[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by Adi22

There is nothing to predict any outcome 100% every time before hand. Be it science or astrology. So are both not right ? To each his own.

On the contrary, scientific rules (wherever they apply) are 100% sure in predicting an outcome (like, exactly how much time is needed to project a electro-magnetic beam from one point to other). It's only Life events, or I will extrapolate one step further, life itself that is unpredictable, un-explainable and unreplicable in Labs.

Originally Posted by Adi22

I have seen people coming out of unimaginable circumstances without any harm without any explanation scientifically. There have been cases seen where faith, belief & astrological guidance will do what science cannot. Were these mere co-incidence, so say the science world.

As long as the outcome of a particular event lies in the probability curve, it is just a chance that it happens (it's always one of the probable events that happen. Just that sometimes, the least probable one occurs and we think about God's hand). It's only when an event have occurred, it becomes deterministic (you can't go back in time and change something that have already happened).

Originally Posted by Adi22

These tools were/are there to give out guidelines for an individual's life. How anyone takes/judges it depends on each's mind.

BUT, i feel the utlimate superseeding factor to every outcome is the strength of self-belief present in each individual. I respect this power in each, call it god or higher power.

Agree. We may even call it Alien hand, and believe in it too.

[ashokrajagopal]

The stars are really far away from Earth, so they do not seem to move relative to Earth.
The celestial bodies Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the two non existent mythical bodies are closer to earth and seem to move relative to Earth.

The movement happens in what is thought as Zodiac belt.
Each celestial body moves in a different speed.

So, if you take a snapshot of a sky from today and say 10 years from now, each body would have moved thru the imaginary belt, relative to the visible constellations.
Sun takes a year, Jupiter about 12 years, Saturn about 29 years or so.
Which means, between two snapshots, one can create simultaneous equations to figure out how many days passed.
Closer observation of the nuances of climate etc can calculate the time lapse between the snapshots accurate to hours level.

This was a calendaring tool, used based on centuries of observation across the world.
This is all the science that is to it.


Since climate is related to movement of Sun, and since there was a limited number of privileged individuals whose life had to be predicted, agrarian societies used gurus to predict good time and bad time. Just so that the Prince may not be born during a drought, an astrologer could push marriages for six months for instance.

The star position remains the same across a large area, at least a medium sized city. At least the astrologers use a single star position. Which should mean every child born in that minute must have the same character and similar life. Which is not the case even for identical twins.

[Adi22]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

Agree. We may even call it Alien hand, and believe in it too.

Agreed. I too meant real life natural non-man made events, more like surviving a grave accident unharmed when a bunch of others end up in a different way, rather than a check the litmus paper in lab :-). Whose lab is this world & universe as we know :-) some might argue.

So as i said, its up-to each individual's judgement.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

There is an entire branch of physics called theoretical physics, considered to be the most complex of all science streams. It comprises of "observable" phenomena, explained through "theories/hypotheses" which are not "proven yet" because of the limitations of our current scientific knowledge.

Yes, but you left out something very significant here. That they are mathematically proven, but not physically. For example Peter Higgs proposed the existence of his particle mathematically in 1964. Since it was proven mathematically, they kept looking for another 50+ years and finally found it physically. Another example, planet Neptune was discovered using mathematics, much before they had telescopes powerful enough to see it visually.

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

Like, only 4% of our universe's mass is comprised of visible matter, rest attributed to Dark energy and dark matter- none of which is proven to exist.

Yeah, but they are able to measure it mathematically. That is why we know exists, despite any physical evidence yet.

In earlier days, when science/math was at its infancy, the discovery process used to work in reverse.

1) A phenomena is visually observed. (physical evidence)
2) An attempt is made to discover the law for it using mathematics.

Unfortunately, most of the times math was not advanced enough to explain it. For example, once heliocentric universe became acceptable in the scientific community, scientists struggled to explain movement of planets using math. It finally took Newton to invent Calculus (a new branch of math) to explain movement of planets. Similar thing happened to Charles Darwin, who proposed the theory of evolution based on visual observation at Galapagos. He couldn't prove it mathematically since the math for it didn't exist. Eventually it took Ronald Fisher to invent modern statistics to prove evolution.

But by the 20th century, almost every visible phenomena had been explained via science. Now the process goes other way.

1) A mathematical calculation shows an unexplained anomaly. (mathematical evidence)
2) A theory is proposed for an imaginary thing that fits in mathematically. Then they try to prove it physically.

