Talk:Astrology/Archive 33

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Cultural astronomy

Clive Ruggles writes: "To a modern astronomer, astrology is anathema...From the perspective of the archaeologist or anthropologist, whose ultimate interest is in human behavior rather than the laws of the universe, whether such an argument is scientifically verifiable or not is not the point. What interests these scientists is the fact that people throughout the ages have drawn direct connections between the appearance of the sky and events on earth, and that this forms an integral part of their understanding of how the world works."[1]

Does anyone have a problem with the above? Note that we have the articles Cultural astronomy and Astrology and astronomy (not a good article given the fact that there are a number of academic sources not used in it).

This article has nothing I can see from the perspective of either archaeologists or anthropologists. Should it? Doug Weller talk 11:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

No problem with the statement above. Archaeologists and anthropologists are discussing human behaviour, astronomers are discussing the stars. When it comes to the intersection of the two, Wikipedia has however, in the case of astrology (or rather 'astrologies' since as any half-competent historian, archaeologist, or anthropologist will know, this covers a very diverse topic), to make it clear that assertions that such belief systems somehow invalidate scientific knowledge are just that: assertions, clearly incapable of being verified through evidence, even in principle. Which is probably why archaeologists, anthropologists etc generally avoid making such assertions, instead doing as Ruggles does and making it clear that they are discussing what people think and do on Earth, not what 'astrological' effects the stars have on them. They certainly don't generally go around saying that because people believe in astrology, the astronomers are wrong to say that astrology doesn't work.

Wikipedia perhaps has a tendency to overuse the word 'pseudoscience', where a more subtle distinction between what people think and the 'objective reality' that science is attempting to discern may need to be explained, but if the alternative is to adopt a Feyerabendism-for-beginners 'anything goes' approach, where the mere fact that people believe stuff is sufficient to make it as valid as anything else, we might as well close Wikipedia down. And then close down university departments of astronomy, anthropology and the rest, since actual knowledge is clearly unobtainable... AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:36, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

At no point did the edits I made (or anyone else made, for that matter) claim that astrology was valid, as keeps being brought up in this discussion. I did (and maintain) that astrology is not considered to be a pseudoscience universally. Pseudoscience is a very particular claim, and it is not synonymous with untruth or falsity or invalidity. As you hopefully understand, astrology is incredibly broad and only a very small fraction of it claims to be scientific, even in a general sense. Indeed the vast majority of astrology, both in the ancient world and now, is tied closely to religion and culture, as can be seen in Late Platonism and Hermeticism, or in Mesoamerica, as with the Nahua Tōnalpōhualli and Xiuhpōhualli, or the Maya Tzolkʼin (See Maya astronomy.) Not to mention the incredibly complex astrologies of India and China. I affirm that describing astrology as "any of various ceremonial, religious, and divinatory practices" is more accurate than describing it as simply "a pseudoscience" since this is not only inaccurate for the vast majority of its history (when it was largely inseparable from astronomy) but inaccurate in many, if not most, contexts today (in which case it does not claim to be a science -- as with religious, ceremonial, and cultural uses of astrology -- by far the most common.) MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 00:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

The problem is when such an argument is used as a reason to nonsensically obfuscate the lead (as done by MCRIRE). To be clear, I have no objection to including a section about this somewhere in the article, so long it doesn't lead to a repeat of the recent shenanigans. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:40, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Using Ruggles to say what Ruggles says is fine: anthropologists are not interested in whether astrology is pseudoscience. Only that editor's conclusion that therefore astrology is not a pseudoscience was a problem. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:00, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Whether or not astrology is pseudoscience is pretty much irrelevant to its study by anthropologists, isn’t it? Brunton (talk) 15:01, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Up to a point, though the occasional anthropologist has been known (alongside psychologists etc) to enquire why the people they study can sometimes be so keen to persist in holding on to beliefs in things that empirical evidence freely available to them demonstrates not to be true. Answers to such questions can be illuminating, and reveal things about the human mind that you wouldn't figure out either by dismissing their relationship to available evidence as irrelevant, or by adapting a theoretical approach that apparently denies the existence of a shared reality at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:23, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

If well-sourced specifically in the context of astrology, that sounds like a topic that should also be added somewhere in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 16:27, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

This is a mischaracterization of the work anthropologists do, at least, anthropologists of the 21st century. Anthropologists today take a position of complete cultural neutrality in regards to the truth of beliefs -- ala Foucault and Haraway knowledge is considered to be socially and politically situated and culturally-specific. To quote the Indian mythologist and folklorist Devdutt Pattanaik: "Facts are everybody’s truth. Fiction is nobody’s truth. Myths are somebody’s truth." At no point would an anthropologist be interested in "holding on to beliefs in things that empirical evidence freely available to them demonstrates not to be true" -- doing so would take an unacceptable stance which introduces an element of modern Western cultural chauvinism where it frankly doesn't belong. UC Davis religious studies professor Naomi Janowitz writes:

First, in order to begin thinking about why people might believe in notions of cause and effect different from ours we must start with a careful examination of the specific historical context. It is the premise of this study, learned from recent anthropological theories, that notions of cause and effect are culturally based. This is not a claim of radical relativism; some of the basic principals of logic may turn out to be cross-culturally true. Most of the time, however, people are not using strictly logical modes of thought. This leaves us plenty of room for cultural and historical variation in modes of thought about cause and effect.

— Naomi Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews, and Christians

In other words, anthropologists are not only interested in pseudoscience, but suspending our own ideas on what is true, false, and causally related is sometimes essential to the anthropological method. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 00:24, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Facts are everybody’s truth. Fiction is nobody’s truth. Myths are somebody’s truth. It is a fact that astrology is a pseudoscience and holds no scientific validity. That, despite this, people still hold on to it, has nothing to do with "Western cultural chauvinism", in the same way that people holding on to other evidence-less beliefs such as conspiracy theories has nothing to do with "Western cultural chauvinism". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Reiterating your point with no substance, here. Yes. I am aware you believe that astrology is a pseudoscience and holds no scientific validity. I do not hold the same stance because I do not believe the vast majority of astrology claims to be a science or scientific, indeed, most ancient astrologers of the Late Platonic and Hermetic schools would be explicitly opposed to this notion (not because they are opposed to astrology, but because they are opposed to the notion that nature is anything but a pale reflection of the Absolute.) Philosopher of science Larry Laudan writes: "If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like 'pseudo-science' and 'unscientific' from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us." This is not the sort of objective, right-or-wrong discussion you are proposing it is. And as such, it should not be presented as a right-or-wrong discussion on the page. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 01:03, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

1. Does astrology claim to be able to make predictions? Yes
2. Have such claims been refuted by modern scientists? Yes

Ergo, astrology does not have any scientific validity. Whether you personally believe this or something else is irrelevant, Wikipedia is not written based on what its editors believe, but from a mainstream, contemporary viewpoint as evidenced in high-quality sources. And the mainstream contemporary viewpoint is that astrology indeed is a pseudoscience. Whether it was not at some point in the fact, or whether we can apply contemporary terms to objects of study in the past, is another question, and not one that warrants misleading contemporary readers who will most likely be searching about the contemporary practice. A "history of astrology" or "cultural astrology" section would be the appropriate section to showcase this additional material. Obfuscating the lead with it, is not. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:10, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Your first point is, once again, a mischaracterization: it reduces astrology to contemporary Western horoscopic astrology, that is, a very particular discursive formation. Further, as per WP:MAINSTREAM: "This means that writers and editors on Wikipedia should strive for articles that would be appreciated as being of the highest quality by a consensus of experts in any field of science or scholarship...Crucially, this means that Wikipedia content is not based on a popularity contest. In many debates, the most popular view is different from the scholarly or scientific view." There is no reason, therefore, to discount the arguments of anthropologists and historians (who are, arguably, more qualified to talk about astrology than other scholars -- since they are most familiar with it) who are indeed experts in this field. Lastly, the vast majority of astrology practiced even today is religious, ceremonial, and ritual in context, not horoscopic or judicial astrology. You are confusing, once again, contemporary Western horoscopic astrology for a vast and varied discipline. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 01:33, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

This is not true, Tamsyn Barton for example has went to great lengths to problematize the notion of pseudoscience within the study of astrology and physiognomy more broadly. Anthropologists absolutely are interested in pseudoscience, in particular, the way pseudoscience is deployed as a rhetorical strategy in order to marginalize the knowledges of the Other. It was the historian Frances Yates who considered the appellation of pseudoscience to astrology to be anachronistic and the application of modern sensibilities backwards in time.

