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Mercury, Sep/Oct 1994 Table of Contents

Michael M. De Robertis and Paul A. Delaney, York University

(c) 1994 Astronomical Society of the Pacific

Even educated people profess a belief in astrology. Merely exposing them to scientific facts doesnt dissuade them, because they feel intimidated by science. Educators must help them to feel empowered by science.

Some scientists and educators have argued that more science education is sufficient to reverse the growing popularity of the pseudosciences. Yet a survey of college students we conducted in fall 1991 revealed that astrology is almost as popular among science majors as among arts and humanities majors (see box on p. 23). The survey results suggest that science education, as currently practiced, does not have a large effect on a persons astrological beliefs.

Educators have to confront the problem head-on. They should devote classroom time to a critical analysis of the pseudosciences. For example, by conducting simple experiments, students could determine for themselves that horoscopes fail to explain events at levels above random chance. In this way, they would demonstrate that ordinary people can apply scientific reasoning in their everyday lives.

But science educators must also try to understand the appeal of astrology if we are to combat it effectively. Western astrology originated in ancient Sumer because people were perplexed by the world around them and sought to predict seemingly capricious events. These motivations are not all that different from the reason people now study science. Indeed, in the early stages, astrology was an observational activity that sought correlations between celestial and terrestrial events. It was only later, in ancient Greece, that astrology began to concern itself with the temperament and moral qualities of individuals. Astrologers began to write personal horoscopes.

In those days, astrology and astronomy were still intertwined. Claudius Ptolemaeus, one of the greatest astronomers and mathematicians of antiquity, was also the author of Tetrabiblos, still regarded as a fundamental textbook of Western astrology. Widely practiced in Europe during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, astrology acted as a driving force behind many of the astronomical advances of the period. Both Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei cast horoscopes for European heads of state. Astrology retained its popularity with intellectuals and the public until the end of the 17th century, waning only with the Enlightenment.

In the 20th century, astrology has surged back into popularity. It regained its foothold in Europe, especially in Nazi Germany. Today, astrology in the Western world enjoys a popularity unmatched since the 17th century. Unlike its forebears, modern astrology is divorced from astronomical research. It is, most scientists and philosophers argue, the archetypal pseudoscience, unconcerned with rigorously testing its hypotheses. We believe that scientists are not so much angered as frustrated by this. How can a pseudoscience like astrology flourish within the most sophisticated technological society in human history?

Innumerable Problems

Many commentators have associated the popularity of astrology with scientific illiteracy. In 1990, Edna Einsiedel surveyed 2,000 adult Canadians. She found that 45 percent thought astrology was at least partially scientific. At the same time, one in five Canadians of those surveyed did not know that the Earth goes around the Sun, and half did not know that the Earth goes around the Sun in one year. Widespread scientific illiteracy in a technological society can have serious economic and political repercussions. A work force must be able to meet the demands of industry. How can a populace that does not understand basic scientific concepts contribute meaningfully to national science policy or deal in an informed way with ethical issues that involve science?

If innumeracy promotes pseudoscience, then better education should undermine it. Some think that improved science education in primary and secondary schools is the best way to meet this challenge. The efforts of individual scientists and organizations are useful, but the magnitude of the problem is so great that only the educational system can address it. Chiara Nappi, for example, has recommended that children begin mathematics and science education as young as possible and study science every year throughout secondary school.

But those who think that only more mathematics and science courses are the answer should consider the results of our 1991 survey (see box). The responses from science students, who presumably had larger doses of mathematics and science throughout secondary school, were not dramatically different from those of the arts students. Moreover, women in the survey were significantly more likely than men to pay attention to their horoscopes, to make decisions based upon them, and to be unaware of the distinctions between astrology and astronomy. Yet, for this survey, women and men on average had the same mathematics and science background.

What does one make of these results? To us, they indicate that educators must not underestimate the need to believe. This may play the dominant role in the appeal of pseudoscience. Perhaps people find the extra-rational nature of the pseudosciences an appealing alternative to traditional religions. Perhaps people seek truth with an anti-scientific bias because they identify science or scientists as something to be feared. Indeed, 40 percent of the adult Canadians surveyed by Einsiedel agreed that ``because of their knowledge, scientists have a power that makes them dangerous.'' Pseudoscience may offer an attractive shelter for these people.

For science education to impact astrological belief, schools and colleges should devote classroom time to a critical analysis of the pseudosciences, not from a dogmatic perspective, but using a hands-on approach to determine whether they have a predictive power different from chance [see "The Scientific Case Against Astrology," November/December 1980, p. 135]. Thornton Page took this approach at Wesleyan University in the late 1960s. He designed and taught a one-semester course, "Flying Saucers," reasoning that widespread public interest made discussion of UFOs an ideal Trojan Horse for getting students to open their minds to science. Page's students reviewed UFO reports and learned whatever physics, meteorology, or biology they needed to analyze the reports critically. Several of their term papers were published.

