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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!bentley!kwh
From: kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Astrology (was: Biorhythms)
Message-ID: <782@bentley.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Apr-86 18:01:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: bentley.782
Posted: Wed Apr 30 18:01:03 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 2-May-86 23:56:22 EDT
References: <415@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner
Lines: 36

In article <415@mcgill-vision.UUCP> mcgill-vision!mouse writes:
>In article <719@bentley.UUCP>, kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer) writes:
>> In article <935@cylixd.UUCP> cylixd!dave (Dave Kirby) writes:
>>> Is there anything to Biorhythms, or is it just neo-astrology?
>>
>> I reject it for the same reason that I reject astrology: it's based
>> on such an absurd premise.  There might be some such cycles in people,
>> but I doubt that [...various things...]
>
>Don't knock astrology quite so hard please.  Have you ever had your chart
>drawn up by a competent astrologer?  I got fed up ... and looked up how to
>draw up ... my own [chart] and found a book of interpretations.  ... And
>now I am convinced.  There is something to it.
>
>The premise of astrology, as I understand it, is not that the positions of
>the planets affect certain things here (such as people's lives), but that
>they are correlated with things here.  There is a large difference!  It may
>indeed be a cause-effect relationship, though we will need some new
>theories to explain it if so; but it also might not.

Well, since in my previous posting I compared biorhythms to astrology and
explained why I consider *popular* biorhythmology to be just as much bunk as
*popular* astrology (the sort of thing that appears in the newspapers, which
implies that 1/12 of the population will hit the jackpot today in Vegas),
I'll now do the reverse and state that I do not automatically reject either
*competent* astrology or biorhythms.  In fact, I did mention one obvious
correlation (tides), and one interesting possibility (weather).  There are
also some well-documented effects (the full moon crazies) that are probably
psychological in nature.

What sort of things do you claim are correlated with planet positions?  Are
we talking about earthquakes, election results, or what?  And how significant
are which planets?  Can the results be objectively analyzed?

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ihnp4!bentley!kwh), The Walking Lint
"You're a Taurus, aren't you?"   "No, I'm a Klein Bottle."