There is this tendency here to collapse astrology into contemporary Western horoscopic astrology whereas astrology is a much, much broader field -- as described by Clive Ruggles, astrology is largely the cultural astronomy of non-Western societies, like as seen in South and East Asia (where astrology remains prominent, even as an academic field) and the Americas (where astrology has a prominent place in the cosmologies of say, the Nahua peoples.) Or, for that matter, large parts of Western non-horoscopic astrology -- things found in the Greek Magical Papyri, the Corpus Hermeticum, and Late Platonist texts like De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum, where astrology is largely connected to religious and ritual workings. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 00:06, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

It was the historian Frances Yates who considered the appellation of pseudoscience to astrology to be anachronistic and the application of modern sensibilities backwards in time. I guess Frances_Yates#Scholarly_critiques would be instructive reading. There is this tendency here to collapse astrology into contemporary Western horoscopic astrology whereas astrology is a much, much broader field Any system which "claims to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects" is inherently pseudoscientific (as it claims to be able to predict stuff, a claim which has been thoroughly refuted by qualified scientists), no matter whether it comes from Western Europe or from the planet Mars. None of this prevents us discussing astrology as a religious and cultural phenomenon, but suggesting this means it isn't a pseudoscience is really taking the cake. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I am (well) aware Yates has been critiqued. She was born in 1899. There is plenty to be critiqued for such scholars, and in the ensuing century-and-a-quarter of her life, it would be inane to think she would not be critiqued. It does not mean however that she has been discredited or debunked: she is a seminal historian. Tamsyn Barton writes on Yates:

Most famously, Frances Yates led the attack against a history of science which carried back categories from the modern world to the ancient one, seeing the same clear division between science and pseudo-science as is generally accepted now. She proclaimed the importance of ‘Hermetic’ magic, Neoplatonism, alchemy and astrology in contributing to the development of what became modern science. The debate continues, with her opponents still arguing that what was science then is science now, and the same goes for pseudoscience. But though not all of Yates’s points have been accepted, it is now much more common to write histories which set sciences in their social and intellectual context.

— Tamsyn Barton, Ancient Astrology (1994)

To reiterate, for Barton and Yates, as much as for myself, to apply pseudoscience to astrology is a gross anachronism for the vast majority of astrology's existence. This does not mean that astrology is not a pseudoscience, only that it is not universally held by scholars to be one, as the current lede implies and keeps being reiterated here in the face of anthropological and historical literature to the contrary. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 00:52, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

To take an example from something I know (being a musician much interested in early music); the concept of the harmony of the spheres can very much be discussed (the article here might not be perfect, but nvm) for its historical significance without anybody having any second thoughts about it's lack of actual empirical grounding, or writing verbose verbiage to distract from this fact. Astrology is no different in this aspect. In fact, astrology being pretty much the poster-child "pseudoscience", there's really no valid reason for us as writers of a mainstream encyclopedia to be attempting to obfuscate this fact. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:52, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Notice that the page so linked has no mention of pseudoscience anywhere. Like astrology, considering the harmony of the spheres to be pseudoscience would be horribly anachronistic. Further my edits preserved the stance of skeptics and some philosophers of science, and described how the predictive capability of astrology had been successfully challenged by empirical means: however, to reduce astrology to simply horoscopic and divinatory practices is to ignore the vast majority of astrological practices, both in history and as practiced today. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 00:56, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Further my edits preserved the stance of skeptics and some philosophers of science, and described how the predictive capability of astrology had been successfully challenged by empirical means: where to start? [2]

1. You removed a citation to Thagard, Paul R. (1978). "Why Astrology is a Pseudoscience". Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. 1: 223–234. (a paper cited by over 200 others, showing it is indeed significant) - seemingly because you disagree with his viewpoint (but have no problem replacing it with another set of sources which agree with yours)
2. You crucially removed the identification of it as a pseudoscience (one of the defining characteristics of the subject) from the very first sentence, instead burying it deep at the end of another paragraph.
3. You removed and have shown it to have no scientific validity or explanatory power.

And yet somehow I'm supposed to believe that your edits did not represent a fundamental WP:NPOV violation? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:05, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I did not remove the citation, that is blatantly false: I moved it from one place to another, as can be seen in the very edit revision you linked. In doing so, I contextualized it by describing the particulars of the argument, in particular, the stances of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn. As for your second point, yes, I removed the identification of astrology as a pseudoscience as the fourth word in the entire article and I stand by this edit: the description of astrology as "any of several ritual, religious, or divinatory practices" is more accurate than a reductionist, pejorative labeling as pseudoscience. As for your last point, this is also blatantly false: I revised the sentence to read:

researchers in the natural sciences have successfully challenged the predictive capability of astrology on both theoretical and experimental grounds.

That is, I moved "explanatory power" to "predicitive capability" (slightly more accurate) and did, indeed, revised the first part of the sentence because astrology (as I have explained and cited elsewhere) is not reducible to predictive or positivistic theories.

I would like to point out that while I did not remove any references, as you have claimed, I did add 4 or 5 new academic references. And once again: I am not an astrologer, I am an anthropologist specializing in historical archaeology (...of the Tulare Basin, but I digress). Once again, I have not said -- here or anywhere else -- that astrology, horoscopic or otherwise, is valid. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 01:24, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Most sources, when talking about "astrology"; do not seem to have in mind the wider definition you have. "Astrology" is nearly always being used to refer to the modern practice of it, and as such, per NPOV, our article should not give undue; out of proportion prominence to minor aspects of the subject (WP:PROPORTION). This includes correctly identifying the most prominent feature of astrology - that is, its modern practice - as indeed being a pseudoscience. That is why a description of astrology's historical significance is in order, but is not a valid reason to overwrite what is in the lead, since the lead is supposed to summarise the most important points of an article's subject. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:30, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

"Most sources"? Most sources talking about astrology (do a quick search for "astrology" on Scholar and JSTOR) are, indeed, talking about the historical and cultural practices of astrology. In fact, the very first source mentioned is Barton's Ancient Astrology which I have referenced heavily here and in my revisions of the article. JSTOR is slightly more concerned with contemporary, Western horoscopic astrology but the majority of sources are discussing it in historical and cultural capacities, e.g., Astrology and Cosmology in the Worlds Religions (NYU Press), the very first source listed on a search for "astrology" for JSTOR. I imagine if you did a search for "astrology pseudoscience" it would be different, but the page is entitled Astrology, not Astrology and pseudoscience or Astrology and astronomy. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 01:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Anthropologists today take a position of complete cultural neutrality in regards to the truth of beliefs Yes, that is the postmodern approach. So, those postmodern anthropologists cling to the dogma that such questions must be answered with "don't know, don't care". But that is their problem, not ours.

Postmodern anthropologists are not the dictators of science, otherwise real scientists could as well close shop since they would not be allowed to answer any questions by following the evidence.

Those who refuse to answer a question obviously have no say in what the answer is. You will not force your dogma on Wikipedia. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:31, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Damn. This might have been a useful discussion had it not been derailed by the same editor. I'm beginning to think WP:BLUDGEON. Doug Weller talk 08:50, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that is the postmodern approach. Kind of? I'm guessing you're using postmodern as a pejorative here. It's a very basic principle of undertaking anthropological research: one must at least try to suspend judgement in regards to the subject of research. So, those postmodern anthropologists cling to the dogma Postmodern dogma is an oxymoron. Postmodern anthropologists are not the dictators of science, otherwise real scientists "Postmodern" anthropologists, whatever that means, are real scientists. Those who refuse to answer a question obviously have no say in what the answer is. Genuine question, what do you think postmodernism is? MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 10:16, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Unfalsifiable, and therefore not science? AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:29, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

'Postmodernism,' as you and User:Hob Gadling use it, is nothing more than a buzzword: it has no relation to the of 'postmodernism' that is used in scholarly discussion. You're using it to imply relativism or trivialism, in other words, some boogieman conspiracy that aims to undermine Truth^TM and Rationality^TM -- similar to the way it's deployed by far-right conspiracy theorists -- but that's, obviously, a mischaracterization. Am I a Cultural Marxist too? Once again: postmodernism is a historical condition, as per Lyotard -- the condition which responds and grows out of modernism -- it is not an ideology, or even a "philosophy." Those who are generally called postmodernists -- Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, Deleuze, et al -- never adopted the term themselves and most of them were critical, if not outright opposed to it. With all that being said: 'postmodernism,' as applied to anthropology, just refers to a particular interpretative method that has developed over recent decades to respond to (1) the legacy of ethnocentric 'classical' anthropology and race science and (2) critiques provided by Indigenous scholars. In this pursuit, Foucault and Haraway are indispensable for providing an epistemology that is properly attuned to political dynamics and the social construction of knowledge. Quite ironically, Sokal and Bricmont charge falsificationism as bringing about postmodern relativism which they view as a reaction to Popper's criterion. That's beside the point though -- social sciences and natural sciences, of course, have different epistemologies; just as the formal sciences and the natural sciences have different epistemologies. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 12:31, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

So you do not like it when people call that bullshit "postmodernism"? We could call it "bullshit" instead. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Ironic dogmatism from one who decries dogmatism, no? That's not exactly an argument. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 12:54, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Nothing dogmatic here. You talk bullshit, I call it bullshit. I have no problem with you disagreeing with that assessment. For me, it is alright when people have stances. The attempt to force it on others is the problem. Returning to the subject: Anthropologists are allowed to have no position on the astrology-as-pseudoscience question, but we summarize the positions people have, not those people do not have. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:18, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Postmodern dogma is an oxymoron. Wrong. Dogmatism means trying to force your own position on others. That is what you are trying to do here: your position is that we should not take a position, and you are trying to force your position into the article. "Having no stance" does not exist; "having no stance" is just a description of another stance. Every stance, including the no-stance stance, can be a source of error. Of course that fact is in your blind spot.

