, and astrologists think that a person’s personality can be predicted based on the position and movement of the stars and planets at the moment of birth.
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Is it necessary to know your horoscope sign?
The element your sign is in may explain a lot of the blind spots and urges that come up when you get into a tough situation, and thinking about people’s zodiac signs in terms of their element is a critical approach to comprehend what prompts usand potentially how to handle things better.
Is everyone familiar with the zodiac signs?
Many people are curious about how many individuals believe in astrology and why they do so even though their own experiences contradict it. However, we must first establish more fluid categories of belief and denial in order to answer these concerns. We can’t just declare that certain people entirely believe in astrology while others completely reject it. Even for skilled astrologers and scholars, it is a difficult topic to answer.
Over 90% of adults, according to research, are aware of their sun (zodiac) indicators. According to certain surveys, considerably over half of people think the character descriptors for the signs are accurate: Ariens are active, Taureans are stubborn, and Scorpios are secretive, for example.
From 1998 to 2012, I circulated questionnaires to public groups and astrology conferences to find out what the most committed “believers,” that is, people who are dedicated followers or professionally interested in astrology, thought. The goal of this recently published study was to determine how many people believe in astrology and why they believe it. The majority of published estimates on astrological belief come from Gallup polls conducted in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States between 1975 and 1996, in which roughly 25% of adults asked said “yes” to questions like “do you believe in horoscopes?”
We may expect all astrology practitioners and students to declare that they believe. When I asked participants at a British Astrological Association conference if they agreed, just 27% replied yes, which is roughly the same as the general population. When I asked the astrologers who didn’t “believe” for their reasons, they said astrology is no different like television or music in that it is true and has nothing to do with belief. People only believe in things that don’t exist, or to put it another way, they only believe in things that don’t exist. As a result, public belief polls can produce erroneous results.
How can I find out what my zodiac sign is called?
The following are the 12 zodiac signs and their symbols:
- The Ram of Aries (March 21-April 19)
- The bull Taurus (April 20-May 20)
- The Gemini twins (May 21-June 20)
- The crab Cancer (June 21-July 22)
- The lion Leothe (July 23-August 22)
- Virgothe Virgothe Virgothe Virgothe Virgo (August 23-September 22)
Who is the creator of the zodiac?
According to NASA, the Babylonians had already constructed a 12-month calendar based on the phases of the moon when they created the zodiac. Despite the fact that they identified 13 constellations that make up the zodiac, they decided to leave one out so that the zodiac signs would coincide better with their 12-month calendar.
But, before all of you Aries, Cancers, and Leos start making fun of your new Ophiuchus friends, keep in mind that the addition of this 13th constellation shifts every zodiac sign’s time frame slightly, which means that, while I’ve loved my life as a textbook Pisces, I discovered that I’m now an Aquarius after doing my research. (Gasp!)
Although 3,000 years old, this information reappeared this year when NASA disclosed scientific data regarding the Earth’s axis, which has moved and no longer points in the exact same direction as it previously did, affecting the amount of time each constellation is visible in the sky.
The astrology community (and Twitter) went crazy, and many ardent followers assumed NASA was involved “added a sign to the zodiac, causing havoc with the signs we’re all familiar with. That, however, is not the case. NASA omitted an astrological symbol from the design. They wrote a Tumblr blog entry about it “I’ve just done the math. If you want to point the finger, it should go to the ancient Babylonians for leaving Ophiuchus out of the picture in the first place.
Why don’t I feel like my astrological sign?
Personally, I think this is correct. My Virgo and Sagittarius parents have definitely left me with a great identity problem over whether I want to be a devil-may-care traveler or a care-about-everything planner, despite the fact that I’m a Taurus through and through.
You have too many planets in one sign
Remember that, while your solar sign is meant to be the essence of your soul, there are other planets in your horoscope that give your personality depth. Related to a strong Venus location, you may love differently than your star sign stereotype, or you may communicate in a certain way due to your Mercury sign. However, if your Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Pluto are all in the same sign, you could appear to be a completely different sign.
Is it true that many believe in astrology?
Christine Smallwood’s fascinating piece, “Astrology in the Age of Uncertainty:
Astrology is currently experiencing widespread popular acceptability that has not been seen since the 1970s. The transition began with the introduction of the personal computer, was expedited by the Internet, and has now reached new levels of speed thanks to social media. According to a Pew Research Center poll from 2017, about a third of Americans believe in astrology.
Astrology, like psychoanalysis before it, has infiltrated our collective vernacular. At a party in the 1950s, you could have heard someone talk about the id, ego, or superego; now, it’s normal to hear someone explain herself using the sun, moon, and rising signs. It isn’t just that you are aware of it. It’s who’s saying it: folks who aren’t kooks or deniers of climate change, who don’t find a conflict between utilizing astrology and believing in science…
I ran a short Google search and discovered the following Pew report from October 2018:
The religion breakdown was the only thing that surprised me about this table.
I had the impression that mainline Protestants were the sensible ones, but they believe in astrology at the same rate as the general population.
But, hey, I guess they’re ordinary Americans, so they have average American ideas.
Only 3% of atheists believe in astrology, which is also unexpected.
This makes sense, yet it seemed reasonable to me that someone may not believe in God but believe in other supernatural things: in fact, I could see astrology as a type of replacement for a traditional religious system.
But it appears that is not the case.
Brian Wansink has been compared to an astrologer who can make astute observations about the world based on a combination of persuasiveness and qualitative understanding, and then attributes his success to tarot cards or tea leaves rather than a more practical ability to synthesize ideas and tell good stories.
Does Brian Wansink, on the other hand, believe in astrology?
