above:

There were two main problems about establishing a pattern for the elements. First only 60 elements had been discovered (we now know of over 100) and second some of the information about the 60 was wrong. It was if Mendeleev was doing a jigsaw with one third of the pieces missing, and other pieces bent!

Mendeleev had written the properties of elements on pieces of card and tradition has it that after organising the cards while playing patience he suddenly realised that by arranging the element cards in order of increasing atomic weight that certain types of element regularly occurred. For example a reactive non-metal was directly followed by a very reactive light metal, then a less reactive light metal. The image of a stamp collectors’ miniature sheet shows a stamp commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Periodic Table superimposed on some of Mendeleev’s original jottings.

(My bold.)

Right there, we have an example of the sort of thing I’m looking for with astrology.  It turns out my emailer’s attempt to answer my question (strictly speaking, to render it moot), actually proved to be yet another example of how real scientific discoveries are derived. 

So again, I’ll ask the proponents of astrology, show me how the detailed rules were derived.  And I mean show me, with evidence, with the data they used, how they calculated it, how they validated it.  Don’t just say (as this emailer also said), that astrology was first conceived when highly intuitive individuals saw a correlation between heavenly movements in the cosmos to their relations here on earth… (etc etc).  Tell me where can I read the details of how they did this?  The details of the testing.  Where are they? 

This thing was a nightmare to figure out.

Comments

[Paul]

Your posts are less frequent these days, but always well worth the wait when they appear. You are one of the most rational thinkers I know. Thanks for your continued efforts on the skeptical, and critical thinking front.

[Stewart Paterson]

I'm jealous of this guy's periodic table tattoo

[Tom Foss]

I wouldn't be jealous; it looks like it's already out of date with respect to some of those later synthetic elements, which have been renamed. Getting those fixed is going to be a real pain in the arm.

[TechSkeptic]

Maybe he had freedom 2 do it and he can get updates.

http://www.freedom2inc.com/bodyart.html

[King of Ferrets]

Awww, it looks like they gave unununium a name. I liked that one.

[Skeptico]

Paul:

Thanks. I don't write as much now since I feel I've covered all the main topics I wanted to get off my chest (and then some) when I started this blog. Many of my posts now feel a bit like retreads - for example this astrology post is a bit of a rehash of the astrology challenge that I posted nearly 4 years ago. It's just the addition of the Mendeleyev story that made it different. Hum - I guess I'll just have to rely on quality not quantity from now on.

[Joshua Zelinsky]

There's a much more fundamental problem with the Mendeleev story for this purpose. There was a lot of precursor work to Mendeleev. For example, Dobereiner discovered that certain triplets of elements seemed to have very similar chemical properties. Morover, he found that in many of these cases one of the elements would have an atomic mass about midway between the other two.

John Newslands and other scientists also made partial periodic tables or similar attempts at classifying it. Newlands even went so far as to predict the existence of specific elements corresponding to specific gaps.

Mendeleev's work was based on a large number of scientists who came before him. The narrative from the letter is thus wrong at a much more basic level.

[Frog2009]

As I'm amateur astrologer, I wish to ask something.
If you have data base of fingerprint, how you may know who if them are offender or priest or astrologer? Our knowledge of astrology and so hard working with astrology and clients, can help us to differentiate given question. Because, question of client must be illustrated in his horoscope. If not, then is wrong question. As astrologer, I wish to have statistic of aspect, signs and more point, but this is so individual and similar point maybe not work for other. Each horoscope is equali to fingerprints. Not all of client respond same at same aspect which have on havent just this day.
sincerely

[Bronze Dog]

Perhaps you'd like to tell us what you can tell about a person with reasonable confidence with astrology, Frog. Whenever astrology's tested, many astrologers tend to leave comments about the things astrology can't predict.

As for fingerprints, no one claims that a person's fingerprint influences their personality or future. Astrologers usually claim that a person's birth date and position of the planets do.

[Jimmy_Blue]

As I'm amateur astrologer

I think the one is implied by the other, no need to qualify.

If you have data base of fingerprint, how you may know who if them are offender or priest or astrologer?

This, of course, has nothing to do with astrology. Terrible analogy.

Our knowledge of astrology and so hard working with astrology and clients, can help us to differentiate given question.

An admission that cold reading is part of the process.

Because, question of client must be illustrated in his horoscope. If not, then is wrong question.

Sounds like psuedo-philosophical nonsense to me.

Each horoscope is equali to fingerprints.

So no two horoscopes are ever the same? Of course, if they were like fingerprints that would mean that two different astrologers working with the same data would get the same result - just like two forensic scientists working with the same data would get the same fingerprinting results. Right? Astrologers do always agree about predictions etc, right?

Starting to see why your analogy wasn't very good yet?

Anyway, please answer Bronze Dog's question about what astrology can predict. I have a challenge that most astrologers who have come here have never accepted, and the one that did was not very successful at all. Let's see if your astrology can answer it, then I'll explain it to you and you can get to work.

What does/can your astrology predict and what information do you need to begin?

[Frog2009]

I wish only to say, that every horoscope is unique fingerprint. Because of this, astrology can't be statistic establish however astrologers and skeptics wish to make this.

But, skeptic not take astrology on as our manner, but astrology work very well for as, remarkably if astrologer know knowledge whose is not a little and not learn over one night. There have not black and white. We learn all the time.

We have twins (gemini) and they have nearly same horoscope, but nearly! But they have so different life. How explain this? Not as I read in book by Roger B. Culver, prof. astronomy from Colorado and
Philip A. Ianna, prof. astronomy from Virginia. Astrology: True or False? Scientific evaluation.

This in so wrong access to astrology. Do not use any element in horoscope out whole chart as many of skeptics do.

I don't know English language to continue this discussion even I wish, its hard for me, and there have more positive and negative things for writing.

[Frog2009]

To begin some analyze I need exact date, time of born, place of born, and of course question, what you wish ask.

It's easy to explain what astrologer can't predict: color of skin, sex, belong horoscope to one human or animal, and not much things which can't I remember in this time.

Very little astrologers use astrology on right manner, but more of them mean that they are very good astrologers. And thay are good, but.. I'm in "war" with that. Astrologer must define what can and what cannot be .. LOL about astrology system may write so more.

[Jimmy_Blue]

Ok.

Now, if I gave you the information you needed, rather than making a future prediction, could I give give a question that I may have wanted answering at the start of 2006 and could you give an answer to it?

This way, we can know if your system works or not since those events have already happened and we can verify them.

[TechSkeptic]

It's easy to explain what astrologer can't predict: color of skin, sex, belong horoscope to one human or animal, and not much things which can't I remember in this time....To begin some analyze I need exact date, time of born, place of born, and of course question, what you wish ask

May 18, 1968 at 3:10 in the afternoon in New York City at Mount Sinai Hospital (98th st, on 5th avenue in Manhattan).

What is my biological mother's name?

[Skemono]

What is my biological mother's name?
Hortense.

If you think otherwise, then clearly the person you think is your biological mother is not, because my choosing a random name--I mean, astrology--couldn't possibly be wrong.

[Skeptico]

What is my biological mother's name?

Mrs. Skeptic?