Can we please go back to improving the article? We were at the point where you had no reliable sources that say astrology is not pseudoscience, and therefore no leg to stand on except your no-stance dogma. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Ignoring the moralizing: That is what you are trying to do here: your position is that we should not take a position Once again, kind of? The 'position' being forwarded here is reductive and isn't neutral by any means. As for reliable sources: I have given four, but yes, none of them are sources that definitively state that astrology is not a pseudoscience. They are sources, on the other hand, which show that at least some scholars (Barton in particular) are critical of astrology-as-pseudoscience. And that is my original, and current, point. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 12:52, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

isn't neutral by any means On Wikipedia, we try to be neutral, but not in the sense of the word you are using. See WP:NPOV.

I have given four, but yes, none of them are sources that definitively state that astrology is not a pseudoscience The sentence "I have given four" does not make sense in this context. You can give us two billion sources, but if none of them say what you need them to say to achieve your goal, they do not count.

some scholars [..] are critical of astrology-as-pseudoscience Is there anyone who rejects astrology-as-pseudoscience without rejecting the concept of pseudoscience itself? If not, then their gripes have nothing to do with astrology itself, and then those people are relevant only in the pseudoscience article, not here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:18, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Is there anyone who rejects astrology-as-pseudoscience without rejecting the concept of pseudoscience itself? Yes. The argument is not that astrology isn't a pseudoscience because pseudoscience isn't a thing (or something similiar) -- though some have levied that argument -- but that the notion of astrology-as-pseudoscience (1) projects contemporary sensibilities about, i.e., science, backwards in time; (2) implies that astrology indeed claims to be a science which is not accurate for anything other than Western horoscopic astrology; and (3) that one cannot claim that astrology is both falsified (debunked) and unfalsifiable. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 13:24, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

To drive this point home, e.g. homeopathy cannot be defended on similar grounds. It genuinely does claim to be a science, it has a very particular, strict, and narrow cultural context, and does not operate on scientific principles. Same goes for creation science. The same does not go for, i.e., alchemy. Which, now that I notice it: lede paragraph for alchemy is much, much different than the lede paragraph for astrology despite being incredibly similar disciplines. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 13:31, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

1. projects contemporary sensibilities about, i.e., science, backwards in time But the people who say astrology is pseudoscience are not saying astrology was pseudoscience back then. They are saying it is pseudoscience right now. Because the people who do it now are projecting obsolete ideas forward in time. How can we use that strawman in the article without blushing?
2. is not accurate for anything other than Western horoscopic astrology So, any pseudoscience can immunize itself against being called pseudoscience by having people who do not claim it is science? That is not how it works. Pseudoscience is defined as something which is wrongly called science, not something which is wrongly called science by everybody who endorses it. Again, embarrassing strawman.
3. one cannot claim that astrology is both falsified (debunked) and unfalsifiable Third embarrassing strawman. Astrology has general, unfalsifiable parts (the stars are synchronized with us) and specific, falsifiable parts (someon with sun sign X will tend to work as a Y).

Those people are not very familiar with serious criticism of astrology, are they? Those reasons are on par with creationist "criticisms" of evolution. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:06, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

If people who say astrology is pseudoscience are not saying astrology was pseudoscience back then then why should astrology be described as a pseudoscience in the very first sentence of the article? The vast majority of astrological literature is regarding astrology as a particular cultural practice that is historically and socially contextualized. If what Ptolemy was doing was astrology, but it wasn't pseudoscience, why jump the gun? So, any pseudoscience can immunize itself against being called pseudoscience by having people who do not claim it is science? This is circular reasoning. You've already defined it as pseudoscience, so of course the fact that astrology largely does not portray itself as science is irrelevant. Astrology has general, unfalsifiable parts (the stars are synchronized with us) and specific, falsifiable parts (someon with sun sign X will tend to work as a Y) This only applies for a very specific and narrow subset of astrology, i.e. Western horoscopic and judicial astrology which was already being critiqued by neoplatonists in the Late Antique period -- who were, I might add, astrologers themselves. An opening sentence for an article which describes astrology -- not just a subset of astrology -- ought to stress that it is a ceremonial, religious, and/or ritual system based on the position of celestial bodies before any mention of pseudoscience is brought up. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 14:20, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

This is circular reasoning. Of course it is not. Pseudoscience has a definition, and astrology fulfils it. Changing the definition of pseudoscience so that astrology stops fulfilling it is not a valid method. But this is fruitless. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:45, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

If a pseudoscience has to claim to be scientific to be a pseudoscience, then astrology is not (in all cases) a pseudoscience. But what you said that if this were the case, pseudosciences could immunize themselves against being called pseudoscience by not calling themselves science. The circular reasoning is that if you already assume that they are pseudosciences, of course this notion is ridiculous.

With that being said, pseudoscience doesn't have "a" definition. It has many definitions. Apologies, but I don't believe you have solved the demarcation problem. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 10:55, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

not (in all cases) a pseudoscience At least you admit you are cherry-picking by mentioning the non-cherries in parentheses.

The "claims to be science but is not" part is pretty uncontroversial. The controversies are about what the word "science" means.

The demarcation problem is about finding the exact line between the areas of science and pseudoscience. About the areas far away from that line, everybody (except for a few weirdos at the fringe) agrees that e.g. physics and biology are sciences and astrology and homeopathy are pseudosciences.

But all this is not relevant here. We have reliable sources saying it is pseudoscience, and that is enough. Your personal beliefs and the reasoning you use to justify them do not come into it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:16, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

We have plenty of reliable sources saying astrology is a pseudoscience and that its claims to be able to predict stuff (whether it's the western variant; the insert-random-place-here variant; or any other variant - they're all essentially based on the same principle) have been found to be untrue. We have no sources which say that it is not a pseudoscience. People being critical of "astrology-as-pseudoscience" does not make it not be pseudoscience; particularly if these are people who (as Hob says) reject the whole concept of pseudoscience (which is definitively not a position we need to give equal weight to). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:21, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Only a very narrow subset of astrology claims any sort of predictive power. This has been pointed out before. The vast majority of astrological practices are primarily ceremonial, religious, or ritual in context, divinatory practices are a minority. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 13:34, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

And yet astrology, even in the version of the article you edited, attempts to "discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects". I think by this point people have figured what your stance is. You're the only one defending it. I'm done here. Stop bludgeoning the debate. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:37, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

"Discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events" is not the same as being able to "predict stuff." But whatever -- if you are done then so am I. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 13:42, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

If discerning information about human affairs and terrestrial events is not a prediction, I'm not sure what it is, then. jps (talk) 20:34, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

If to predict is to presage or otherwise forecast events in the future, then astrology provides a much larger range of cultural, religious, and ceremonial strata. In Mesoamerican astrology, days and months are generally assigned ritual importance, as with much of Hellenistic and Renaissance astrology, it would be a stretch to consider these predictions because while they discern information (or causality) about terrestrial affairs, they don't necessarily do so by projecting into the future. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 02:33, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

But they do project into the future: if one can say that now is not a good time to carry out such or such a ritual, because it will be much more (or even only) effective on such and such a time given the position of the stars, one is predicting the most propitious time for the ritual. This lay at the heart of medical astrology (and its little brother, chemical astrology), as well as meteorological astrology, astrological botany, etc. Sure, if such propitious times are 'fixed' into a calendar, some of its 'predictive' aspect disappears, but then there would also be no more need for any astrologers to be involved. As far as someone is doing astrology, also for example when establishing or emending an astrological calendar, one is establishing propitious times projecting in the future.