What about Marc Hauser, Ed Wegman, Susan Fiske, and the rest of the bunch who call their detractors “second-string, replication police, methodological terrorists, Stasi, and so on?”
I doubt they believe in astrology because it symbolizes a rival belief system: it’s a business that, in some ways, competes with rah-rah Ted-talk science.
I wouldn’t be shocked if famous ESP researchers believe in astrology, but I get the impression that mainstream junk-science supporters in academia and the news media feel uncomfortable discussing ESP since its research methods are so similar to their own.
They don’t want to be associated with ESP researchers because it would devalue their own study, but they also don’t want to put them under the bus because they are fellow Ivy League academics, so the safest plan is to remain quiet about it.
The greater point, however, is not astrology believing in and of itself, but the mental state that allows individuals to believe in something so contrary to our scientific understanding of the world.
(OK, I apologize to the 29% of you who don’t agree with me on this.)
When I return to writing on statistical graphics, model verification, Bayesian computation, Jamaican beef patties, and other topics, you can rejoin the fold.)
It’s not that astrology couldn’t be correct a priori:
We can come up with credible hypotheses under which astrology is real and amazing, just as we can with embodied cognition, beauty and sex ratio, ovulation and voting, air rage, ages ending in 9, and all the other Psychological Science / PNAS classics.
It’s just that nothing has come up after years of rigorous research.
And the existing theories aren’t particularly convincing: they’re speculative world models that may be good if the purpose was to describe a real and enduring occurrence, but they’re less so without actual data.
Anyway, if 30% of Americans are willing to believe such nonsense, it’s no surprise that a significant number of influential American psychology professors will have the kind of attitude toward scientific theory and evidence that leads them to have strong beliefs in weak theories with no supporting evidence.
Indeed, not only support for specific weak theories, but support for the fundamental principle that pseudoscientific views should be treated with respect (although, oddly enough, maybe not for astrology itself).
P.S.In defense of the survey respondents (but not of the psychology professors who support ideas like the “critical positivity ratio,” which makes astrology appear positively sane in comparison), belief in astrology (or, for that matter, belief in heaven, gravity, or the square-cube law) is essentially free.
Why not believe these things, or not believe them?
Belief or denial in evolution, climate change, or unconscious bias, on the other hand, can have social or political consequences.
Some opinions are purely personal, while others have a direct impact on policy.
I have less patience for famous academic and media elites who aggressively support junk science by not just expressing their trust in speculative notions supported by no real data, but also attacking those who point out these emperors’ nudity. Furthermore, even a hypothetical tolerant, open-minded supporter of junk sciencethe type of person who might believe in critical positivity ratio but actively support the publication of criticisms of that workcan still cause some harm by contaminating scientific journals and the news media with bad science, and by promoting sloppy work that takes up space that could be used for more careful research.
You know how they say science corrects itself, but only because individuals are willing to correct themselves?
Gresham’s law is also true, but only when people are willing to distribute counterfeit notes or money they think is counterfeit while keeping their lips shut until they can get rid of their wads of worthless stock.
P.P.S.Just to be clear:I don’t think astrology is a waste of time, and it’s possible that Marc Hauser was onto something real, even while faking data (according to the US government, as mentioned on Wikipedia), and the critical positivity ratio, ovulation, voting, and all the rest…
Just because there isn’t enough evidence to support a theory doesn’t mean it’s untrue.
I’m not trying to disprove any of these assertions.
All of it should be published someplace, along with all of the criticism.
My issue with junk science proponents isn’t simply that they advocate science that I and others perceive to be rubbish; they can also be wrong!
However, they consistently avoid, deny, and oppose valid open criticism.
P.P.P.S.Remember that #notallpsychologists.
Of course, the problem of junk research isn’t limited to psychology in any way.
Professors of political science, economics, sociology, and history, to the extent that they believe in astrology, spoon bending, or whatever (that is, belief in “scientific paranormalism as describing some true thing about the natural world, not just a “anthropological recognition that paranormal beliefs can affect the world because people believe in it), this could also sabotage their research.
I suppose it’s not such a big problem if a physicist or chemist believes in these things.
I’m not attempting to shut down study into astrology, embodied cognition, ESP, beauty-and-sex-ratio, endless soup bowls, spoon bending, the Bible Code, air anger, ovulation and voting, subliminal smiley faces, or anything else.
Allow for the blooming of a thousand blooms!
Given that a sizable portion of the populace is willing to believe in scientific-sounding notions that aren’t backed by any good scientific theory or evidence, it should come as no surprise that many professional scientists hold this viewpoint.
The repercussions are especially evident in psychology, which is a vital field of study where theories can be hazy and where there is a long legacy of belief and action based on flimsy data.
That isn’t to say that psychologists are awful people; they’re merely working on difficult challenges in a field with a long history of failures.
This isn’t a critique; it’s just the way things are. Of course, there is a lot of excellent work being done in the field of psychology. You’ll have to work with what you’ve got.
Is it true that people adore their zodiac signs?
Taurus is my zodiac sign. That means I should be practical, determined, sensual, materialistic, loyal, and, most importantly, extremely stubborn. I have a strong connection to my Sun sign. You wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I’m a Taurus if you knew me. Some people act like their astrological signs, while others do not. If you’ve ever wondered why, researchers suggest it has something to do with psychology.
I used to think that astrology was just a fun way to see if the person I liked would finally ask me out that month before I realized what it was actually about. Astrology, on the other hand, is much more than your weekly or monthly horoscope. It can also disclose a lot about your personality, your outlook on life, and why you behave in certain ways.
So, based only on astrology, someone with a Scorpio sun may not appear intense or broody due to other parts of their chart.
While most scientific studies refute astrology and zodiac personality traits, there is a psychology hypothesis that explains why some people act more like their sign than others.