So in a nutshell, to qualify as science or even worthy of further research, you need either physical evidence or mathematical evidence. In the absence of both, it is simply a belief or faith.

Higgs particle and Neptune had mathematical evidence, before physical evidence was found. Almost all everyday phenomena had physical evidence, much before mathematical evidence was found.

Astrology has neither physical nor mathematical evidence. So, it is not a field of science.

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

Consider this: A birth chart fairly accurately maps the position of stars and planets at that time - That's science. It maps it into a grid for easy interpretation - we can call it data modelling.

This is a popular trick perpetrated in the recent decades. Since science had such a spectacular success in 20th century, many pseudosciences are now described in the language of science. That is enough to satisfy people who feel they are scientifically inclined. Unfortunately, most people are not equipped with enough scientific knowledge to figure out where science ends and fiction takes off. It is like watching a science fiction, where you don't know which is possible, and which is not. Same trick is employed by people who practice the arts mentioned in the title of this thread. I once witnessed an astrologer perform mathematical tricks using seashells. And he kept saying it is all very mathematical and scientific. My mother-in-law was very impressed. But as a programmer I could see he was just using seashell faces as a bit (1 & 0), and doing Base 2 calculations.

Originally Posted by gthang

Not the test, but the dismissal of what fails the test, and the adamancy that this is the only test.

To qualify as science, that's the test. You have other tests in mind?

Originally Posted by gthang

If twenty years ago I had told you that "Aum" is the universal vibration, you would have dismissed me.

Um... That was my first reaction at this statement. After scratching my head for a while, I vaguely remembered this was a story circulated on whatsapp groups. I guess you are referring to this story.

Originally Posted by gthang

They just started listening, right?

To sound of sun? Yeah. They generated it on the earth using the following procedure.

The procedure he used for generating these sounds was the following. He started with doppler velocity data, averaged over the solar disk, so that only modes of low angular degree (l = 0, 1, 2) remained. Subsequent processing removed the spacecraft motion effects, instrument tuning, and some spurious points. Then Kosovichev filtered the data at about 3 mHz to select clean sound waves (and not supergranulation and instrumental noise). Finally, he interpolated over the missing data and scaled the data (speeded it up a factor 42,000 to bring it into the audible human-hearing range (kHz)).

It was sped-up by 42,000 so that humans can hear it. Doesn't sound like AUM to me. After all that audio photoshopping, it sounds like a humming noise.

Originally Posted by gthang

but ironically goes against the core principle of a scientist to keep an open mind.

I believe in the popular adage Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out! Scientists are primarily skeptics whose mind can be opened only by verifiable evidence. They won't accept a new idea unless evidence pushes them towards it. Looks like you missed my earlier post about how scientific method works. I will repeat it again.

The scientific methodology was first defined by Egyptian scientist, Ibn al-Haytham (AD 950-1040), who is hailed as the father of modern optics and experimental physics.

He said (do notice the highlighted parts):

The seeker after truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration and not the sayings of human beings whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of of its content, attack it from every side. he should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.

Basically, question everything. It is quite the reverse of what you say.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

In my eyes he was attacked by people who were not willing to listen to another point of view.

No, that is not what happened. Roman Church doctrine mandated geocentrism, and if you were living in a region where Roman Church had influence, you had no choice but believe in it. If you merely say you don't believe in any part of the doctrine, it was considered heresy or blasphemy. You were tortured and even killed for disagreeing. It was the law then. Such laws still exist in many countries, including India (Section 295A). So rational people like me still have to walk on egg shells while making a case for science. Meanwhile, the believers are protected by the law. Therefore, by comparing the rationalists on this thread to the mighty Roman Church that persecuted Galileo, you are really getting that story wrong.

Originally Posted by Adi22

I have seen people coming out of unimaginable circumstances without any harm without any explanation scientifically. There have been cases seen where faith, belief & astrological guidance will do what science cannot. Were these mere co-incidence, so say the science world.

When something improbable happens, people often attribute a cause. Believers attribute it to god. Scientists try to provide a scientific reason, if they can. Notice only the latter has the burden of proof. The former can just make a claim and it can't be questioned. If the scientists can't explain it, god gets full credit. It is called the god of the gaps argument, and believers are absolutely not required to provide evidence that god actually did it. So who do you think has it easy?

[Adi22]

Well, as I said earlier I leave to each's judgement. I go by self life-experience as proof for faith.