At the very least, the main use of astronomy throughout history was to predict the movements of the stars for calendrical purposes, and the main use of astrology was to interpret what effects such predicted movements might have on terrestrial events. Perhaps some other phenomena that are less predictive in nature may also be called astrological, but the real stretch would be to infer from those secondary phenomena that astrology is mainly concerned with non-predictive, ceremonial-religious practices (as would appear from your proposed lead sentence). Again, yes, anthropological approaches to astrology deserve to be covered in this article, but not directly into the lead sentence, please (see WP:LEAD). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:09, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Fair points, I'll concede to this. Not wanting to instill another incident, might I suggest that you add to and/or revise the page? Based on your user page I think you are perhaps best suited to the job. On an unrelated note, very appropriate username for the discussion. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 15:51, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm rather more the 'selfish' kind of WP editor who only edits on a topic if and when they want to learn more about it. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in reading up on astrology at this time. As an intellectual historian, I don't have a clue about its anthropological aspects anyway (though the history section here is not at all worthy of a GA either, but that's another story). Sorry. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:29, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

All good, just thought I'd try before taking another whack at editing the page again. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 23:22, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Astrology and pseudoscience

Since this conversation has come up again, specifically with edits reverted by User:Cpotisch, I would like to point out that the paragraphs under contention are well-sourced:

• Ruggles, Clive L. N.; Saunders, Nicholas J. (1993), "The Study of Cultural Astronomy", in Ruggles, Clive L. N.; Saunders, Nicholas J. (eds.), Astronomies and Cultures, Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, pp. 1–31, ISBN 0-87081-319-6

• Beck, Roger (2006). Beck, Roger (ed.). A Brief History of Ancient Astrology. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470773772. ISBN 978-1405110747.

• Ruggles, Clive L.N. (16 Aug 2014). Ruggles, Clive L.N (ed.). Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. New York: Springer. pp. 103–117. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8. ISBN 978-1-4614-6140-1.

• Barton, Tamsyn (1994). Ancient Astrology. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-11029-7.

• Barton, Tamsyn (2002). Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine Under the Roman Empire. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08852-1.

• Kidd, Ian James. "Why did Feyerabend defend astrology? Integrity, virtue, and the authority of science." Social Epistemology 30.4 (2016): 464-482.

These sources, save the first Barton reference, were all removed. There were no weasel words (as has been claimed) as specific scholars, in particular Frances Yates, Clive Ruggles, Paul Feyerabend, and Nicholas J. Saunders were mentioned in the article (outside the sources). Similarly, no "false credibility" was lent to astrology, only particular models of astrology as a form of cultural astronomy were described. The "reliable source" which contradicts the page (as it currently is written) is a single paper proposing a new criterion to demarcate science and pseudoscience (see: the demarcation problem). This is a reliable source, but not for defining astrology as a pseudoscience in the lede paragraph.

If anyone has any further gripes, please, let's not start an edit war and discuss them here.

--MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 02:26, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The ArbCom case about pseudoscience allows us to call a spade a spade (and astrology is rather clearly pseudoscience, since it claims to make predictions while it in fact does not predict anything). One can trivially find better sources if that's really an issue (from a rapid google search: [3] [4] [5]). In fact, AFAIK, there isn't much of any controversy (except amongst the usual quacks) that astrology is a pseudoscience; and as an encyclopedia we ought to be highlighting what something is now (since that is what is most relevant to modern readers) than what it was centuries ago. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:33, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, adding the same stuff back in despite it having been rejected a few months ago does not help anything. Stuff like Historians such as Frances Yates and Tamsyn Barton are similarly critical for what they view as the application of anarchronistic categories to ancient practices. Philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend famously defended astrology as part of his program of epistemological anarchism is also entirely inappropriate for the lead of the article; as the lead of the article is supposed to be a summary of its contents, and yet there is no mention of this anywhere within the article. What you have might be enough for a few sentences somewhere in the article, but not for an obviously UNDUE paragraph in the lead. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:38, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

It is not rather clear that astrology is a pseudoscience, and this idea is not common in anthropology, archaeology, or history. Indeed, The sources listed here give the model of astrology as cultural astronomy, which is the consensus view among cultural anthropologists and archaeologists. This view is discussed in these sources.

I don't really have anything to say as per your second point. I will concede some parts belong farther down in the article. However no edits were outright rejected, as you noted, there was no consensus. I reaffirm that the wholesale reversion of these edits was inappropriate. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 02:42, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

No, you didn't get consensus for those edits, and yet you still reinstated them, knowing full well they did not have consensus? 'nuff said on that point.

It is not rather clear that astrology is a pseudoscience, and this idea is not common in anthropology, archaeology, or history. Wrong? How to say, Following the end of the 19th century and the wide-scale adoption of the scientific method, researchers have successfully challenged astrology on both theoretical and experimental grounds, and have shown it to have no scientific validity or explanatory power. is indeed "rather clear" that astrology is a pseudoscience. Scientists (astronomers; physicists), i.e., the people actually qualified to deem whether something is a pseudoscience or not; have deemed it a pseudoscience. That people study it for other historical and cultural aspects which are independent of its status as a pseudoscience (and thus that their studies might not mention this aspect, which is not relevant to their studies) does not make it not be a pseudoscience. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:49, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Scientists are not the people who are qualified to deem whether something is a pseudoscience or not. That would be philosophers of science. I would also like to point out that anthropologists and archaeologists are scientists -- not sure why you would imply that astronomers and physicists are scientists but anthropologists and archaeologists are not. Did you read the sources referenced? They don't simply "fail to mention" that astrology is a pseudoscience, they actively argue against it as either an anachronism or as a mischaracterization. In particular, the Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy is particularly clear on this issue. Yes, your position is "obvious" when you go to great lengths to ignore arguments to the contrary. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 02:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I think that User:Mychemicalromanceisrealemo's revision is more neutral. Lord ding dong (talk) 02:59, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

"Neutrality", in the way you're using the word, is actually a false balance, and is something that we do not allow on Wikipedia. WP:UNDUE requires that we not give undue weight to fringe viewpoints, and it has been established over and over again that the claim that astrology is not pseudoscience is indeed fringe. So no, your claim that their revision is "more neutral" has no weight under our policies. Cpotisch (talk) 03:07, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

There was no explicit or authoritative statement that astrology is not a pseudoscience. It contextualized the notion that astrology is a pseudoscience and provided the viewpoint most common in cultural anthropology, especially ethnoastronomy and archaeoastronomy. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 03:12, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

No, it obfuscated everything by, first, missing the point by moving the focus to something else; and two, quite obviously if adroitely removing any mention of the fact it is a pseudoscience from the first paragraph of the lead (the one place where such mention most definitively should be, and prominently). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:25, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Astronomers and (astro-)physicists are the scientists qualified to talk about stuff concerning stars and celestial objects. As to your obvious strawman, no, an archeologist is not qualified to talk about astronomy; in the same way an astronomer is not qualified to talk about archeology. I prefer the word of actual scientists to that of random Wikipedians, and I have no clue whether your selection of sources is accurate. Stuff like this (which was subsequently published in a reputable journal) is rather clear that But most scientists as well as researchers in humanities (sociologists) are strongly opposed to all forms of astrology. In fact, from my own experiences reading music theory in the early modern period at university, there was no hiding that astrology lacks any scientific validity, whatever its cultural significance is. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:32, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Anthropologists are qualified to talk about the cultural strata surrounding astronomy, and anthropologists (along with historians) are most qualified to talk about astrology (as a religious, ritual, divinatory practice). The sources I provided are easily found, doubly so if you have access to JSTOR or other repositories. I do not believe "refusing to read sources" is a proper argument. Also, I recommend reading the source you just listed instead of quote mining it. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 03:48, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

(as a religious, ritual, divinatory practice) Yes. "Making an assessment as to its scientific validity" - no. The same way, an historian might be able to tell you about what historical sources say about, I don't know, SN 1006; but they are obviously not qualified (as reliable sources for Wikipedia) to talk about what a supernova is, or what might have caused that supernova. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:56, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm now discovering the full of extent of @Mychemicalromanceisrealemo's many edits, and it's clear that they were consistently made without consensus and contradicted what ArbCom established. Frankly, if they continue to bludgeon their way through this, I'm going to ask for administrator intervention. Cpotisch (talk) 03:02, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

For other users to reference, here is what I told Mychemical after they posted on my talk page objecting to my reversion of their edits:

Greetings. It is not my opinion that astrology is a pseudoscience, it is the long-standing consensus of Wikipedia. This was established unanimously 16 years ago: astrology is "generally considered pseudoscience" on Wikipedia, and, crucially, that it "may be categorized as pseudoscience". If you would like to change that consensus, I recommend taking your objections there.

