Does Astrology Work? I’m Gonna Go With “No.”

Of all the pseudoscience still pervading the human brain, astrology is probably the oldest. As I point out in an episode of Crash Course Astronomy, millennia ago it kinda made sense; there were cycles to the stars and the seasons, and with our lives so tied to agriculture and weather, it was natural to suppose the stars affected us in other ways.

But now, after centuries of scientific investigation, we know better. Or we should. Apparently, we still don’t. Astrology still gets a lot of play in the media, despite having no good evidence for it and an overwhelming tsunami of evidence against it.

Still, here we are. For the lunar eclipse that occurred in October 2014, a reporter for Time magazine interviewed an astrologer on what the eclipse meant and passed the vague, ineffective advice on to the public. As you might imagine, I have something to say about that. So here’s Episode 2 of my new video series, “Bad Astronomy,” where I point out just why astrology doesn’t work, even more so in this specific case.

As a reminder, this will be a regular video series, going up every Monday. Next week we will be back to actual science, happily. And don’t forget to take a look at the first episode, too: “Surviving a Close Call With a Black Hole.”