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by Adi22

Well, as I said earlier I leave to each's judgement. I go by self life-experience as proof for faith.

And I guess it's fine as long as it is a matter of 'faith'.
Problem starts when it is branded as science. That is when proof is required as very well explained by Samurai in the previous posts!

[gthang]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Astrology has neither physical not mathematical evidence. So, it is not a field of science.
I guess you are referring to this story.

I believe in the popular adage Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out!

If you set the rules on evidence and validity, you can choose to ignore it. Why bother explaining the planetary charts and periods when it was not calculus used to derive it. If you don't know what they used, it's wrong? Not accurate to standards of time and measurements that you set. How convenient.

There's nothing you have said that any number of YouTube videos haven't already said. If you assume your opponent is faith based, using Western scientific facts and their religious dogma you might think you have an argument.

But that doesn't allow you to completely deride all beliefs as non scientific because it doesn't fit your criteria, which changes as your limited knowledge base increases.

Did the ancient pyramids and other Indian structures come up with geographical, structural and engineering accuracy without science? Just on faith and prayer? How do you explain such things happening before you set Daddys and Mommys for science, mathematics and other fields?

I was talking about the LIGO detector, but go ahead and hypothesize on an assumption, it's the scientific thing to do.

Cheers

[SmartCat]

My wife is actually an amateur astrologist who picked up her skills by reading books. Her predictions are "long term" in nature, and it is not about what will happen on a particular date or at a particular time. That is a bit tragic - because had she got that kind of skills, I would have asked her to predict stock prices (FINANCIAL ASTROLOGY) and make some money!

One sample prediction (among many) that has proved to be right -> That her brother would settle down outside our shores. This was made long time back, when he was in his first job. Of course, she has made many other predictions that have proved to be wrong. But her defense -

1) That she knows only 1% of what there is to know about astrology. Apparently, there are UGC recognized courses on Astrology. Including PHD degree.
2) That her prediction could still happen in the future. After all, there is no time limit to her predictions

[Enobarbus]

Originally Posted by gthang

If you assume your opponent is faith based, using Western scientific facts and their religious dogma you might think you have an argument.

That is unfair. Samurai never based his arguments on any religious dogma. Western or Eastern, scientific facts remain the same.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by gthang

If you set the rules on evidence and validity, you can choose to ignore it. Why bother explaining the planetary charts and periods when it was not calculus used to derive it. If you don't know what they used, it's wrong? Not accurate to standards of time and measurements that you set. How convenient.

In other words, there is no litmus test. Whatever you claim should be accepted. Fine, that is classic faith. Why are you dragging science into this? Do you believe science should be a matter of faith?

Originally Posted by gthang

If you assume your opponent is faith based, using Western scientific facts and their religious dogma you might think you have an argument.

Science has no western or eastern facts. It is universal. Math/Science works the same in every country. If that was not the case, our IT outsourcing industry would have never started, let alone thrive.

Originally Posted by gthang

But that doesn't allow you to completely deride all beliefs as non scientific because it doesn't fit your criteria, which changes as your limited knowledge base increases.

Sorry, I am not deriding. I am merely seeking evidence since you claim astrology is a science. I am fine with either physical or mathematical evidence. It doesn't matter it is beyond my limited understanding. Just point me to a peer reviewed scientific article that confirms it.

Originally Posted by gthang

Did the ancient pyramids and other Indian structures come up with geographical, structural and engineering accuracy without science? Just on faith and prayer?

No, they used some engineering techniques, but mostly empirical knowledge. If you want to understand the difference, checkout my post from 2010.

Same goes for Alchemy. Before modern chemistry came around and chemical bonds were understood, alchemy was the only choice. They experimented by mixing and cooking different things hoping to someday turn any metal into gold. In that process they stumbled into many useful applications, although they didn't understand why it is so. Once atoms and molecules were discovered and chemical bonding was understand, alchemy got thrown out of the window.

Isaac Newton was an alchemist on the side when he was not doing mathematics.

Originally Posted by gthang

How do you explain such things happening before you set Daddys and Mommys for science, mathematics and other fields?

Who are these daddys/mummys of science and math?

Originally Posted by gthang

I was talking about the LIGO detector, but go ahead and hypothesize on an assumption, it's the scientific thing to do.

What has this got to do with astrology?

Listen, you can't randomly point to some real scientific concept, without explaining the connection to the topic. I won't bother guessing the connection, my imagination is not so rich.