I reverted all those edits in part because most (all?) of the reliable sources referenced were inaccessible and thus unverifiable, but also, more importantly, because a large quantity of well-sourced information was inexplicably removed or watered down. For example, the lede sentence, "researchers [...] have shown it to have no scientific validity or explanatory power" was inexplicably removed. Furthermore, it is pure original research to use your profession as an anthropologist as justification for your claim that people in the social sciences "take a much more value-neutral position". Finally, I will note that your most recent edit to Astrology was reverted by another user because you used an incomplete talk page discussion as justification when no consensus was reached. You've asked me to "discuss this further" before making any more "large edits", but the burden is actually on you to ensure that information is easily verifiable. If it's not easily verifiable, or it inexplicably replaces well-established content, then it will be reverted, as I and a number of other editors have done. All the best, Cpotisch (talk) 02:53, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Cpotisch (talk) 03:57, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

• For reference this has been raised at WP:AN. - LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:59, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Inasmuch as anything can be labeled a pseudoscience, astrology is well-sourced as one of the leading contenders. Ours is not the place to hash out whether the label is problematic or contextual, etc. We are tasked only to report how the subject is treated in various venues. It is absolutely true that anthropologists and social scientists who study belief have no particular need to classify the predilections of believers into empirical categories, but science educators do. To that extent, astrology and other classic pseudosciences are so classified and that is the epistemic community of merit for deciding matters of WP:ASSERTion in Wikipedia's voice. By saying that "astrology is a pseudoscience" we are not making any declarations as to the correctness or incorrectness of particular claims or historical import. Instead, we are merely reporting how the belief is manifested as a positivistic argument that, for example, there are measurable outcomes that show certain astrological claims to be true and that these outcomes are caused by mechanisms that are either ignored or yet-to-be-described by the WP:MAINSTREAM scientific community. To that end, the claims by those who wish to whitewash the "astrology is pseudoscience" wording in this article are not properly formulated and, thus, are properly rejected. jps (talk) 13:15, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

As discussed elsewhere here, anthropologists and social scientists do have a need to contend with notions of pseudoscience. I agree with the fact that we are tasked with reporting how the subject is treated in various venues: my point is that "Astrology is a pseudoscience" is not a universally accepted notion among scholars, as I have outlined above and below here (I could make a Hermeticism pun here, but I think I shall not.) It is a mischaracterization of astrology to reduce it simply to the positivistic argument that is mentioned: that is not how astrology functions in many, if not most, contexts; especially historical ones (where astrology, arguably, is most relevant.) If we are tasked with reporting how the subject is treated, then it should be fairly contextualized. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 01:10, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

We are well aware by now that you disagree with the notion that astrology is a pseudoscience and believe that your opinion is shared with social scientists. However, your suggestions do not appear to be gaining traction with any other editor, so there is no consensus to overrule the existing consensus (which, again, was unanimously decided by ArbCom) that it is a pseudoscience. So you have no basis to make sweeping changes on this matter. Cpotisch (talk) 04:05, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Has there ever been a 'universally accepted notion among scholars'? I've certainly never come across one. Not that it matters here, since we base content on actual verifiable sources, rather than mere assertions of universal alignment or misalignment... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:17, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

And about the actual, verifiable sources in which the notion of astrology-as-pseudoscience is critiqued or rejected? MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 04:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Of the list of sources you gave, I couldn’t find any secondary source questioning astrology’s status as a pseudoscience. Cpotisch (talk) 05:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• About the only improvement in MCRIRE's proposed revision is that it takes the term "pseudoscience" out of the short description and lead sentence, both places where it only functions as a scare-word, and that it assigns the term a much more encyclopedic place, namely at the point where it is contextualized as the common modern view on the subject [I don't understand the insistence on this talk page that "astrology" is nearly always being used to refer to the modern practice of it and that as an encyclopedia we ought to be highlighting what something is now (since that is what is most relevant to modern readers), all while our lead is thoroughly –and rightfully– framing it as mainly a historical phenomenon, just like the great majority of scholarly sources on it are historiographical in nature [6]]. All the other changes seem WP:UNDUE additions at best, and pro-fringe removals at worst (referring to the removal of "and have shown it to have no scientific validity or explanatory power").

As to Doug Weller's suggestion below, yes, anthropological views on astrology deserve to be covered in the article, but this is a GA: someone (not necessarily MCRIRE) should first create a substantial section on it the article body, and then (if there is consensus for the new section) discuss how to include it in the lead. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:05, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Part of the problem with writing an encyclopedia without an editorial philosophy is that it is very difficult to decide what the proper framing of an idea should be. I have no doubt that the vast majority of readers who are stumbling upon this article are familiar with astrology in its modern form. Arguably, some of those forms aren't pseudoscience per se as much as they used to be when the practice was less popular as the more sophisticated influencers slyly avoid a lot of the more dramatic mechanistic claims that astrologers 30, 40, or 50 years ago used to make (and the Indian astrologers still argue), namely, that there is some actual measurable influence that astrological orientations have on human personalities, events, and circumstances. Today, the game is much more of vague storytelling and self-help with a lot of hiding behind "it's just for fun!" I got into an argument with Kara Swisher about this over Twitter and was accused of being an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud. So it goes. jps (talk) 20:31, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear about the Twitter argument. I think that in its contemporary form, astrology is still often enough making pseudo-scientific claims to be characterized as such. Given its near-4000-year history as a science (and MCRIRE is very wrong in stating that the Hermetica did not conceive of astrology as science; rather they regarded astrology as the science par excellence, a fact which is also borne out by the earliest Hermetic writings all being astrological in nature), astrology can simply not escape making certain cosmological (and thus scientific) claims without losing its very identity. The very recent, storytelling, just-for-fun form seems to be rather tangential to the topic, and only barely notable from an encyclopedic perspective (though probably deserving of a small place in the article).

To see why, one only has to ask the question: how many of our reliable sources deal with the just-for-fun form? In my estimation, about 60 to 70% of our sources talking about astrology are dealing with the historical phenomenon (in which context it is almost never characterized as a pseudoscience, because to do so would make it impossible to properly understand the way of thinking of most astrologers up until the days of Kepler and Brahe), and the other 30 to 40% are precisely invoking it as the paradigmatic pseudoscience, in the modern context of the demarcation problem, the New Age movement and its propagation of 'occult science', etc. In my view, both the article and the lead should cover both aspects, in that proportion, and in that order. Conveniently, this also aligns with the chronological order. Starting with Astrology is a pseudoscience that... just messes that up entirely, and needlessly prioritizes denunciation over proper encyclopedic treatment. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:09, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Apaugasma, for a reasoned and nuanced response here. On a minor note, I would like to defend my revision of explanatory power to predicitive capability though: explanatory power is independent of predicitive capability, one does not necessarily entail the other: as per religious studies scholar and historian Naomi Janowitz, cause-and-effect is culturally contingent. Thus astrology retains a certain level of explanatory power, especially when viewed from an anthropological or similar lens. I will concede a substantial section on this particular subject is needed in the article body before it is included in the lede. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 02:44, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

You may not realize this, but "cause-and-effect is culturally contingent" is what WP:EXCEPTIONAL calls a surprising or apparently important claim that may well be contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community and that would for sure significantly alter mainstream assumptions. We cannot just write our articles as per Naomi Janowitz and other scholars arguing for the same view: only if it can be shown that hardly any scholar would contradict that view, would we take it as a legitimate assumption to start from. But I fear it's the other way around: it seems to me that "cause-and-effect is culturally contingent" is very much a minority view among scholars taken as a whole. It may pass some more muster among anthropologists than elsewhere (I'm not familiar enough with anthropological literature to say), but with regard to WP:DUE it's not up for more than a "some scholars have argued that" in the article body. I think you would do well to keep in mind that if it indeed is a minority view, trying to convince the many editors who are watching this article that it is not would be futile and a sorry waste of time. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 14:09, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

As someone with a little familiarity with anthropological literature, I think I can safely say that anthropologists (or cultural/social anthropologists anyway - biological anthropology doesn't generally concern itself with such questions) are indeed more likely to suggest that at least to some extent "cause-and-effect" may be "culturally contingent" than scholars in general. I would add however that they might in turn be inclined to suggest that taking a single scholar (anthropologist or otherwise) as an authority on the matter would be unwise. Or, as we say around here, 'citation needed': for claims as to what anthropologists as a group have to say, and for that matter for claims as to any authority to speak on their behalf. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:27, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been clearer as to what Naomi Janowitz is actually saying -- she's not arguing that cause-in-effect is culturally contingent as a new development, but as a secondary source referencing the development in anthropology and applying it to her study of magic in the Roman world, as I cited earlier in the conversation. In particular, Janowitz points to the collection of essays Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation, ed. by Michael Krausz (1989). The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft by Rebecca and Philip Stein (2005) has a more general, less-technical introduction to models of cause-and-effect in culture. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 00:04, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Okay, that sounds interesting. If any scholar has applied that approach to astrology it would be nice to write about that in the article body. Just be wary of overestimating it as as universal approach which can be taken as an uncontroversial assumption in WP:WIKIVOICE. It simply is not.

