The New Zodiac

I really do not want to be one of those people who goes to the internet to rant about subjects they have problems with but in this particular case I do not feel that I have a choice. I just need to get this out of my system and hopefully I will calm down. I need to get a few things off of my chest before I burst and explode at someone or post an extremely angry Facebook status.

I speak, of course, about the new news concerning a change in the astrological signs of the zodiac. Astrologers have decided to add a 13th sign that was once a part of the zodiac and later removed as a way to have a 12-sign system. This addition and shift of dates that may change people's signs has caused a frenzy amongst those who actually care about their zodiac sign.

My problem is not with the addition of a 13th sign or the shift of dates, but with astrology as a whole. My feelings about astrology can pretty much be summed up with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59boLMnrbU. Astrology is not science, nor should it ever be mistaken as such. Time and time again (informal) personality tests have been carried out which have consistently shown that people can be duped into believing that any of the zodiac personality descriptions can fit them.

The thing that bothers me the most, beyond the fact that people believe in astrology at all, is how much this announcement is important to them. Over 10 of my friends on Facebook complained about now having a new sign. Many statuses have mentioned that people refuse to accept the new zodiac and still consider themselves their original sign. Because...?

I also saw friends confusing astrologers with astronomers. They went on to criticize astronomers for their roles in changing their precious signs and not astrologers. I cannot stress enough just how different astronomers are from astrologers. Astronomy is an actual science, concerned with celestial bodies and phenomena. I have a friend who is studying astrophysics and he does not bother with learning the constellations because they mean nothing in his field. Astrology is a psuedo-science that "studies" the relations between constellations and dates that are both arbitrarily determined and then relate these connections with personalities.

Astrology is not science, and one of the greatest harms it can do is confuse people as to the differences between astronomy and astrology or link them together, resulting in less understanding of the role of astronomy and actual science. This misinformation can be incredibly damaging to people's perceptions of scientific reasoning, generating ignorance that is hard to get rid of. This is a cascade effect that must be dealt with if we hope to move towards a more intelligence future.

Why am I being quite vocal about this situation? Because I do not hold astrology in the same circle as most religions. When it comes to deity-based religions, I am very much against the militant atheist approach of challenging a person's belief in a deity in such a way that is confrontational or attempts to convert them to atheism. I feel that people's beliefs about deities should be respected, because neither side can disprove the other.

I do not believe that the same standard should be applied to astrology. Astrology is not a religion. It is a lunatic system that a bunch of people thousands of years ago thought up because they had no other way of making sense of things. Imagine taking medical advice from a text that is thousands of years old, or following an ancient caste system that establishes different levels of society for arbitrary reasons. Not a very appetizing thought, is it?