Originally Posted by smartcat

My wife is actually an amateur astrologist who picked up her skills by reading books. Her predictions are "long term" in nature, and it is not about what will happen on a particular date or at a particular time.

That's actually smart, because it sets no bar to meet. So you are not the only smartcat in the family.

Ask her to checkout cold reading. It is the fundamental platform upon which all these stuff works. It is really an amazing art form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xswt...E2251977E67DF4

[ach1lles]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Yes,....

... So who do you think has it easy?

I couldn't like this post enough. Unfortunately, as I've learned, you're also wasting your time. People will only listen to you if they are open to the idea of another possibility of the way the universe works.

I guess you know this too. There's remarkable display of patience in your posts. So go on.

[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Unfortunately, most of the times math was not advanced enough to explain it. For example, once heliocentric universe became acceptable in the scientific community, scientists struggled to explain movement of planets using math. It finally took Newton to invent Calculus (a new branch of math) to explain movement of planets. Similar thing happened to Charles Darwin, who proposed the theory of evolution based on visual observation at Galapagos. He couldn't prove it mathematically since the math for it didn't exist. Eventually it took Ronald Fisher to invent modern statistics to prove evolution.

I suppose you agree that scientific knowledge was very much prevalent and flourishing much before the dark ages in Europe.

Bhaskara 2 who composed Siddhanta-Shiromani was far ahead in terms of understanding of algebra.

The second section Bījagaṇita has 213 verses. It discusses zero, infinity, positive and negative numbers, and indeterminate equations including (the now called) Pell's equation, solving it using a kuṭṭaka method. In particular, he also solved the 61x^2+1=y^2 case that was to elude Fermat and his European contemporaries centuries later.

Source

Bhāskara's work on calculus predates Newton and Leibniz by over half a millennium. He is particularly known in the discovery of the principles of differential calculus and its application to astronomical problems and computations. While Newton and Leibniz have been credited with differential and integral calculus, there is strong evidence to suggest that Bhāskara was a pioneer in some of the principles of differential calculus. He was perhaps the first to conceive the differential coefficient and differential calculus.

It was Bhaskara who wrote the treatise on mathematics named after his daughter Lilavati.

The story of Lilavati:

Lilavati was Bhaskara II’s daughter. Bhaskara II studied Lilavati's horoscope and predicted that she would remain both childless and unmarried. To avoid this fate, he ascertained an auspicious moment for his daughter's wedding and to alert his daughter at the correct time, he placed a cup with a small hole at the bottom of a vessel filled with water, arranged so that the cup would sink at the beginning of the propitious hour. He put the device in a room with a warning to Lilavati to not go near it. In her curiosity though, she went to look at the device and a pearl from her bridal dress accidentally dropped into it, thus upsetting it. The auspicious moment for the wedding thus passed unnoticed leaving a devastated Bhaskara II. It is then that he promised his daughter to write a book in her name, one that would remain till the end of time as a good name is akin to a second life.

Our Indian system of astronomy was also far ahead of its time:

Using an astronomical model developed by Brahmagupta in the 7th century, Bhaskara accurately defined many astronomical quantities, including, for example, the length of the sidereal year, the time that is required for the Earth to orbit the Sun, as 365.2588 days which is the same as in Suryasiddhanta. The modern accepted measurement is 365.2563 days, a difference of just 3.5 minutes

From Khagol Mandal:

In this chapter of Goladhyay, Bhaskar has discussed eight instruments, which were useful for observations. The names of these instruments are, Gol yantra (armillary sphere), Nadi valay (equatorial sun dial), Ghatika yantra, Shanku (gnomon), Yashti yantra, Chakra, Chaap, Turiya, and Phalak yantra. Out of these eight instruments Bhaskara was fond of Phalak yantra, which he made with skill and efforts. He argued that ‘ this yantra will be extremely useful to astronomers to calculate accurate time and understand many astronomical phenomena’. Bhaskara’s Phalak yantra was probably a precursor of the ‘astrolabe’ used during medieval times.
Dhee yantra
This instrument deserves to be mentioned specially. The word ‘dhee’ means ‘ Buddhi’ i.e. intelligence. The idea was that the intelligence of human being itself was an instrument. If an intelligent person gets a fine, straight and slender stick at his/her disposal he/she can find out many things just by using that stick. Here Bhaskara was talking about extracting astronomical information by using an ordinary stick. One can use the stick and its shadow to find the time, to fix geographical north, south, east, and west. One can find the latitude of a place by measuring the minimum length of the shadow on the equinoctial days or pointing the stick towards the North Pole. One can also use the stick to find the height and distance of a tree even if the tree is beyond a lake.