I'd also like to point out that at least in Islamicate and European astrology, there was a conscious effort to apply Aristotelian etiology. This has been explicitly argued with regard to Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (a student of the Aristotelian philosopher al-Kindi, also a strong proponent of astrology) and others by Saif, Liana (2015). The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy. London: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137399472. ISBN 978-1-137-39947-2. For the other way around (astrological approaches to Aristotle), see also Freudenthal, Gad (2006). "The Medieval Astrologization of the Aristotelian Cosmos: From Alexander of Aphrodisias to Averroes". Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph. 59: 29–68. and Freudenthal, Gad (2009). "The Astrologization of the Aristotelian Cosmos: Celestial Influences on the Sublunar World in Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Averroes". In Bowen, Alan; Wildberg, Christian (eds.). New Perspectives on Aristotle’s De caelo. Leiden: Brill. pp. 239–281. ISBN 978-90-04-17376-7. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:30, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I think one of the confusing things here is that causality as applied to astrological claims is very much not the same thing as "cause and effect" when discussed in context of relativistic approaches to anthropology. At least, the vast majority of anthropologists are not trying to say that physicists, for example, are wrong about their approach to the subject. On the other hand, there are explicit claims by astrology enthusiasts that are facilely contradicted by the physics of the claim and, in some cases, causality is the thing that ends up being contradicted. So, I guess, get the epistemic houses in order. jps (talk) 11:31, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Astrology as divination

Above, MCRIRE included the idea of astrology being a divinatory practice in a list. I think this may be the actual contemporary definition of astrology. If the claim about the planets or the stars is one that is properly divination, then the claim is astrology. Otherwise it isn't. I have been wracking my brain to think of a counter-example, but I cannot. Could divination, then, serve as a decent definitional category for astrology?

jps (talk) 12:41, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Well "astrology /əˈstrɒlədʒi/ noun the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as having an influence on human affairs and the natural world." so yes, that seems to be what astrology is, divination. Slatersteven (talk) 13:10, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

It seems the most decent suggestion so far, at least. And it avoids the "naval observatory" counterexample you mentioned above. XOR'easter (talk) 16:28, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Whoa!

Lots of text and arguments have been added... and I won't read it all.

But let me say this: Astrology is, in various contexts and at various times, a proto science, a pseudoscience, and a cultural phenomenon. If, in the end, the article denies any of these, it will diminish my faith in Wikipedia as a project of reason.

There will be published die-hard pseudoscientists or academic apologists who deny it is a pseudoscience. There will be one-eyed positivist who deny it is anything but a pseudoscience.

I hope a consensus can be reached not falling into any of those two absurdities (while both may have to be covered by the article).--Nø (talk) 16:05, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

A protoscience is something that will turn into science. Unless we have a WP:CRYSTALBALL, we cannot say astrology is a protoscience. But we can say it was one. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:45, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Astrology is, in various contexts and at various times, a proto science. Completely irrelevant comment. In one particular context at a particular time, astrology is (or was) a protoscience. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 10:56, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

User:Hob Gadling, I believe the relationship between astrology and astronomy much as the relationship between alchemy and chemistry. Some of the roots of the modern science lie in the ancient or medieval esoteric practice.

I do not understand what point User:Mychemicalromanceisrealemo is trying to make.--Nø (talk) 21:36, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I was backing you up -- their comment was irrelevant because you already noted the particular context in which astrology is (or was) a protoscience. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 23:20, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, of course that is their relationship. My point was the difference between "is" and "was". Today, astrology is not a protoscience anymore. Today, it is a pseudoscience. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:22, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

User:Mychemicalromanceisrealemo, thanks. Frankly, User:Hob Gadling, one could say nothing is a protoscience today -- at least, we wouldn't know that it is. I think one could say that ancient astrology is a protoscience from today's point of view, where as modern astrology isn't.

Another point: It's not necessarily either protoscience or pseudoscience. There may - even today - be cultural practices that that may be considered religion, for instance, rather than a pseudoscience. (As a provisional atheist, I'd say the distinctions between religion, superstition and pseudoscience are s somewhat blurred, but we have to accept that they are distinctions many people find meaningful.)--Nø (talk) 08:28, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

one could say nothing is a protoscience today Of course one can't. Please stop pinging me, I have a watchlist. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:55, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Funnily enough, in the Thagard paper that keeps being referenced here -- he brings up the hypothetical in which an uncontacted Amazonian people practice astrology: is it scientific "to them"? MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 07:20, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I am unsure how much we can say it is a proto-science, unlike alchemy I am unsure a real science really developed from it. It seems (as far as I can recall) that even from the earliest time the use of Astronomy for "scientific" purposes (dating, navigation, etc) was always separate (and to a degree even carries out by different classes of person) from astrology. Astrology uses astronomy, I am unsure there was much traffic the other way. Slatersteven (talk) 10:34, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

It's probably helpful to keep in mind that contemporary historians of science generally do not use the term 'protoscience' anymore, just like they don't use the term 'pseudoscience'. See Presentism (literary and historical analysis). The problem with these terms in historiographical contexts is that, being dependent on present-day scientific knowledge (what we can appropriately call protoscientific or pseudoscientific depends on what we know to be valid science today), they cannot be used to analyze the past without shaping that past according to what are essentially modern categories. But to do so is to hopelessly distort it, and to make any proper understanding of it impossible.

Sure, alchemy was early chemistry, while astrology wasn't early astronomy. But both were, in the context of their own times, regarded as scientific endeavors, even by most of their detractors. To imagine their practitioners to be either driven by the same motivations and considerations as modern scientists (for what we would call 'protoscience') or as modern quacks (for what we would call 'pseudoscience') would be to completely misunderstand them. Yes, there are some trans-historical universals, and some alchemists or astrologers were in fact rigorous and conscientious seekers of knowledge, while others were driven by greed and a desire for self-aggrandizement. But which one of the two characterizations would fit was not determined by whether what they were doing would deserve the label 'protoscience' or the label 'pseudoscience' today. Consider, to take a famous example, Newton's researches into alchemy: by today's standards what he was doing was doubtlessly pseudoscience (looking into ancient Hermetic texts such as the Emerald Tablet –the source of the modern as above, so below phrase– to try and advance chemistry), and since none of it had any impact whatsoever on the later development of chemistry, to call it 'protoscience' would be equally wrong. Yet Newton was as rigorous and conscientious in his alchemical researches as he was in his physics and mathematics. What he was doing, in the context of his own time, was simply science. See Newman 2018, p. 6:

It is now well known that such luminaries of the scientific revolution as Robert Boyle, G. W. Leibniz, and John Locke were all seriously involved in alchemy; Newton was no anomaly. All of these figures engaged in the broad spectrum of chymical practice, seeing it as a fruitful source of pharmaceutical and technological products and yet hoping as well that it might reveal the secret of metallic transmutation. Chymistry was a natural and normal part of the progressive agenda of seventeenth-century science. Hence the need that Dobbs and others felt to locate Newton’s motives for studying alchemy in extrascientific areas such as soteriology and the quest for a more primitive Christianity has lost its force. We are now free to study Newton’s alchemy on its own terms and to arrive at a much clearer picture of the field’s relationship to his other scientific pursuits.

I'm not as familiar with the literature on astrology as I am with alchemy, but I do not believe that contemporary historians of science would take any other approach to the astrological pursuits of such luminaries of astronomy as Tycho Brahe or Johannes Kepler: it wasn't 'pseudoscience', it certainly wasn't 'protoscience', it was simply 16th/17th-century 'science'. To see it in the context of the science of its day is the only way to avoid distorting it and to get a proper understanding of it, and this is something that most historians have been aware of for some time now. Of course one will find a relapse into whiggish approaches even among some historians today, but at least since the 1980s that has become rarer and rarer. Non-historians, and especially the general public, have been rather slow to pick up on this, but the non-presentist approach to history of science has been established long enough now among scholars for Wikipedia to also follow it. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:11, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

• Newman, William R. (2018). Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature's "Secret Fire". Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-17487-7.

Coming late to this discussion, but I was quite involved with this and related pages some years ago. While I think the article should make it very clear right at the beginning that astrology today is entirely pseudoscientific, the majority of the article is, and should be, about the history of ideas/thought/science. The body of lore that we can identify as "astrology" for a long time included on the one hand, observations of celestial bodies ("astronomy"), and on the other predictions of future events ("astrology"). The split is there in the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church has no problem with using the astrological signs as a calendar (in the stained glass at Chartres Cathedral), but does not approve of divination or forecasting. As the heliocentric model gains ground, "astronomy" splits from "astrology". Building up our description of these changes in attitude from good sources is the correct route for the article, while "is it proto-science, yes or no", is not going to lead anywhere. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:24, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Fully agreed. However, by starting the lead sentence with "Astrology is a pseudoscience that ...", it isn't at all clear that we mean astrology today, especially since from the second sentence on we are in fact describing historical astrology.

I believe the lead should be re-written so as to start a second paragraph with something like "Today astrology is considered a paradigmatic example of pseudoscience." It should still be prominent, just not in the lead sentence where we introduce what astrology is, which is largely historically defined: an ancient field of study that claims to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects.