The media, too, must share some of the responsibility. Even respected newspapers carry horoscopes and uncritical stories on the occult. These features are ultimately detrimental to the scientific and technological health of society. The persistence of astrology suggests that people are not comfortable with modern science. Scientists, educators, and journalists must figure out how to make them comfortable.

MICHAEL M. DE ROBERTIS is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at York University in Toronto. PAUL A. DELANEY is an associate lecturer of physics and astronomy at York University. Both became interested in the attitudes of students towards astronomy and astrology following their experiences teaching large astronomy lecture courses. They can be reached via email at mmdr@yorku.ca.

Illustration caption

Sidebar: What's Your Zign?

How often do you pay attention to your horoscope? Do you ever make decisions based on your horoscope? Do you really know the difference between astrology and astronomy?

We posed similar questions to a group of 1,500 first-year university undergraduates. A number of surveys had polled people's opinions of astrology over the past decade, but there was little information on the attitudes of the more highly educated members of society, especially in Canada. We chose our institution, York University -- Canada's third largest university -- to represent this fraction of society.

At the start of the fall 1991 semester, we surveyed 1,122 arts students enrolled in required science courses for non-science majors, and 383 science students enrolled predominantly in a first-year chemistry course. None of the courses had mentioned astrology until the time of the survey.

The students had several minutes to fill out a questionnaire with two sections: a biographical section, which asked for age, gender, area of study, and highest level of math course completed; and an astrology section, where the questions allowed answers based on the degree of conviction. The first question asked for the students astrological sign, which was verified by looking at the biographical section.

The second question asked how often the student paid attention to his or her horoscope, one possible indication of interest in astrology. Of course, some people read their horoscope simply for amusement, so that one cannot form any conclusion based solely on this response. Therefore, we combined data from questions two through five in order to get a better indication of interest in astrology.

The third question asked the student to assess the accuracy of his or her horoscope. The fourth question asked how many times the student had made conscious decisions based upon horoscopes, another indicator of the influence of astrology. Question five, evaluated the students subscription to the principles of astrology, which were clearly defined. This is perhaps the best measure of whether a person "believes" in astrology. We did not use the phrase "believe in astrology" in the survey, because we would not have used the same construction in connection with astronomy.

Question six asked the student to classify the following as a science: only astrology, only astronomy, both, or neither. The seventh question asked whether astronomers can predict an individual's character and future by studying the heavens. These last two questions tested whether respondents thought they knew the difference between astrology and astronomy, and also whether they really did know the difference. Finally, the eighth question asked whether the student is predisposed to other pseudosciences, such as fortune-telling, numerology, and parapsychology.

Ignorance Revealed

Over 92 percent of those sampled knew their Sun sign, a clear indication of how pervasive astrology is in our culture. While both arts and science students had similar feelings about the accuracy of horoscopes, arts students were more likely to pay attention to their horoscopes, to make conscious decisions based on their horoscopes, to subscribe to astrology, to confuse astronomy and astrology, and to believe in other pseudosciences.

But the differences between arts and science students were not dramatic. For example, over 25 percent of arts students had made at least one conscious decision in the past year based on their horoscope, compared with 21 percent of science students. Only 1.9 percent of arts students "completely" subscribed to astrology, compared with 3.1 percent of science students. For a sample of this size, the uncertainty is 2.5 percent.

More than 45 percent of arts students and 37 percent of science students subscribed at least somewhat to the principles of astrology; that is, believed in astrology. Equally surprising was degree of confusion regarding astronomy and astrology. Fewer than half of arts students knew that only astronomy was a science, compared with just over half of science students.

The responses to question seven about the predictive capabilities of astronomers support this interpretation. In general, science students took a more skeptical approach to astrology, but appeared to make conscious decisions based on their horoscope just as often as arts students.

Women were significantly more likely than men to pay attention to their horoscopes, to make decisions based upon them, to subscribe to the principles of astrology, to believe in other pseudosciences, and to be unaware of the distinctions between astrology and astronomy. This is true for women in both arts and science. Unlike previous surveys, the average mathematics background of women in both the arts and science was the same as that of the males. Over 70 percent of female arts students indicated that their highest level of mathematics was a course in the last grade of high school.

We found it disquieting that such a large fraction of undergraduates were favorably disposed to astrology. We emphasize that we have surveyed only first-year students. Perhaps university graduates are more skeptical, but there is no compelling reason to expect a dramatic shift in astrological opinions during college, given that these views are not formally challenged in either the arts or science curriculum.