Metaphysics & Psychology

Scientists put astrologers to the test in new astrology study

By T.K. Randall
August 16, 2024

Image: Milky Way Galaxy Seen From Amphu Laptsa Base Camp
Credit: Pravin Mishra / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Astrology, which concerns predicting the future through the study of the positions of celestial bodies, has remained a controversial topic for years and is now widely dismissed by most scientists as mere pseudoscience.

That said, there are still a great number of people who practice astrology and even more who believe that their horoscope genuinely hints at what might come to pass in their future.

Unsurprisingly, astrology has also been the subject of numerous scientific studies designed to determine if astrological predictions actually hold merit or if they are no better than random chance.

One of the most recent such studies involved tasking 152 astrologers with assigning the correct star signs to groups of 12 people who they didn't know.

The researchers found that the more experienced the astrologer, the more confident they were in their predictions, but that this didn't seem to translate into accuracy.The results showed that, even among the "world class" astrologers, the average success rate at correctly assigning star signs to the 12 people was approximately 2.2 out of 12.

In other words, this is about equivalent to simply picking the star signs randomly out of a hat.

"If astrologers as a group had been able to do meaningfully better than chance, this study design would have supported the conclusion that astrology works," the researchers wrote.

"But, as it turned out, astrologers in the study performed in a manner statistically indistinguishable from random guessing."

In addition, most of the astrologers disagreed with each other about the correct answers as well.

"This suggests there is little consensus among astrologers when interpreting the same charts, even among those with high levels of experience," the researchers wrote.

Source: IFL Science

Tags: Astrology