The short description (now "Pseudoscience claiming celestial objects influence human affairs") could also do with an update: what about "Study of purported celestial influences on terrestrial events"? I believe that description fits both the historical field of study and the contemporary pseudoscience. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:22, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I support your proposals. The word "pseudoscience" need not be clumsily shoehorned into the first sentence, yet it should appear in the lead. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:01, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

ARBCOM has stated that Wikipedia is to call Astrology a pseudoscience, so no, that will not work and nor will the majority of editors allow those changed to go through. 5.151.22.143 (talk) 23:03, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Please provide a link to this ARBCOM content ruling. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:42, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I believe it's this: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience. Passed 8-0 at 02:28, 3 December 2006 (UTC) Needless to say, this isn't in any way under discussion here... ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 09:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Yup. ArbCom's 'ruling' back in 2006 in no way attempts to impose any specific wording in this article, or in any other. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I never said Astrology should not be called a pseudoscience, but there are more elegant ways to say so in the opening paragraph. Tiger for instance does not begin: "A tiger is a mammal...", nor does Abraham Lincoln begin with "Abe Lincoln was an assassinated politician...". True statements can be added to the lead in a manner that more accurately reflects the weight and structure of the article (which doesn't mention "pseudoscience" until roughly halfway through). A fondness for the word pseudoscience, or a desire to prominently identify such, does not mean the word should be used as often and as early as possible. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:31, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Abe Lincoln is close: Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865.... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:42, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, there's sometimes a small difference between elegant and inelegant prose. All salient facts are still delivered, without anything that could be considered front-loading or pedantic or over-emphasis. I agree astrology is a pseudoscience, and the article should call it such, but the word is often used or received as a pejorative, and so should be used with care. --Animalparty! (talk) 01:04, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I am entirely fine with beginning the article Astrology is a pseudoscience. We're here to be accurate, not to spare feelings. It's the salient point about the modern status of the subject, which is an eminently fine place for the article to begin. There's nothing clumsy or pedantic about it. The first section of the article notes the distinction between astrology and the science of astronomy; the first sentence of the lede should likewise present the status in a clear and direct manner.

The tiger article mentioned above begins, The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest living cat species. If we take this as a model to follow, then Astrology is a pseudoscience is the analogous construction: it immediately provides the classification of the topic and locates it in the world of ideas. I could see a case for editing the second sentence of the lede to something like, Astrology predates the scientific study of celestial objects, astronomy, having been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE. XOR'easter (talk) 01:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

it immediately provides the classification of the topic and locates it in the world of ideas It really fails on the second point, though, and the classification is not really useful or entirely accurate -- at least for the vast majority of astrology's existence. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 03:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

↑ This. The point is that, unlike 'mammal' for tiger or 'lawyer and statesman' for Lincoln, 'pseudoscience' is not an accurate description of the subject as a whole: for most of its history astrology wasn't pseudoscience. If the modern status of the subject is considered the salient point to begin the article with (a view which I don't necessarily agree with, but do find reasonable enough), it should be made clear as such:

Today astrology, the field of study claiming to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by observing the movements and relative positions of celestial objects, is a paradigmatic example of pseudoscience. However, astrology has been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, having its roots in ...

What about that? Or is there a better way to word this? Alternatively, we could use my proposed lead sentence above, and start the second sentence with "Though widely considered a pseudoscience today, astrology has been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, having its roots in ...". Perhaps this too is clumsy, but the point is to find a way to make it clear that what we're calling pseudoscience is the contemporary form. Please also comment on my proposal for the short description, "Study of purported celestial influences on terrestrial events". ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 09:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

As is to be expected, I am 100% behind your proposal here. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 09:43, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Sorrty but today implies at some point is was not hokum. We are writing for the modern reader, so we should put the modern view as fact first. Slatersteven (talk) 10:35, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The 'modern view' (and the postmodern view for that matter) is that the beliefs of those in the past need to be taken in proper historical context, rather than simply dismissed as 'hokum' because scientific knowledge acquired subsequently appears to contradict such beliefs. Accordingly, I'd suggest that Apaugasma's proposed text seems fine, as a summary for the lede. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:51, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The historical perspective is important: I agree with what Itsmejudith, Apaugasma and AndyTheGrump have suggested (once tweaked). Mathsci (talk) 10:59, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I am not saying do not include it, I am saying that it is a pseudoscience, and the historical belief in it needs to be put in that context. Something like.

astrology', the field of study claiming to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by observing the movements and relative positions of celestial objects, is a paradigmatic example of pseudoscience. However, astrology has been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, having its roots in ...

See it still includes the historical context. Slatersteven (talk) 11:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Astrology wasn't 'pseudoscience' at the time. Neither 'science' nor 'pseudoscience' existed as meaningful concepts. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:22, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

So? We are not writing about it then, we are writing about it now, now we know what it was and what hokum it was. It write based on our outstanding, not that of 1000 years ago. We are writing for a modern audience, not that of 100o years ago. Our article must give the greatest weight to what modern science says, not the out-of-date science of our ancestors. Slatersteven (talk) 11:33, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I'd recommend actually reading what someone has just written before responding to it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I did, my reply was it does not matter what they thought 1000 years ago, we base our articles on what modern scholarship says. Astrology is a fringe pseudoscience, that is what qualified experts say. So that is what we say. We do not caveat modern scholarship with weasel-worded platitudes to imply "but this is only what MODERN science thinks" (as if in some why astrology worked until science proved it did not), which is the clear implication of including the word "today". Slatersteven (talk) 11:41, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Having a more respectable past, or a history interwoven with traditions that later became straight-up science, is not uncommon for pseudoscience. Indeed, that is one of the ways in which astrology is "a paradigmatic example". (Think also of alchemy and chemistry, gematria and number theory, the divergence of both biology and geology from creationism...) Calling astrology a pseudoscience, whether near the beginning of the first sentence or the end, in no way excludes these considerations. Inserting "Today", on the other hand, merely waters down the point. XOR'easter (talk) 15:41, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Pseudoscience is not equivalent with false or, as you colorfully put it, hokum. Astrology was not pseudoscience in the 1300s, regardless of whether or not the modern practice of astrology is pseudoscience. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 11:52, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

"Well qualified experts" include modern scholars writing material on the history of science in WP:RSs. Mathsci (talk) 11:54, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Astrology was not pseudoscience in the 1300s, regardless of whether or not the modern practice of astrology is pseudoscience Nothing was "pseudoscience" in the 1300s. Routinized identification of scientific fields was not a thing at that time and therefore any attempt to demarcate science from pseudoscience in the 1300s is straight-up anachronism. But no one in this conversation is arguing that solving the demarcation problem prior to the scientific revolution is the task at hand, so it seems misleading to keep bringing that up. As I think is clear, there are multiple aspects to this idea and it is perfectly fair to include all of them in this article without necessarily preferring one or another. I think it reasonable to look at the science education perspective on the subject and the anthropological perspective on the subject and think it is possible to write an article that accommodates both. The current article does not seem to do a particularly bad job at that, in fact. So what's the edit we're trying to consider here? jps (talk) 12:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Nothing was "pseudoscience" in the 1300s. Yes. What User:Slatersteven said was it does not matter what they thought 1000 years ago, we base our articles on what modern scholarship says. Astrology is a fringe pseudoscience, that is what qualified experts say. So, my response is that (as qualified experts will attest to) that astrology was not pseudoscience in, say, the 1300s as Slatersteven seems to imply. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 12:15, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

But saying that astrology is not a pseudoscience in the 1300s is just as anachronistic an argument as someone who is arguing that astrology was a pseudoscience in the 1300s. "Pseudoscience" is not a meaningful framework for use in that context. Slatersteven's point, as I read him, is that the claims of astrology as they are described today are claims which are necessarily pseudoscientific in the current sense. That these claims may have been made in empirical contexts in the past is rather not the issue. jps (talk) 12:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I would also argue it was, it did not suddenly stop being scientifically accurate when science disproved its basic tenants. Just because people believed it worked did not mean it did, and by adding the weasle wording we are implying it did work, it was in fact based on valid concepts, but it was not. We can't undermine the claim it is a pseudoscience based upon outmoded concepts of reality. Slatersteven (talk) 12:28, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

it did not suddenly stop being scientifically accurate when science disproved its basic tenants Genuine question, what do you think pseudoscience is? MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 12:35, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I won't speak for Slatersteven, but I think there is a problem with certain implications in the wording coming out of contextual treatments of beliefs where some students (and perhaps even some professionals(!?)) think that relativism implies that as time has gone on, the literal content of the world has changed. Thus, the idea that we no longer believe in the Greek pantheon means that the Greek pantheon went from being "real" to being "fantasy" as time went on and cultures change. This is something of a strawman argument because it is not really a view that people who are arguing for a relativistic treatment are making (I don't think). But it is easy to write text that allows for this interpretation to flourish and there are quite a few people who bristle at using that kind of rhetoric. I think we just need to thread the needle to make sure that this kind of argument is not promoted even if only implicitly. jps (talk) 12:51, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

pseudoscience is something that pretends to be (or pretends it is based on the principles of) a science but is not. Something RS calls a pseudoscience, even if (at one time) it was not. Slatersteven (talk) 13:08, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