Finally:

The period between 500 and 1200 AD was the golden age of Indian Astronomy. In this long span of time Indian Astronomy flourished mainly due to eminent astronomers like Aryabhat, Lallacharya, Varahamihir, Brahmagupta, Bhaskaracharya and others. Bhaskaracharya’s Siddhanta Shiromani is considered as the pinnacle of all the astronomical works of those 700 hundred years. It can be aptly called the “essence” of ancient Indian Astronomy and mathematics. In the ninth century Brahmagupta’s Brahmasphutasiddhanta was translated in Arabic. The title of the translation was ‘Sind Hind’. This translation proved to be a watershed event in the history of numbers. The Arabs quickly grasped the importance of the Indian decimal system of numbers. They played a key role in transmitting this system of numbers to Europeans. For a long time Europeans were using Roman Numerals, which were very tedious to handle. After accepting the decimal system of numbers, European mathematicians made a remarkable progress in mathematics, but that was about 500 years after Bhaskaracharya.
From 750 AD Onwards India was engulfed in waves of foreign attacks. In 1205 AD Bakhtiyar Khilji destroyed the magnificent Nalanda University, which was a renowned center of knowledge for about 800 years. India was in utter chaotic state till the country was colonized by British. All universities and learning centers in India were destroyed, knowledge was lost and hardly any progress was made in mathematics and astronomy. A few scholars like Keshav Daivadnya, Ganesh Daivadnya Madhav, Sawai Jai Singh and others tried to keep the flame of knowledge burning in that dark period.

Originally Posted by Samurai

So in a nutshell, to qualify as science or even worthy of further research, you need either physical evidence or mathematical evidence. In the absence of both, it is simply a belief or faith.

Bhaskaracharya may not know anything about what a Proof is, which is the most important part of any modern mathematical work. However,his terse verses which contain the algorithmic rules and the generalizations which he recommends indicate that there may have been a certain rationale or reasoning in the minds of the mathematicians of those times. Moreover, his methods are not vague by any means and are quite precise. They probably relied more on intuition and did not feel the necessity of providing the rationale they had, if any. This is best exemplied by the genius Srinivasa Ramanujan of our times who's intuitive leaps of imagination were closer to Bhaskaracharya in spirit. Ramanujan's idea of a proof was very sketchy and when Hardy and Littlewood asked him why a particular result of his was true, Ramanujan would reply that it was true because he knew it (or rather it occurred to him in a flash). This was by no means a proof, but it shows the power of intuition, the ability to find new patterns without the shackles of formalism.

Source

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by AltoLXI

I suppose you agree that scientific knowledge was very much prevalent and flourishing much before the dark ages in Europe.

Bhaskara 2 who composed Siddhanta-Shiromani was far ahead in terms of understanding of algebra.

It was Bhaskara who wrote the treatise on mathematics named after his daughter Lilavati.

The story of Lilavati:

Our Indian system of astronomy was also far ahead of its time:

Dear fellow, what is the purpose of telling me all this? I am agnostic about where science/math comes from. The topic on hand is whether astrology is science or faith. What is your opinion on that?

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Dear fellow, what is the purpose of telling me all this?

It's because 'modern' science is 'western/them'. So, somehow by proving that 'ancient Indian' science preceded the 'firang' discoveries of 'modern' science, makes it easier to accept things like astrology too because that too is 'ours' and 'ancient'! QED, hence proved!

Sorry, just couldn't resist.

Wanted to say hats off to you Samurai, you have a lot of patience! Your logical explanations are truly well put together in the face of the increasingly absurd.

[navin]

Originally Posted by Samurai

If that was not the case, our IT outsourcing industry would have never started, let alone thrive.

OT: Sure the fact the Maths (and science) transcends geography helped but what gave Indian IT the edge was (a) a large, cheap, ready pool of English speakers (b) an almost 12 hour time difference with the biggest consumer for IT and (c) a government that did not understand it enough to interfere and legislate it to death.

Now back to the regular programming. For the record I believe Astrology, Tarot, and Numerology is good entertainment, but hey if people have faith in it then why not let them be. It takes all kinds to make the world an interesting place.