At a national convention which I attended several years ago, it was advertised that one of their esteemed (and nationally prominent) members was going to present a talk on Astrology, and that anyone “who wants to learn more about themselves,” should be sure to attend. So, because I wanted to learn more about myself (as most folks would), I decided to go to the hotel meeting room, where the lecture and presentation would take place.
The presenter was someone whom I knew by national reputation, and I was surprised to discover that it was he who would be talking about something like Astrology.
After all of us in the hall had been seated, the speaker walked by each of us (seated at “desk/chair” combinations) carrying 12 file folders and inquiring, “What’s your sign?” When we told him, he would find the appropriate file, pull out a single sheet from that file and say, “Please do NOT look at the printed side of that sheet, until you are instructed, or the EXPERIMENT I am about to conduct, will be invalidated, OK?” Everyone signified that they agreed, and he continued distributing the face-down sheets, until everyone in the room had one.
He then said, “Without allowing anyone else to see what is printed on your sheets, please begin reading your information, and when you are done, please return your sheet face down on your desk.” All of us in the room, complied. He looked at his watch and, after 3 minutes had passed, asked, “Has anyone in here NOT read everything on his or her sheet? If so, please raise an arm.”
When no one did, he then said, “OK, I am now going to collect all of your sheets, so please leave them sitting in plain sight, on your desk for me.” He then collected all of the sheets.
Next, he went around the room again, saying, “This time, I am going to deliberately give you a profile that is NOT yours, so in order to keep this experiment valid, tell me again what your sign is, so I can give you a totally different sign profile.”
He then paused and said, “But before I give you this second sheet, I need for you to stand by your desk, if you believe that that, generally speaking, the profile that was given to you, applies to you.” Around 98% of us stood, and remained standing next to our chairs, myself included. He then repeated exactly what he had done before, only this time, he gave us a sheet for another sign, and not our own.
After once again returning to the front of the room, he had all of us sit down and he said, “Now, please read your NEW sheets, that weren’t written for your sign.”
We were startled to discover that the sheets we were now reading, were exactly the same as the sheets we had previously been given. In fact, all the sheets in all the folders were identical.
As mumbling and righteous indignation circulated throughout the hall, The Amazing (James) Randi said, “Let this be a lesson to you. Astrology is not ‘science’ at all. It’s total BS, and boiling gases or solid rock masses 10 billion miles away, have NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER, on your daily lives. So, be done with this trick of charlatans, and go about your lives. That concludes this presentation, and I thank you for attending.”
You see, truly intelligent people believe in science, while eschewing science fiction, except “for entertainment purposes, only.”
Expecting orbiting gas balls and rocks (millions of miles away, in space) to somehow “guide” your life, is ridiculous. It’s also wrong, in my humble opinion, to lump someone into a category, based on that person’s birth circumstances, over which s/he had no control.