According to your definition, with which I largely agree, what is pseudoscience depends on what is science. But what is science depends on historical context: what is being called science today can be called hokum tomorrow, and vice versa (though admittedly it largely goes one way only). That's why RS generally do not call astrology pseudoscience in broad historical contexts (just like they do not call humoral theory pseudoscience, even though Yunani medicine certainly is pseudoscience; therapies based on humoral theory never worked, but historians still treat it as science in the context of its own time). Since in fact a majority of RS deal with astrology in historical contexts,[7] astrology is not 'something RS call a pseudoscience' without further ado. Only contemporary astrology is generally called pseudoscience by RS, and our lead could reflect that better. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:29, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

And if this article was only about the past you might have a point. It's not, it is also about the current pseudoscientific present nature of it. Slatersteven (talk) 15:37, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I guess that's a fair assessment, I'll concede to that reasoning. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 12:31, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

How about

"Astrology is the pseudoscience belief that information about human affairs and terrestrial events can be determined by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects, which developed from various ancient systems of astrology dating back thousands of years"

We are discussing its past, without implying ts is in any way a valid discipline. Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

It's practically a worse version of the lede we have now. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 16:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Hmmm. What about flipping the order of the second sentence? E.g., It has its roots in in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications, practices that date back at least to the 2nd millennium BCE. This is kind of bikeshedding, but it brings to the forefront the idea that the ancient practices were detailed and systematic. XOR'easter (talk) 16:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

"Astrology is the pseudoscience belief that information about human affairs and terrestrial events can be determined by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects, which has its roots in in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications, practices that date back at least to the 2nd millennium BCE"

Something like that? Slatersteven (talk) 16:18, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

It's a bit overlong for an opening line, I think. The more important point is the "naval observatory" example mentioned below: there are ways to study "the movements and relative positions of celestial objects" that do provide "information about human affairs and terrestrial events". (For another example, predicting that people will gather in a certain spot to watch a solar eclipse is a prediction about "human affairs". Likewise, observing solar weather could give information about impending difficulties with radio communication or the power grid.) These aren't astrology, because they're not divinatory. XOR'easter (talk) 16:42, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

It's still equivalent in meaning to the current revision. We are already discussing astrology's past from the start without implying that it's a valid discipline. Note how except for the word 'pseudoscience', almost the entire first paragraph is about historical astrology. The problem is with how the label 'pseudoscience' doesn't fit historical astrology very well, creating a tension that comes of as 'front-loading', as Animalparty! has called it above. XOR'easter has said that calling it pseudoscience this way doesn't exclude more nuanced considerations, but in my view it does: beginning with astrology is a pseudoscience that ... brings the historical practices under the same label normally reserved for modern quackery, and tends to reduce them to such unconscientious practices.

The whole point of this exercise is to try and avoid that. Here's another attempt, taking into account some of the keen observations in the sections below:

Astrology is a divinatory practise that claims to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects. Widely considered a pseudoscience today, it has been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, having its roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.

☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:53, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

And this is just why I opposed any change "Widely considered a pseudoscience today", no it is a pseudoscience. So yes this is all about just watering that down to imply its not. Slatersteven (talk) 16:55, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I'm afraid this reads a bit too much like the typical Flat Earther gambit of playing off modern science against "the wisdom on the ancients". I'm sure that's not the intent, but that's how it reads. "Widely considered" feeds into that somewhat by being rather unspecific. I do like bringing "divinatory" into the mix, but I don't think we've hit upon the magic formula quite yet.

I wonder if it might be helpful, as an exercise, to try rewriting the lede completely from scratch: take the rest of the article as mostly satisfactory, open a subpage, and craft a new introduction to go with it. I find that such an approach can sometimes avoid getting hung up on details of the "does this word go in the first or second sentence" variety. XOR'easter (talk) 17:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I guess that how one reads things strongly depends on what light one reads it in (I'll confess that the lead sentence of the current revision mainly hurts to my historian's eyes), but really, "widely considered a pseudoscience today" as implying that 'it's not a pseudoscience', or as implying that 'modern scientists say this, but the ancients say such-as-such? My feeling is that this is being read into it. However that may be, it surely isn't the intent, as you say.

The problem is indeed the already existing structure of the lead. The second sentence stresses astrology's antiquity, which kind of invites a contrast with 'today' when the issue is how to convey that it's considered a pseudoscience today. Maybe A paradigmatic example of pseudoscience in its contemporary form, it has been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, ...?

I think that rewriting the whole lead may be a bit overkill, it's quite good as it is. If the 'it's a pseudoscience today, but it really is quite old' contrast must absolutely be avoided, I'd rather consider writing a new first paragraph, which introduces what astrology is as proposed above (a divinatory practice etc.) and then deals with contemporary astrology's status as pseudoscience, perhaps also explaining the difference between astrology and astronomy, as suggested by jps. The historical stuff can then start in the second paragraph. I don't think I'm up to writing this at this time though. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:49, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Or

Astrology is a divinatory practise that claims to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects. Recognized as a pseudoscience today, it has been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, having its roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.

Does this work, as it only changes one thing, the implication it is anything but pseudoscience. Slatersteven (talk) 18:53, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Sure, that looks great to me! More concise, and to the point. Sure, 'recognized' implies that it was already a pseudoscience when Ptolemy, al-Battani, or Tycho Brahe were doing it, which is a little 'of' from a historical perspective, but such implications are a minor quibble. I think it's a good compromise. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Could be tweaked slightly to avoid repetition: e.g. "motions of the heavenly bodies" instead of "celestial cycles". Mathsci (talk) 20:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm mostly happy with this formulation, though tweaks are doubtless possible and possibly beneficial. XOR'easter (talk) 01:37, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I'll just add my voice to the chorus of "mostly happy with this version". jps (talk) 01:39, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I would revise the second line to read While the modern practice of astrology is recognized as emblematic of pseudoscience today, it has been practiced since at least the 2nd millennium BCE or something similar. Thoughts, User:Apaugasma / User:Mathsci / User:Slatersteven? MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 00:12, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

That seems to add length without adding a corresponding amount of clarity, at least to me; if a reader didn't have the benefit of going through this whole Talk page to see distinctions being argued over and hashed out, modern would read as redundant with today (is there a different time when a modern idea could be evaluated?). Perhaps the second line could begin, Recognized as a pseudoscience today, versions have been practiced.... I've no strong opinions about rephrasing to avoid the repetition of "celestial", but I wouldn't object to "motions of the heavenly bodies" or the like. XOR'easter (talk) 00:27, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Ah yes, good points. How about While the modern practice of astrology is recognized as emblematic of pseudoscience, it has been practiced in various forms since at least the 2nd millennium BCE. Although modern does have a specific meaning -- the 18th century was modern -- I agree it would be read as redundant by most readers. One could also revise it to While the practice of horoscopic astrology is recognized today as emblematic of pseudoscience, astrology more generally has been practiced in various forms since at least the 2nd millennium BCE or something to that tune. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 01:01, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

That seems to run into some of the same difficulties. I don't think emblematic of is necessary (and in this part of the article, concision is particularly important). I'd bet that a vast swath of likely readers would find horoscopic astrology redundant. The latter phrase (astrology more generally has...) seems to suggest that there are other, non-horoscopic varieties that continue to be practiced and which are scientific. I see the distinction that you're angling at, but that presentation doesn't make clear what's in the past and what has persisted through to the present. For comparison, if I wrote that Fortran has been used in scientific computation since the 1950s, the natural take-away would be that some people still use it today (which they do). Likewise, writing that Hamlet by William Shakespeare has been performed many times since the beginning of the 17th century indicates correctly that the performances keep coming. XOR'easter (talk) 01:28, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

There are non-horoscopic varieties of astrology that are practiced today, and while they are not scientific, they are also not pseudoscientific (they do not claim to be a science) and are more relegated to the realm of religion. With that being said, I don't think it implies that scientific astrology is still being practiced, the sorts of astrology that were practiced in ancient times can't really be called pseudoscience. While many readers may find horoscopic astrology redundant, it really isn't, though perhaps there is a better way to go about this. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE IS REAL EMO!_{(talk or whatever)} 02:40, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Considering that "non-horoscopic" astrology according to our definition of horoscopic astrology could apply to horoscopes in the newspaper, it might help to clarify what you mean by "non-horoscopic astrology". There is no credentialing body or enforced rule that requires an astrologer to actually create a visual representation of the orientation of planets and stars in order to write a newspaper's horoscope, thus they are practicing non-horoscopic astrology when they compose their predictions for each of the signs of the zodiac. In fact, many of the more famous media astrologers just "intuited" what the prediction was supposed to be (much to the chagrin of some of the more "hard astrology" advocates -- the irony being that this is just as effective a technique as any other). jps (talk) 19:57, 7 June 2022 (UTC)